For the first time in almost three decades, the Pell Grant is once again available to incarcerated individuals enrolled in an approved prison education program. This exciting news has resulted in the women of Mabel Bassett Correctional Center, in McCloud, Oklahoma, scurrying to the education building to secure their copy of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid.

Administered by the U.S. Department of Education, the FAFSA is a form college applicants fill out to qualify for federal financial aid, including Pell Grants. There is a specific FAFSA for incarcerated applicants.

As a college clerk, I have witnessed the confusion and panic in the eyes of many potential students when they are handed the FAFSA. I don’t blame them. The 10-page form, which asks 100 questions about your personal finance and background, is intimidating if you’ve never seen it before. Many incarcerated people have spent decades behind bars with little to no experience filing taxes and other government forms. 

In my facility, there are four college clerks available to assist applicants through the FAFSA process. I suspect that is not the case in many facilities, so for individuals without that support, the following guide is for you.

The FAFSA is easier to fill out for those who have been locked up for a longer period of time and may not have needed to file taxes the previous year. Someone who just entered prison, on the other hand, will usually have to: remember the dollar amount they submitted on their previous tax form; have someone at home willing to find the information; or file IRS form 4506-C to request a transcript of your tax return. 

For those considering requesting financial aid, the following guide will hopefully make it easier to fill out the FAFSA. This guide covers a current form that expires at the end of June. A different form will be used starting in July. And two things to keep in mind if you’re filling out the form by hand: Write as neatly as possible, in all capital letters, with black ink. And remember to fill in all circles completely; do not simply make an “X” or a check.

One last thing: Students should not fill this out on their own, and should only do so if they have been accepted to attend a Pell-eligible program at their facility. For more information, please see this handy information sheet from Open Campus.

Step One

This section asks questions about you, the applicant.

• Fill out Nos. 1-9, which ask about your name, Social Security number and address. When you come to the address section, you will use your prison address, not your home address.
• Fill out Nos. 14-20 as necessary. Follow the directions. If it tells you to skip to a certain number after filling something out, then the numbers in between will be left blank; they will not apply to you.
• Nos. 21 and 22 are information about the level of your parents’ education. Fill in both to the best of your ability.
• On No. 23, if you graduated high school, fill in the circle and skip down to No. 24, then write the name of your high school. If you passed a high school equivalency test, such as the GED or HiSET, fill in the second circle.
• On No. 25, fill in the “No” circle if you do not already have a college degree.
• For No. 26, I usually have my students fill in the first circle, because they are just beginning college or still working on their first associate degree. You will most likely be filling in the same one. 
• On No. 27, the fourth circle down is labeled “Associate degree (general education or transfer program).” This is the one you will fill in if you do not already have an associate degree. If you are applying for an occupational or technical program at your prison that accepts federal aid, then fill in the third circle.
• The answer to No. 28, regarding work study, is “No.”

Step Two

This section is about taxes, so answers may vary. Please note that if you use falsified information, they will send your form back and ask that you correct it. 

• If you are not filing taxes, fill in the third circle for No. 29 and skip down to No. 35.
• For Nos. 35-41, fill in dollar amounts as needed if you filed taxes. If you filled in the bubble stating that you will not file taxes, just put a single 0 in the far-right box, all the way down.

Step Three

This section asks questions to determine if you need to provide parental information.

• For Nos. 42-54, read each question carefully and fill in the appropriate bubbles. 
• After you are done, go ahead and skip over Step Four to Page 8, since your answer to No. 42 (asking if you were born before Jan. 1, 2000) was probably “Yes.” The reason you will do this is because Pages 6 and 7 are for parents to fill out when filing for an underage student.

Step Four

This section asks questions about your household.

• The answer to No. 90, about people in your household, is 1.
• The answer to No. 91 is 1.
• Nos. 92-96 can be left blank. They only need to be filled in if you have received one or more of the benefits listed.
• The answer to No. 97 is “No.”

Step Five

Here you will indicate the college offering your prison education program that needs to receive your FAFSA information.

• For No. 98, fill in the federal school code and name, address, and state of the college. You should be able to get this information from the college coordinator at your prison, or from an updated Federal School Code List. To the right of this, where it asks for housing plans, fill in the bubble next to “off campus.”

Step Six

Only two things left to do to complete your FAFSA.

• For No. 99, fill in the date.
• For No. 100, sign the document. 

Congratulations! You’ve just filled out your FAFSA. Now, mail only Pages 3 through 8 to the following address:

Federal Student Aid Program
P.O. Box 7657
London, KY 40742-7657

If these steps are followed, you should have no problem getting your Pell Grant funding approved, provided you are enrolled in an approved prison education program and you  do not have federal loan debt from before you were incarcerated. 

If the federal government’s records don’t match one of the answers provided on the form, the form will be returned to you. They will state in which section they detected the discrepancy.