The Senior Year Money Plan: 10 Steps Before the FAFSA Opens

If your student is a senior this year, the next few weeks decide more than most families realize. The 2027-28 FAFSA opens October 1, 2026. What you settle before you file shapes the aid your family qualifies for, the scholarships your student is eligible to win, and whether you walk through application season prepared or scrambling. Senior year moves fast. Application deadlines hit between November and January. Decision letters arrive in March. By the time most families start thinking seriously about how to pay, the most useful moves are already behind them.

This guide walks you through what to do now: practical, specific, and broken into the steps that matter most. None of it is glamorous. All of it adds up.

Why the next few weeks matter more than families realize

The financial aid system rewards families who plan ahead. The 2027-28 FAFSA your student files this fall uses your 2025 tax return, which means the income has already been earned. You cannot change what is on a closed tax return, but you can still change a lot: how your savings are titled, which scholarships your student applies for, what schools they target, and whether your family has a clear shared understanding of what college will actually cost.

Families who skip this step often end up making rushed financial decisions in March and April of senior year. By then, options are constrained by the schools your student applied to, the aid those schools offered, and the timeline you have left. A few weeks of preparation now can save you five-figure mistakes later.

Step 1: Have the family money conversation

Most families never talk openly about how much they can pay for college. That is a mistake. Your student needs to know, in real numbers, what is available before they start picking schools.

Sit down together and answer these questions:

• How much have we saved for college? (529 plans, savings accounts, custodial accounts, investment accounts.)
• How much can we contribute from current income each year?
• Are grandparents or other relatives planning to help? If so, how much and when?
• What is our absolute ceiling, the dollar amount that would put real strain on the family?
• Are we comfortable with student loans? How much, and on whose name?

Knowing the answers turns "we will figure it out later" into a real budget. It also helps your student understand why a $90,000-per-year private school might not be realistic. Just as often, it shows that an in-state public option is more affordable than they assumed.

This conversation is hard. It is also one of the most useful things a parent can do for a college-bound teenager.

Step 2: Run a net price calculator for every school on the list

Sticker price is almost never what families actually pay. Every U.S. college is required to publish a net price calculator on its website. The calculator estimates what your family would pay after grants and scholarships based on your income, assets, and family size. It is not perfect, but it is the closest thing to a personal preview most schools offer.

Spend an afternoon running the numbers for every school your student is considering. You will often find that a school you assumed was unaffordable is surprisingly generous with aid, and one you assumed was a bargain costs more than expected once housing and meal plans are included.

If you want a faster way to compare net cost across many schools at once, create your free CollegeLens plan and we will walk you through it.

Step 3: Build a target list with at least one financial safety school

A financial safety school is one your student would happily attend AND that your family can pay for without taking on uncomfortable debt. Every senior should have at least one on their list, and ideally two.

This is not the same as an academic safety. A school can be easy to get into and still cost too much. Look at:

• In-state public universities, especially in states with strong merit aid programs like Florida, Georgia, and Tennessee.
• Schools that offer automatic merit scholarships based on GPA and test scores.
• Well-endowed private schools known for generous need-based aid.
• Honors colleges at public universities, which often deliver strong programs at lower prices.

If your student's current list has no schools that meet both criteria, now is the time to add some. It feels less urgent today than it will in February.

Step 4: Start scholarship hunting now

Most families wait until spring of senior year to begin applying for scholarships. By then many of the best ones have already closed. Fall is the right time to:

• Identify 10 to 20 scholarships your student qualifies for.
• Build a calendar with application deadlines.
• Draft two or three reusable essays your student can adapt for multiple applications.
• Ask teachers and counselors for recommendation letters before they are swamped in the fall rush.

Do not ignore small awards. Five $500 scholarships add up to $2,500. Local scholarships from community foundations, religious organizations, and parent employers tend to have much smaller applicant pools than national ones, which means better odds.

Step 5: Study for standardized tests if you have not yet

Even at test-optional schools, a strong SAT or ACT score still matters because many merit scholarships have score thresholds. A 50-point increase on the SAT can push a student into a higher merit-aid bracket, which can translate into thousands of dollars per year over four years.

Fall is still a workable window for serious test prep if your student is retaking. Free options include Khan Academy's official SAT prep, which is developed with College Board, and the official ACT prep guide. If you can afford a tutor or a class, use it now. Score gains take weeks of practice rather than days, so check your target schools' deadlines before you book a test date.

Step 6: Get FAFSA-ready before October 1

The 2027-28 FAFSA opens October 1, 2026. The Education Secretary has certified that date to Congress under the FAFSA Deadline Act, and beta testing is already open, with families able to request access at StudentAid.gov/joinbeta on a rolling basis. File as soon as you reasonably can. Some state and institutional aid is awarded first come, first served, and every week you delay can mean less money.

Before the form opens, you can do the prep work that makes filing painless:

• Create StudentAid.gov accounts for both your student and at least one contributing parent. Verification can take a few days, so do this one first.
• Gather the documents you will need: 2025 federal tax returns, W-2s, bank and investment account balances, business assets, and Social Security numbers for everyone listed.
• Review the Federal Student Aid website to understand what to expect.
• If your student's situation is unusual, whether that means divorced parents, an undocumented parent, or a recent change in household income, research how those situations affect FAFSA reporting now rather than the night you file.

Step 7: Understand what changed under OBBBA

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) was signed into law in 2025, and the Department of Education issued the final implementing regulations on May 1, 2026. The most important changes for families with a senior took effect on July 1, 2026:

• Parent PLUS loans are now capped at $20,000 per year and $65,000 lifetime per dependent student. Before OBBBA, Parent PLUS borrowing was effectively unlimited up to a school's cost of attendance.
• Grad PLUS loans have been eliminated for new graduate borrowers. This does not affect undergraduates directly, but families with multiple kids should know.
• Federal undergraduate loan limits have not changed: $5,500 freshman year, $6,500 sophomore year, and $7,500 each junior and senior year for dependent students. Independent students can borrow more.
• A new Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP) launched on July 1, 2026, replacing the SAVE plan. Existing income-driven plans like IBR, PAYE, and ICR continue to be available.

Translation: families who planned to lean heavily on Parent PLUS loans now hit the caps faster than before. If your plan involved borrowing $30,000 or more per year through Parent PLUS, that math no longer works. The earlier you understand the new ceiling, the more time you have to find other funding sources: outside scholarships, employer tuition benefits, or a school with a smaller gap.

Step 8: Open or fund a 529 plan if you have not

If you have not started a 529 plan, it is not too late. Even contributions made during senior year qualify for state tax deductions in most states, and more than 30 states currently offer them. Some families skip 529 plans because they assume the account has to be opened years in advance. It does not.

Funds in a 529 grow tax-free and can be withdrawn tax-free for qualified education expenses like tuition, fees, books, and required room and board. If you are planning to pay for any portion of college from current savings or future income anyway, routing that money through a 529 first can save you hundreds, sometimes thousands, in state taxes over four years.

If a grandparent wants to help, a grandparent-owned 529 is now treated favorably under the simplified FAFSA. Distributions no longer count as student income. This was a meaningful change in recent years and remains in effect.

Step 9: Think about student earnings and how they affect aid

Many seniors work during the school year or over breaks. A few things to know about how student earnings interact with the FAFSA:

• Student income above $12,220, the income protection allowance for the 2027-28 award year, starts to count toward your Student Aid Index, the number the FAFSA uses to determine aid eligibility.
• Counted student income reduces aid by 50 cents on the dollar in the FAFSA formula. A student who earns $5,000 above the protection allowance reduces eligibility for need-based aid by about $2,500.
• Earnings from federal work-study jobs DO NOT count against aid in the same way once your student is enrolled in college.

This does not mean students should not work. Work experience is valuable for applications and for life. It means understanding the tradeoff. If your family is borderline for need-based aid, large earnings could shrink the aid package by more than the wages cover.

Step 10: Write down a one-page college funding plan

Before fall applications begin, draft a single page that captures:

• The total annual budget your family can support, broken into parent contribution, current savings, expected aid, and a comfortable loan amount.
• Top 8 to 10 schools and the estimated net cost for each.
• Scholarship targets with deadlines.
• Action items with names and dates attached to each.

This sounds simple. Most families never do it. The act of writing the plan down is what turns vague hope into a concrete strategy your family can actually execute.

What to skip

Just as important as what to do is what to ignore. A few things many families spend energy on that do not move the needle:

• Obsessing over rankings. A school's U.S. News rank tells you almost nothing about what your family will pay or what your student will earn afterward.
• Paying for "scholarship search" services. Free databases like the ones run by your state and Federal Student Aid cover the same ground.
• Locking in a "dream school" before you have run the net price. Falling in love with a $90,000 sticker before checking the math is how families end up borrowing too much.

Looking ahead

Senior year is intense. Applications, essays, recommendations, decisions, and emotions move quickly. The families who handle it best are not the wealthiest. They are the ones who did the unglamorous groundwork before the deadlines arrived.

If you want help running the numbers, comparing schools, or building a funding plan, create your free CollegeLens plan. We will show you what the funding gap actually looks like for each school and help you close it before senior year starts.

October 1 is close. The next few weeks are the ones that count.

Sravani at CollegeLens