The MEFA Institute^™: Financial Aid for College Admissions Professionals

Stephanie Wells: Okay. Great, so thank you for joining us today. So a little bit about MIFA for those of you who are, might not be as familiar. We are a quasi state authority here in Massachusetts. We're based in Boston. We are a national lender, so we work with colleges and families all over the United States. But we were created in 1982 at the behest of colleges in Massachusetts to create a loan program and since then we've gone on to create additional programs such as savings plans and And our great guidance and education that's free of charge for families and students, as well as college administrators like yourself and school counselors.

So we do everything from A to Z when it comes to the college enrollment process. And today we're focused on our college admission friends to help you out with some of the basics about financial aid. As you'll hear, This is a new year. We have a new FAFSA forum coming out. So things are a little bit different this year.

As far as this presentation goes, we'll be sharing a lot of new information. A lot of information is very new to us as well as panelists. So let's get started with introductions. And then once we get done with that, I'll share the poll results. So I will start with myself, Stephanie Wells. I'm here from MIFA.

I've been at MIFA for a little over 22 years. Been doing this, um, since I got out of college, way back when. And I'm Director of College Relations at MIFA. I primarily work with colleges and universities, but a lot with students and families as well. And then I'm actually going to ask my friend Sean Morrissey from MIFA to introduce himself, because he's going to be answering the Q& A behind the scenes.

I'm

Gail Holt: Sean Morrissey. I'm also

Bill Smith: director of college relations at MIFA. I've

Gail Holt: been with MIFA just about a year now, but I have about 30 years of experience in financial aid before coming to MIFA. And I'll be behind the scenes answering your questions today. Thanks Sean and Iris. Hi,

Iris Godes: everybody, welcome. I'm Iris Scotus.

I'm the Dean of Strategic Enrollment Management at Framingham State University. I started my career 35 years ago in financial aid and have worked my way through the years into enrollment management and working closely with both admissions and financial aid. So, I'm happy to talk about a subject I know well with a group I know well.

Um, at the same time. Um, so looking forward to today's

Gail Holt: excellent. Thank you, Iris and Gail. Good afternoon, everybody. I'm Gail Holtz. I'm dean of financial aid at Amherst College and, uh, have been doing this wonderful work, uh, for I think 28 years or something, but I've been at Amherst College, uh, for just over 10 years.

So, uh, so, so happy to be with all of you today and, and share the knowledge, uh, and our passion for financial aid. Thanks, Gail and

Stephanie Wells: Bill.

Bill Smith: Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Bill Smith. I'm the assistant vice president for student financial assistance at Stonehill College. I have not been doing this as long as both Iris or Gail, but I have several years of experience at a wide variety of types of institutions currently serving Stonehill in the capacity of overseeing financial aid and student accounts.

Gail Holt: Welcome.

Stephanie Wells: Excellent. Thank you. And so thank you all for joining in on the poll. I'm going to share the results now. So for the folks who are signed in our attendees, we have pretty equal distribution of news. Medium and over 10 years. So we have a pretty good, uh, distribution of veterans in the, in the audience as well.

Uh, when we used to do these programs in person, there would be people in the audience who were just starting their first day of work after training and literally had less than a day of work in admissions. So we have everybody from that to folks have over 10 years of experience. So thank you for joining us today.

Okay, so let's get started. So here's what we're going to cover today. Looks like a simple agenda, but it's, it's pretty chock full of information. We're going to start by going over the types and sources of financial aid. Bill's going to cover, cover that and then the application process, which Iris is going to cover and how financial aid decisions are made.

Gail's going to cover that section and I'll cover paying for college. But at the end of each section, we have it. Uh, questions built in that we're going to answer for you and talk in a little bit more detail about the topic matter questions that you're going to get from families and how to answer them.

So let's get started. I am going to turn it over to my colleague Bill to get us

Gail Holt: started. Thanks,

Bill Smith: Stephanie. Um, so welcome again. I just wanted to say at the start of this, oftentimes, um, this presentation is to help you become better partners on your campus with a variety of different sources in order to help you recruit and retain students.

At the end of the day, that's what we're all here to do. And we're trying to provide you with some opportunities. It really relates to this slide deck, but in particular, my section. Oftentimes, we become, I think, hyper focused on the aid that's available from our own institutions. And today, I want you to think a little bit broadly.

I want you to think a little bit about college affordability, and the types of aid and the sources and the applications in which you're going to hear about go beyond just what might be available to a student from your direct institution. That's kind of important. Um, for many students, as you probably already know, it takes a variety of sources of aid in order to make it affordable for them to attend.

And that's kind of really where we are today with this, with this presentation. So I just want to take a quick minute to think a little bit broadly beyond your institution, as well as making partnerships on your institution. When it comes to financial aid, what is it that we're talking about? Financial aid, typically.

Um, is really simple. It's money that's coming from a source, a resource to a student to help pay for college to help reduce cost. Uh, there's three main types of aid that we often talks about, talk about. There's gift aid. Often you'll hear things like scholarships, grants, awards, funds. A lot of those are things that the student will be awarded, uh, and then they do not need to repay.

There's work study or self help type programs like student employment. I'll talk a little bit more about that in a second. And then student loans. Student loans actually is one of the larger areas of financial aid, and it's often the time that parents want to hear about the least. But it is a very common form of aid.

We're going to talk specifically about the federal Stafford loan in a second. Before we get there, though, Stephanie, sorry, Stephanie. Before we get there, I want to take a quick second to talk a little bit about federal work study. Federal work study is a great resource for students on campus. But the caveat that many financial aid offices have is, uh, most of the time, those resources don't get applied directly to a student's bill.

Most of the time, those student, those resources are going to get paid directly to the student. And then they can choose to then either Pay the institution for future, hold that money to pay for books, which is even better, or use it to buy pizza and their beverage of choice. Whatever they choose is really kind of up to them, but federal work study is often not deducted from a student's bill.

That's the caveat there. Now we can talk a little bit about federal student loans, in particular, one of the largest loan programs in the country, and that is the Federal Student Loan Program. You hear a lot about this in the news today. You might, if you were paying attention, you might have heard, um, President Biden talk a little bit about a new initiative that he rolled out last night, the SAVE Program.

And I hope I don't have to answer any questions on that one. Uh, but if we do, we could probably muddle through. The Federal Student Loan Program is the common form of aid that's allocated to students, uh, upon completion of the FAFSA form. We're going to go into a little bit of that in a little bit. This loan program has both annual limits, which you'll see on the screen there, but also aggregate limits, meaning they can only borrow so much for the cost of the program.

There's some benefits to this loan program in that the student is the primary and sole borrower. They don't need a cosigner, doesn't rely, rely on their student credit. And so for many students across the country, this can be a way for students. To bring down educational costs or a better way to put it spread out educational costs over a longer period of time, so it allows them to help take that loan and pay it off over 5, 10, 15 years, and so that's what, uh, is intriguing for many students at a school like Stonehill, we have many borrowers of this program, and if they borrow the limits and stay within their limits, we're pretty confident in their ability to get a decent job, Land a salary that would be able to make this an affordable way to help finance education.

Next slide, Stephanie.

Sources of aid. Um, when we give parent nights, oftentimes, and when you're talking with families and students, where the money is coming from, in particular when it comes to gift money or free money, is less important than them getting the money, right? It's important, though, for you as a professional and institutions to know that resources for financial aid and financial aid in itself Doesn't always come from one institution.

For example, it doesn't always come from Stonehill College or this college that you're working at. It could come from federal, state, institutional, or even other agencies. Real quick, federal form, the FAFSA form is typically the application of choice for that. Uh, students can apply for those funds, those federal funds, and the amounts that they can get typically are the same at each institution, depending on a variety of different factors and the student's financial need.

The state funds that are available are very dependent on the individual student's eligibility in the state that they're either applying to or a resident of. Um, and then the last big chunk of this are from the institutions themselves. What are the colleges and universities providing to students to make it affordable?

These funds, as admission administrators, are the ones you're probably the most familiar with. You probably know if your institution has merit aid or not. You probably know if they have a need based grant or not. If you don't know the answer to those very basic questions, you should find out. The last bucket are other agencies.

Other agencies provide, um, resources to students. Those could be from your local Lions Club, Rotary Club, high school, or large national ones. NASA, Gates Foundation, Coca Cola. Those are all examples of sources of financial aid that could provide, um, money or funds to students, uh, that are not all coming from the same source.

Real quick, we're going to talk a little bit about the difference between merit based aid and need based aid. So first, merit based aid. Merit based aid, um, could go by a number of different mnemonics or names. You could call it, some institutions may call it academic based or merit scholarships. Or they might be generalizing it in there.

They're just institutional awards to students. Um, they could come from a variety of different naming conventions, but they all kind of operate the same way. They're typically awarded, um, by criteria that's found within the admission application. So, transcripts, uh, letters of recommendation, strength of curriculum.

Those are examples of how Merit Aid might be evaluated at specific institutions. These vary tremendously from institution to institution, so it's very important for you not to generalize this topic. When you're talking with families, because the answer they get for this at each school may vary completely.

There might be some institutions that don't offer merit aid at all. They only offer need based funding. A place like Stonehill offers merit based scholarships, and really academic based scholarships. They're awarded based on the competitiveness of the applicant pool in which the student applies. They're not awarded by merit while they're enrolled here.

And so a lot of times people think that that's the case and they're, those are two very different things. They may have renewable criteria and they may not have renewable criteria. Again, very dependent on the institution. The last thing that's important for admission counselors to understand is what is required of the students to be considered for those funding.

So as you're working with students, you want to at least be able to answer some basic questions of is there a separate application process at your institution? Is there a separate form? How do you ensure the family is considered for all available? Think about it from that perspective. Are there dates and deadlines that students need to abide by?

Much like merit based aid, need based aid, specifically need based aid from an institution, could vary tremendously from institution to institution. This is kind of where we're getting to a part in the presentation where you might hear other presenters say it depends, or it may vary based on the institution in which you're applying to, right, because each school may actually handle this differently.

For the purpose of this slide, think about need based aid may apply, again, more broadly. So the federal government has need based aid, many states have need based aid, and institutions themselves may or may not have need based aid. The message that you want to understand when it comes to, um, financial aid and need based aid in particular is you have to understand that there's usually some sort of criteria, there's benchmarks, or there are decisions that's being made based on the families or students financial strength.

So based on that financial strength, they may have. Which is dependent on the applications which are required, which IRIS is going to go over. Those students may be eligible for aid that does not need to be repaid, or may need to be repaid that could be need based. So it really comes down to the individual institutions themselves, the resources in which students are applying, and whether or not it's contingent on financial factors.

Factors that are outside of the admission application. The last thing with many forms of need based aid, the important thing for you to understand when you're talking with families, is families often may ask you the question of renewability. And for many need based aids, students need to maintain what's called satisfactory academic progress, or the mnemonic or acronym you may hear is SAP.

And that may be different at each institution, but generally speaking, For the purpose of your conversation today, you want to think about it as progress to your degree. Are you meeting standards that are allowing you to maintain progress? How those are defined could be student specific, uh, at those individual institutions, program specific for whatever program the student may have applied to, or fund specific.

And so, you just want to keep, keep an eye on it. It's not a flat answer for everything, um, and it may depend on the level of, Of funding that the student receives or the type, but you want to remember that oftentimes students need to show progress to a degree.

So when it comes to questions that you may, you may, um, receive, I've kind of already kind of worked some of them into the presentation that I gave, but think about the questions that you may be asked. From a family. If you're standing at a financial aid, not a financial aid, I'm sorry, an admission night, or you're at a high school fair, and you are behind a table talking with families, oftentimes, do you have merit scholarships?

How do I apply? What deadlines are important to me? And then how do I renew that aid? Those are all examples of questions that you're going to hear that relate to ultimately what sources are available to students. And the last thing is don't necessarily shy away from conversations on student loans.

Student loans are a vital part of many financial aid packages across the country. They can be a useful tool and they're going to be seen by students in financial aid packages. So the earlier that you can start to understand and work with families to know that when you receive a financial aid package from a school, it may have gift aid work and loans and that In totality equals your financial aid.

Stephanie Wells: Thank you, Bill. Before we keep going with the questions, I wanted to mention for those who joined, um, afterwards that we are recording today's webinar and we'll provide the link to the recording in the slides to everybody who registered. So we did get one question about that. So with these questions, I'll throw it out to our panel, see if they have additional things to add, um, particularly about, you know, the communication and, and things like that.

I will, I will mention, uh, regarding the loans. I'll be talking about paying for college at the end, uh, but those federal student loans, I like to think of them as Helping students have a little skin in the game. So if parents are borrowing as well, the student has their own set of loans that they're, you know, don't need a cosigner for.

Uh, but there's all sorts of other, you know, loans in addition to that. Um, and But we do have to be careful with families about how much they're borrowing. And we do guide them on that as well as in the financial aid offices. So it really depends on the level of borrowing and the investment they want to make.

Um, but that is something very important, um, that Bill mentioned, but Iris and Gail, I'll just throw it out to you if you have anything, um, additional ad based on some of these questions.

Iris Godes: Yeah, Stephanie. The only thing I would add is, um, you know, those of you that are the veterans here that have been around a while probably already know this, but those of you that are very new, it's helpful to know how your policies at your institution compare to others.

So where do you sit in the competitive market that you're in everybody's competing with somebody. And so that really helps you have these conversations. Um, with those families so that you're positioning your institution in the best light possible, um, and so understanding kind of how you fit what other, um, colleges and universities are doing as well, you know, be able to speak to that.

And how do you position yourself, regardless of what your situation is. Recognize where you are and then position yourself in the best

Gail Holt: light possible.

And Gail, did you have anything you wanted to add? I, I, I don't, I agree with Iris. Um, so I think there, that's the hardest thing for families to really understand is the distinction between need based aid and merit aid. Um, and, and what that means in, in context. So I agree with everything Iris said.

Excellent. Great.

Stephanie Wells: Keep those questions coming in the Q& A. We do have the chat turned off, um, and everybody's on mute, so if you have questions, feel free to put those in the Q& A and we will definitely be stopping as we go. All right, so I'm going to turn it over to Iris to talk about the application process.

Iris Godes: All right. So big changes this year, and I'm guessing when we saw the results of the poll, um, and I saw how many of you are joining us with many years of experience in admissions, I'm guessing that you've heard there's a lot of changes coming up, um, in the next cycle with FAFSA, and you probably want to hear about that.

So there's still a lot that we're trying to figure out. Um, but, uh, let me just jump in to these bullet points and I'll try to throw in a few things that I think you might be interested in hearing. Um, so, you know, you're always encouraging your families to check deadlines, um, application dates, both for admissions and financial aid.

Um, the deadlines or recommended dates. May be changing because the FAFSA is not going to open until December. So we'll get to that, um, on the next slide, but just to be aware of that, um, depending on what type of institution you are, you might have this on your websites already because you are 2024 application for admission is already open and you are all set with your incoming class.

And you're moving on, or you may be in institutions that are still enrolling for fall 2023 and you haven't quite converted to 2024 yet. So be aware of kind of what's available on your website and when that's going to be updated if. The dates for 2024 aren't out there yet. Usually for colleges and universities that have an early action or early decision program, then deadlines to apply for financial aid are often in October or November.

For schools that use the CSS profile, that's going to be easy to do and I'm going to talk about that in a bit for schools that only use the FAFSA, those deadlines are not going to work. And so it's going to be a very different environment this year for financial aid for schools that only use the FAFSA.

It's probably going to be pretty hard to get decisions, financial aid decisions out before February, some even March. So make sure that admissions folks are speaking with their financial aid counterparts on what they're planning on a timeline. So as you're getting out there, probably in another week or so, if you're not already.

Recruiting from wherever you are that you know what the plan is so that you can be informing people now that you might be getting your admission decisions out, depending on again what type of institution you are as early as October. I've even seen some schools get decisions admission decisions out in September.

And now they're going to be waiting a while. For their financial aid, depending on how you release your financial aid decision. So, again, if those conversations are not happening yet on your campus, you're going to want to get that information as soon as you can. You're going to emphasize to the families that you're speaking to that is really critical that they meet those deadlines so that they maximize.

All of the opportunities that they have available. MIFA has a really nice tool, um, on the website to keep track of all these dates. Um, and so I frequently recommend this to families to use if they're not spreadsheet people, then this kind of does. Does it for you where you can just fill, fill in all the schools and the important dates and kind of keep track of where you're at.

All right. So the FAFSA. So for those of you that are very new, FAFSA stands for free application for federal student aid. I always tell people the first F means free. There are sites out there that will charge you to complete the FAFSA. If somebody's asking, expecting you to pay to complete the FAFSA, then you know you're in the wrong place.

Um, and so I always advise families of that. I think it's gotten better in recent years, but just to be careful of that, they should never be paying for a FAFSA. Every college that administers federal and usually state financial aid will require the FAFSA. So. Um, you know, I think it's pretty safe for you as you're talking to families to be able to say you're going to need this FAFSA for every school that you're applying to.

FAFSA. gov is the easiest URL to give people to get them directly to the page. And I'm not sure, Gail, I don't know if you know if the picture that we're seeing today is going to remain when the 24 opens up. I don't know if there's been any talk about changing what that website looks like. I mean, there's

Gail Holt: a lot of changes so I wouldn't count on it, it might be important to distinguish, you know, the differences so.

Iris Godes: Yeah, so, um, so there's a, there's a little picture there. That's what it currently looks like. We don't know if it will look different, um, when it opens. So the, the big, big bu bullet point here, um, is when the FAFSA will be available for many years now. It has been available on October 1st for those of you that have been around a long time.

Um, as long as my colleagues here on the panel, it used to be available January 1st. Then it got moved back. That's been great. We all shifted the way we did our work. Families got notified much earlier, um, on financial aid eligibility, um, and all that was great. Um, and now it's going to open at some point in December.

We don't know if that's December 1st, December 31st, or somewhere in between. So, the best we can say at this stage is for families to be watching for availability in December. I am sure every college, I hope yours are planning to send the communication out as soon as we know, so that you let all of your prospective students know when that FAFSA is available.

There is a step for those of you that don't know, in terms of how to sign your FAFSA online, and that is with this FSA ID. So the student and the parent, assuming they're a dependent student, will need this FSA ID in order to sign their FAFSA. That is something that they can get early. As far as I know, they don't need to wait until December when it opens.

And they could, that's something that they could take care of. Now, they just need to make sure they keep track of it so they don't forget it by the time they need it to sign that FAFSA. Families this year, it's a little bit different. For those of you that might have known some of the financial aid language that we used to call, Data retrieval DRT, the data retrieval tool.

So that's one of the things that's changing. Um, and they are going to as part of the FAFSA process, give consent to pull their data directly from the IRS and the data is going to come in and that's going to be for virtually everybody. And so that's a little bit. It's similar, but a little bit of a change in the process.

So it's Um, probably good to just let people know that's how it's going to work. They don't need to be worrying about this always trips people up. They don't need to worry about. I haven't filed my tax return yet. It's like, nope, it's on the prior year. It's taxes that they have already completed. And there's a relationship between Department of Education through the FAFSA and the IRS that will come all come right in and it will all be good.

Um, The, there is a webinar that will be coming up in December that MIFA will offer on the deep dive into the FAFSA and we'll probably know more information by then. Um, and of course, uh, reminding people that it must be completed every year. I did want to highlight a couple things that we know are changing in terms of the process that you might be getting questions about on the road, um, uh, before financial aid presentations might be starting.

So, a couple things that I noticed and Bill, Gail, and Stephanie, please feel free to jump in as well. It's always confusing when you have a divorced family and they don't know whose information they should be providing and the, um, some of you veterans out there probably know this, the guidance was always whichever parent you've lived with most is who you're going to report on your FAFSA.

Now. It's changing a bit and now it's the parent who provides the most support. So that's going to be a change. Um, and that's just something to be aware of the other thing. And I just read about this recently. Is when they determine what the family size is. They're going to be looking at how many deductions were claimed on the tax return.

So that's that information that's coming from the IRS. But my understanding is if that's not accurate, because lots of families, particularly divorce families have some. Interesting arrangements on who gets to claim the kids and that kind of thing. So they will be able to update that number if they know the number of deductions they took does not match the family size.

So, that's getting a little bit into the weeds for all of you, but just in case you get that question, I just want you to be aware. That might be one that you want to refer to your financial aid office. If you're not confident on that one. The other thing that I just wanted to point out to admissions people is 1 of the big controversies is that they removed what we call the housing question on the FAFSA.

So there used to be a question on the FAFSA that said. What's your living arrangement going to be? Are you living on campus? Are you living with your parents? Are you living? Are you commuting, you know, living off, um, off campus in your own home or apartment? And that drove a lot of how the financial aid eligibility was determined because the cost is likely different between somebody living at home and somebody living on campus, for example, that question is no longer going to be on the FAFSA.

So, admissions might have that information. In my experience, usually we did have the information so I don't know at your school but think about that. And might that be helpful to your financial aid office if you're able to pass that information along to them. So, if you haven't already had that conversation, or that doesn't already happen, that might be a good conversation to have the other big change that you're probably going to get some questions about is.

How many students are attending college at the same time and how that impacts their eligibility. So up until the upcoming year, there was recognition of more than one dependent in college at the same time. And so there was an advantage to that. The family's contribution was reduced by the number that were in college that is going away.

So should that come up in conversation, families are going to be very upset about it. They don't understand it. Um, but it's a change that's been made. And so everybody is treated the same for returning students. This is going to have a much bigger issue for new students. This is, you know, this is new and this is the way it is.

But it's important that if you happen to get that question on a high school visit or a college fair, that you know that the number in college is not going to have an impact. on their eligibility and Gail might get into that a little bit. Um, and the other thing is the, um, business. So it used to be small businesses did not have to report the value of their business, um, or depending on where you are, family farms were not reported.

Um, here in Massachusetts, we don't have a whole lot of farms, um, but occasionally they come up. Um, but anyway, in both cases now, all businesses will be reported. Um, and farm values will be reported. So that's also a change that since we've never collected that information before, we don't really know what kind of impact that is.

That might not come up in any of your conversations, um, but just wanted you to be aware of that as well.

Stephanie Wells: Okay, we can move on. Thank you, Iris. We'll go to the next one. I also wanted to mention that, um, we have this MIFA Institute MIFA Institute webinars for colleges and school counselors, but we also have a smorgasbord of Programs that we're going to have in the fall for families, virtual programs, where we're going to walk them through all of this.

So we'll have webinars just on how to fill out and get your FSA ID and breaking the whole process down bit by bit. So we will send them to me if they need help. We will be providing all that support this fall.

Iris Godes: The great resource. Okay, so the CSS profile. If you don't know if your college or university, particularly those of you that are new requires the CSS profile you definitely want to make sure that you know the answer to that question.

There's many schools that don't, and there's quite a few schools that do. So this is a separate form. It does ask a lot of different questions than what the FAFSA does, a lot more questions than what the FAFSA does. Some people say, I'm surprised they didn't ask me what my blood type is, but it does get into quite a bit of information.

And again, as you're positioning yourselves, For those that are only FAFSA schools, then you're often saying, we only require the FAFSA. It's much easier to qualify for financial aid schools that use the profile are often positioning themselves as we have a lot of institutional aid. We need this additional form to really evaluate how we're spending that money.

But the good news is. We have a lot of money. So you can position yourselves positively, whichever way you go. Um, again, it's, it's only required by some, this is the only one that has a fee. So as you're, you know, trying to warn families to be careful of whether or not they're spending money to apply, there is a fee for the profile.

Um, there is a waiver available, probably the most common waiver for those, um, who's have family income, a hundred thousand or less. Um, there are a couple other criteria there, um, and all of that is presented to them as they're going through the profile. Now, here's the tricky part. So the profile will be available on October 1st.

So just to make all of our lives more confusing, the profile is still keeping with October 1st. So they're going to have to, you know, it used to be families could kind of knock out the FAFSA and the profile and sort of around the same time. Hopefully that's what they were doing. Um, but now not so much.

So those of you that are profile schools, you're in a very different position than those of you that are FAFSA only schools. And what I anticipate back to knowing where you sit in the market and what's happening, those schools that have the CSS profile, We'll have enough information to estimate what federal eligibility might be as well.

So many of these schools may be coming out early with financial aid, at least estimated financial aid offers. And so, first of all, if you don't know if that's going to happen at your institution, you want to know if that will happen, and then just be aware that. Especially as you get out there in November, December, and you're hearing that there's students that have already received financial aid offers and why don't I have it from your school.

This could be one of the reasons. So that's going to change the competitive market a little bit. It's going to be interesting to see how that plays out. We've never, as far as I know, we've never been in this situation before. In the case of divorced families and separated families, the noncustodial parent also provides their information.

Um, and if there's issues about that, I would probably refer them to the financial aid office. Um, and again, there will be another deep dive into the profile that, um, through the institute program will, um, give you a lot more information on that. Um, and then thirdly, there are some colleges that have their own.

Financial aid application, usually by colleges that they don't need the full profile, but they need a few more questions. And so, you know, everybody should be aware of that. If you don't know. What the requirements are at your school again, make sure you know if that is something that your families are going to need to do or your students are going to need to do.

And I do just want to throw in here because this information is just coming through this week. This only applies to Massachusetts State Universities and community colleges and the mass system. But for those of you that haven't heard yet. There was some new legislation just recently passed regarding undocumented students in certain circumstances will now be eligible for in state tuition as well as in state financial aid.

So this is still getting figured out if you're not aware of this, ask these questions on your campus to get more information. There was just a meeting actually yesterday regarding the financial aid piece there is still a lot to figure out. However, there will be a state financial aid application, probably for the first time ever, specifically for these undocumented students.

Who can't use the FAFSA because they're not going to qualify through that process. Um, so it's a little muddy and I'm just throwing it out there to let you know that it's coming and to be aware. If you're speaking in high schools and elsewhere to undocumented students and families, then there's still a lot to figure out.

Um, but. It will get figured out eventually. We just don't have a timeline right now, but there will be a state financial aid application for that population.

Stephanie Wells: Okay, that's great. Iris. And I also wanted to just mention one of the common questions we get from families is how do I apply for state aid? So take the take what Iris said about undocumented students to set that aside for a second.

Just, you know, regular, you know, US citizen students. How do I get financially from my state? And typically for most states, but check with your own as long as they put that they are a resident of that state on the FAFSA. Typically in most states that automatically is sent to their state office that administers state financial aid so they don't have to fill out a separate application.

So this is a great new service in mass but for the most part at most states for regular you know folks, um, it's just filling out the FAFSA for the most part. This is a great, this is great news Iris. Thank you

Gail Holt: for sharing.

Iris Godes: Okay, so after the students submit their FAFSA and their profile if that's required. Then, as Stephanie just mentioned, the state, the state of that student's residence will get the information as well as the colleges. It's all getting pushed out at the same time. Again, the FAFSA, we're expecting to start receiving that information in January.

We think depending on when in December, they can start applying, but hopefully no later than January. The student, um, in the past for you veterans out there, if you knew the term student aid report, that is always what the student received. This is now being called the FAFSA submission summary. Um, and so they will get that for the most part, they're getting that by email.

I assume that's the same. Um, you're also likely going to be talking to, talking to families. Who have special circumstances that might include things like, um, a change in income or maybe a job loss, unusual medical expenses, things like that, that have had a significant impact on their financial situation.

Um, and so those are handled individually by each college. Um, so that gets a little bit challenging for some families, especially if they're applying to a lot of colleges, uh, but they will need to connect with each. college or university's financial aid office directly with an explanation about what their special circumstances are.

Um, and again, for your own institution, make sure that you know what the process is. There's some schools that have particular forms that they have to fill out. There's some schools that they can just send an email. There's others that want it in writing with documentation. So there's some variety there on what's required.

But just make sure you know what the requirements are at your school, as well as how is it handled. So, Is there a timeline when special circumstances are considered? What happens? What's the next step? When will they be notified of whether or not those special circumstances are considered? And again, having worked at quite a few schools now in my career, as I go from school to school, it's handled differently.

So just make sure you know what happens at your school. The other thing that may happen is that the Student may be selected for a process called federal verification. Um, and so additional documents will be required. So they just need to be prepared for that. Typically, the financial aid office will notify that student that additional information is required.

The thing for you to find out is if you don't already know, will your school release a financial aid decision on an estimated basis without those verification documents? or will they require that student to complete the verification process by submitting the requested documents before they will receive any decision.

So again, if you don't know the answer to that question, I advise you to try to find out. So if you get those questions along the way, um, you can easily answer for those families. And then once we have everything that we need, then we're reviewing those applications and we're determining. Um, what type of financial aid they're eligible for, um, and we move on from there.

Some schools are notifying electronically, some, um, will also send paper, letter, packets, all kinds of good stuff. So again, you also want to know what your particular institution does so you can let your families know what they should expect. Okay.

Gail Holt: Excellent. So

Stephanie Wells: let's go with some questions. And, um,

Iris Godes: so you want me to go through them, or are you going to?

Gail Holt: Yeah, you

Stephanie Wells: can, you can go through them, Iris. I do want to hear from Gail about the profile piece, just because it's a little bit different. I know Gail's, uh, does a profile, but yeah, go ahead, Iris. You can go through and then we'll, we'll

Iris Godes: take turns. Yeah. So again, um, you know, we, we spoke about it a little bit earlier.

Make sure that you know, at your institution, what applications are required. And then in the case of if you're only FAFSA, how are you selling that if you're FAFSA and profile or something else? How are you positioning yourself for that? Um, and, uh, you know, a common, uh, conversation between admissions and financial aid is probably very helpful there.

And then of course, you know, if there's deadline dates and what those are, um, if we apply for financial aid, will that lessen the likelihood of admittance to your school? That has become a common question as well, particularly for Selective schools, schools that are probably there's a good chance their profile schools as well, but that they have significant financial aid or that there are something that a lot of schools will call need aware so that they do pay attention to, um, where, where a family.

sits financially. Um, so again, that's something that you need to be speaking to your, you know, among your admission staff as well as financial aid, um, to see what the situation is there, if it has any impact or not. Um, my experience has been in most cases it doesn't, but there are schools that it does make a difference.

Um, and then can I still apply for and receive aid if I miss the school's deadline? And that again will be very institution specific. Um, certainly for some of the federal funds like the Pell Grant and the, um, student loans, you're not going to miss, um, the opportunity for those funds. State funds, depending on how that works in your state, um, might have a deadline that's different than your institution, so there may still be opportunities for some state funds.

Um, and then it's going to depend on what the policies are at your school and how long your money usually lasts. So, uh, make sure that you know what your policies are, um, because that's an important thing for families to know.

Stephanie Wells: Gail, do you want to talk a little bit about, from a profile school perspective, how this all works?

Gail Holt: Sure. I mean, the first thing that I'll say is, is what's important, um, for, Um, and so one of the things that we encourage. Admission counselors to take to families is that the profile is accessible. A very key component of the profile is that for families that have incomes of less than 100, 000 and live domestically.

Um, they get a full waiver of the profile fee, and that's an unlimited waiver, no matter how many schools they're applying to. So if your income is above 100, 000, then usually the fee that. Is, um, charged is, uh, basically modest enough that it can be affordable for those families. I think a lot of your, a lot of schools have admission application fees, and this is consistent with that.

Um, and the profile really gives schools an opportunity to distribute a lot of money to students. Uh, some schools, uh, may even give more money institutionally, uh, than the federal. Government says they're there. A student is eligible for so it is really an important opportunity. It's also important that that all students understand that they will never be asked to commit to a school without having financial information.

So as we work through this, this time frame and this challenge with timing this year, Um, students are going to have that information from their financial aid offices, and we're very committed to this. Uh, for those of you, of you admission counselors who have been around the block for a little while, uh, there was a time when the FAFSA was not released until January 1st every single year.

So, financial aid administrators are well versed in how this process works, well versed in trying, in getting financial aid, uh, to families as early as possible. either with information that they have available to them, um, through the admission process or with the, the, a profile application or with some other tool, uh, and they are leveraging those tools and, and getting, we'll get the, the work done.

Um, the other thing that you as admission counselors will have really close access to Uh, Iris, uh, spoke to special circumstances and so you may have contact with the school counselors and the students themselves to identify those students most at risk, uh, with special circumstances early in the process.

Please, please direct them to the financial aid office so that they can get the early attention and direction and support, uh, that they need. Um, it's, it's always heartbreaking when we as financial aid folks find out that there are. significant extenuating circumstances very, very late in the process, and it makes it challenging to do the work that we need to do in the documents we are required to collect under duress and in a very short time frame.

The other thing that I want to point out that Iris mentioned in talking about the verification process, it is the FAFSA processor that selects Applications for verification. It's not the school, so it's not typically your financial aid office that is selecting students for verification. Um, so that's sort of the cost of doing business.

It's part of the quality controls. It's an important part. Uh, and financial aid offices are doing their best to work to work through that with with families. Um, I, and I love, I love the last, you know, um, actually it's the second question. Um, you know, should you, you know, should, are you, are you better off not, um, applying for aid or whatever?

If you, if anybody, If a student cannot pay the full cost of an institution, they should absolutely apply for financial aid. It is a horrible strategy, uh, to try to do otherwise. Uh, because every year, uh, you know, folks that think they can figure it out, or if they think, Oh, I'll just get to the institution and then they won't want me to leave, and they'll make sure that there's money available for me.

We just don't have that flexibility. And every single year, I talk with Students who are either rising sophomores or rising juniors who say we've done this for one to two years. We just can't do it anymore. Why can't you just You know, find me the money, and we, we can't, um, so it is better, it really truly is, uh, better to, to risk, uh, an admission decision than be stuck in a place where significant financial strain, um, and sacrifice is, is required, um, and it really is pretty rare, um, for students to be in that position, so if students need the money, Uh, if they can't just easily pay for the cost, they absolutely should apply for financial aid.

Stephanie Wells: Gail, I'm glad you brought that, highlighted that. I was actually gonna have Bill touch upon it as well, because I, I, having flashbacks to a parent a few years ago who didn't want to apply for financial aid at an elite university that meets full need, that is a ton of money, and it costs, costs well over 80, 000 at the time.

Because they were afraid that if they apply for aid, they, it would diminish their chances for admission and they were intent on having their student go to that school and even for higher income families, they, because of the high cost, they may still be eligible for aid. So, my line is always, unless you can write a check for the full cost for four years, you should apply for financial aid.

And Bill, I don't know if you have any tidbits that you want to share on this topic before we move on.

Gail Holt: I

Bill Smith: think you've both said it, said it great. Apply.

Gail Holt: Yes.

Stephanie Wells: And, you know, I mean, do some schools look at maybe the students are taking off the wait list, you know, based on need, maybe if you know the last few spots spots that they have or maybe off the wait list, they might look at the need, but regardless, they should definitely still apply.

So,

Bill Smith: yeah. Right. Yeah. The only thing I was stepping out this time in there on the, on the wait list, you brought up weightless variability and aid. That's a whole other it could be a whole other webinar. And so I just want to caution you the availability of aid The types of funding that you may receive in a financial aid award letter Even you as an admission counselor who's working with families may be surprised at what you may see and not see Uh in an offer during waitlist so that in itself Is a huge variable.

Um, go through the, I guess the moral of the story is go through the process with your families, help them through that process and encourage them to go through the process.

Gail Holt: Great

Stephanie Wells: advice. Thank you, Bill. All right, so let's move on. So how is financial need determined? We're going to turn this over to Gail.

Gail Holt: Yeah. And this is, um, you know, we do not expect you to be experts, uh, in, in this section. This is where developing, uh, close relationships with folks in, in your financial aid office is really, really valuable. So that, um, if you want to impress your financial aid colleagues, uh, take some information from this session and this section.

Um, and, and go ask some additional questions of your, your financial aid friends because they will be happy, uh, to engage with you and talking about how financial aid is determined at your school and they'll be impressed that you care and, um, You know, impressed that that you're interested. So, um, let's let's dive right into the most important piece.

Probably the piece that is most intimidating to families is is the cost. Um, and financial aid is designed. Primarily, uh, to support all of the expenses that a student has for one year of college. So this is an annual figure, but it's more than just what the student is and the family is going to see in the billing statement.

So we've highlighted here that in green. Uh, you can see the, the figures that you probably know very, very well, the tuition and fees, uh, and the food and housing. And I know there's a lot of folks on this webinar that have been in admission for longer than a year, and I think that's fantastic. So really make a mental note right here.

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