Help
The same help that's in the app, step by step, with the names you'll see on screen.
Getting started
- Setting up your familyTell AidAhead about your family once: the parents, each child's high-school class year, last year's tax return and your savings. It then estimates each child's federal aid and what each college may cost you.
- Your aid index and Pell GrantThe Overview shows each child's Student Aid Index (the "aid index") and Pell Grant estimate for their first year of college, worked out with the federal formula.
- SubscriptionMuch of AidAhead is free. Aid Season adds cost and merit estimates for every college, the base-year planner, appeal letters and the Parent PLUS planner, for every child in your family.
Colleges
- Colleges and what they may costKeep each child's college list, and see each college's cost and our estimate of what your family may pay after grants.
- Merit aid and finding collegesSome colleges give scholarships for grades and test scores, whatever your family's finances. Enter a child's grades and scores and AidAhead shows what each college may offer, and adds it to the four-year cost.
- Paying for collegeSee what Parent PLUS loans could cover at a college, and what all your children's college years add up to, year by year.
Planning and applying
- Planning by base yearEach year's FAFSA® uses your taxes from two years before the school year starts. That year is the "base year". Savings are counted as they stand on the day you file. Plan shows what a change in a base year's income, or in your savings before you file, does to your taxes and to each child's aid.
- Deadlines and documentsSee when each form opens, what each college asks for, and what to have ready. Check things off as you go, and get a reminder on the day.
- Award lettersAdd each college's offer to see what it adds up to: grants and scholarships, loans, work-study, and the net price. AidAhead reads the letter on this device; you check every line before it's saved.
- Asking a college to review its offerIf your family's situation changed, or another college offered more, you can ask a college's aid office to take another look. AidAhead drafts a letter from the facts you enter and shows how that college takes requests.
Your family file
- Your family file and sharing itEverything you enter is saved in one family file, in iCloud Drive or on this device. Your spouse can open the same plan on their own device.
- Security & PrivacyYour family's finances and your children's details stay with you. AidAhead has no accounts, no servers and no tracking.