The MEFA Institute^™: Financial Aid 101 for School Counselors

Susan Beard: All right, good morning

Julie Shields-Rutyna: and welcome everyone. My name is Julie Shields Rutina and I am the Director of College Planning, Education and Training at MIFA and we're here this morning to talk about financial aid, a very important topic with a terrific presenter, Susan Beard, who is the Senior Director of Student Financial Services at Wheaton College.

So let me just tell you a little bit about MIFA. And I want to share a few resources that we have for you. Um, that'll be so important this fall and always, but MIFA is a state authority created by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1982 with the mission of helping families plan, save and pay for college.

And we're still doing that today with the state's, uh, Two college savings plans, the U plan and the U fund, as well as the attainable savings program for someone with a disability to begin saving. We also have low cost loans for families who need that type of financing when it comes to paying for college.

And then everything else that we do is in the area of advising and guiding families around saving, planning, and paying for college. And so let me just show you some resources that are specific to you, and then we'll talk about the logistics. I'm going to share my screen here, Susan. That's great. So this is a page on the me for website with resources specific to you, um, school counselors and other advisors of students.

And so I want to point that out to you. There are so many resources here that you'll be able to use through the year, including learning about any. Other webinars and events that we have today. You're going to hear a general overview of the financial aid process, but with so many changes this year, we're going to have many other webinars about the CSS profile about helping your students create an FSA ID.

We're going to have a webinar where we go through some scenarios of some challenging circumstances. So please stay stay connected with me for this fall for everything that you need. Also on this page right at the top for you so you can access it quickly. We share with you the pages where we have resources for families.

So right here, this college financial aid page for families is something that you can share this link with your families to So that all of the webinars and events we have for them are right here in one place, and we have terrific a timeline and we have blogs on financial aid topics as well as some great videos.

So please share that with all of your families, so that they have access to all this great and needed financial aid information. And finally, this lesson today. This webinar today is part of the MIFA Institute. So please know that you can receive professional development points for that. And when we follow up with you, you'll be able to to do that.

So with that, I'll just. Talk about, we'll go back and I'll just say a few logistics about the webinar this morning. Um, on the next page, yes. So if you have questions this morning, please type them into the q and a and we will make sure to answer your questions. And I may ask a burning question out loud to Susan while she's presenting, or we may wait.

Until the end, but, but we will answer your questions. And if you would like closed captioning, please press the live transcript, um, button and you will see the words that we're speaking across the screen. And a nice feature of the live transcript feature is that you can choose the language that you see, um, for.

Those those words that are coming across your screen. So that's great. And that works for our webinars for families and students as well. And finally, we're recording this webinar and we will send you a link to the recording and to the slide deck tomorrow. If you have to leave early or something like that.

So with that, thank you, and I'll be behind the scenes helping here, but Susan, I'm going to turn it over to you.

Susan Beard: Thank you, Julie. Good morning, everyone. Um, thank you for joining us, uh, early. Well, it's not early for you guys. You've been probably hard at work for the last hour and a half, but, um, I am Pleased to be here.

So honored to be part of the MIFA family as far as helping you all learn, um, helping myself learn, um, and our families that we talk to each and every day, um, especially with the year that's unfolding ahead of us. There's a lot of things that are different, but there's still a lot of things that are the same.

So for those of you who have been, who are brand new to this, you're going to learn a lot of great things. For those of you who have been doing it for a number of years, not everything has changed. And that's how I make myself feel good every day. When I start to feel overwhelmed with Thinking about a whole new FAFSA and new deadlines and, and what it means for colleges and the department of education and our high schools.

So, um, hopefully you will still, again, everybody will hopefully learn something today. Please ask questions. Julie's going to be helping out with answering them and, and fielding them. And, um, yeah, hopefully we will answer everything you have. or bring to us this morning. So within this space of time, um, we will try to hit all the important topics.

We're going to talk about the types, sources of financial aid, the application process itself, what forms are required, how you get them, what you do with them, um, how the colleges make financial aid decisions. That's always a Big one that I love to spend a lot of time on. Um, so I'll try to be very succinct though.

Um, that's the most interesting part I think to me, uh, paying for college, how families are given information or what information families are given on how to pay and then free resources at the end. And to that point, you all being involved with MIFA right now, I have to say, my colleagues for years and years, whenever we need to look something up or try to find answers to something about the industry, I go to MIFA because their resources are always spot on, always accurate, and way more interesting, quite frankly, than the Department of Education's, uh, articles and, and things like that.

So, Hopefully you all bookmark bookmarked the information that Julie gave you earlier, um, because I've got it bookmarked on mine and pretty much all of my financial aid pals do as well. So to start with the types and sources of financial aid. The, they're kind of three, three parts of financial aid resources, the Department of Ed or the federal government gives out our financial aid.

Oops, I'm at the wrong topic. I'm talking about what is financially three parts of financial aid grants and scholarships gift aid, the best kind of financial aid does not have to be paid back. I'll get a little more detail about those, those types of grants in a minute. Federal Work Study employment on campus.

I'm going to talk about that in a little more detail. And then of course, federal student loans, many families, and you've probably heard this before. I think that, Oh, all the college gave me was a loan and that's not financial aid. Technically it is considered a resource or part of the financial aid umbrella.

So the, the three parts, the three main parts that families will, will need to see or need to be acquainted with our grants, student employment and loans. The loans are, I always call them a necessary evil for high cost institutions, and some of your families will not need student loans if they're going to a lower cost institution, but the, the thing that.

Financial aid administrators, um, tried our best to talk with families about is that loans are, if they are necessary, they don't have to be evil. In other words, the federal government has designed these loan programs to be very student friendly in that, um, interest is often not accrued until after students graduate.

The repayment options are plentiful as compared to a typical personal loan through a bank. The interest rate is fixed and over the past few years it's been pretty low. It's creeping up a little bit, but not nearly at the rate of credit cards or personal loans or mortgages. And it's a real, they really are the best place to start when students are asking, Well, I need to get a loan.

I don't know where to start federal loans are the place to start. And as you can see on the chart for most first year students. or freshman year, they can borrow up to 5500. Some families are under the impression that it's unlimited borrowing amount or credit line of credit, but it's really their maximums.

5500, it rises up 1, 000 in the sophomore year and then junior and senior years, it caps out at 7500. Um, another important thing, actually, I'm going to just quickly say is when your families or when your students are comparing financial aid offers, um, I like to recommend that they ask what the average debtedness is of the college, like of a college graduate that the school that they're looking at.

And that, that answer can be wide and and the range can be quite large so it's just important to sort of get a feel for the college's philosophy on borrowing. If their students are graduating with 50, 000 in debt and it's just an undergraduate degree. That's that's a high amount. Um, on average, students in New England or through the federal student loan program are borrowing less than 30, 000.

So it seems like a lot and to families who have never borrowed before that can seem like a real lot. But then you kind of put it in perspective and what financial aid offices do is we'll put it in perspective as far as what that translates to when you graduate in terms of a repayment. Sources of financial aid, um, come from, uh, four different places for the most part, the federal government.

I started to talk about that before. They are a huge source of grants free money college student work study that's subsidized by the federal government as well. The student loans that we just spoke about on the prior slide. And then there are tactics and incentives so that parents are able to sort of get a little bit of a benefit and students if they pay a certain amount of tuition, they can write it off at the end of the year.

StudentAid. gov is the the end all be all website for federal programs. Students who live in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts are very fortunate in that we have a really robust program of Grants and tuition waivers and no interest loans for students who reside in the state. So that's at mass. edu and OSFA.

Some of you or many of you may already know of that organization. The colleges and universities themselves are a really great resource for grants loans. And some of them also subsidize work study and then, um, other agencies. I always make sure that that families are aware local communities. You all work at the high schools that perhaps have your own databases or, you know, have a local community database that you can refer students to meet the pathway and fastweb.

com are really, really great resources as well. And I do recommend to families that it can be worth the searching online and going through these databases. If it results in 500 or $5,000, any, either way you look at it, um, it's worth your time to, to search those databases. Um, and it's always fun to throw out this hu humongous number of billions and billions of dollars or amount of, of financial aid that's received.

It's by students each and every year. Talking about, um, the, the best part is the grants and the scholarships, the money that you don't have to pay back students are going to see two kinds of grants and scholarships merit based scholarships and need based scholarships. So first I'm going to talk about the merit scholarships colleges and universities will award.

Students these types of scholarships based on their achievements in high school, and it could be academic, could be musical, it could be their athletic prowess, um, it has nothing to do with financial need. These scholarships, um, your students need to know and make sure they understand, are they renewable or not?

Is it just for the first year? For the most part they are renewable but it's something really important to ask, um, when they are offered a merit scholarship. Sometimes a separate application is required, but sometimes not. Just applying to the college may put them in the running for merit scholarship assistance.

And deadlines are super important. A lot of colleges will be very strict with, um, with the deadlines when it comes to awarding lots and lots of dollars. The other type of grants and scholarships are need based and that does have everything to do with finances and applications such as the FAFSA and the CSS profile that we'll talk about in a little bit.

Need based grants and scholarships are based on a formula and a family's calculated eligibility or need. Um, colleges will use standardized formulas to determine a student's need, uh, need based aid and its grants and scholarships, but it can also include subsidized loans and federal work study. Um, so the FAFSA is the all important form, first and foremost, to determine a family's need, um, or eligibility for need based aid.

Again, um, merit scholarships do not. Usually, um, take an application year after year, but the need based aid, you'll always the families will always have to apply year after year. And then finally, students do have to maintain a level of satisfactory academic progress. So the federal government has strict rules in place so that we're not financial aid offices aren't awarding a student, a lifelong student who just wants to keep going to school year after year they have to graduate without within a certain amount of time.

They also have to maintain a particular GPA. That shows progress. So now we're going to talk about the applications. Um, so much fun timelines, families, and you all in guidance offices are uber aware of, of timelines and deadlines, but Students, families, parents, guardians really need to be aware of application deadlines and some colleges will be very similar in their deadlines and some will be way out there with different ones.

So, you know, I go back to my Google sheet or my Excel spreadsheet. And put down all of the colleges that my kids were looking at and the dates that everything was due just to be organized. Um, it's super important these deadlines as much as students and parents sometimes procrastinate. Um, depending on you know your students better than anybody.

Some of them are right on top of those deadlines and some of them need a little nudging. But that's a deadline deadline deadline is something that you can't say probably enough. MIFA's got a really cool tool. I'm going to keep saying that. And, um, they have a, an organizational application manager that families, you should keep this, um, the website that's on the slide, families can use it to keep organized.

And it really is, it makes what can be or feel like overwhelming amount of dates and information. It organizes it really well. So let's talk about the FAFSA, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. Um, all colleges and universities that administer need based financial aid require the FAFSA. Families have to do it each and every year, students.

Usually, the FAFSA would be available next week. But this year, it is delayed until December. We are saying December. I'm personally hoping it's available right around the first week in January. Back in the olden days, uh, probably eight years ago, the FAFSA, those of you who are, maybe there's nobody on the college that, that was doing this eight years ago, but FAFSA used to be available January 1st every year.

And then the government changed the formula a little bit and made it available earlier, which was really helpful for families and students who wanted to apply to colleges early decision and early action. It enabled financial aid officers To create a financial aid award for those early applicants.

However, with the changes to the FAFSA formula and the form itself, the government needed a little extra time, even though they've, they began this process two years ago, to get this released, to get the application up and running and released to the colleges. Um, frankly, the colleges needed extra, we need extra time to get our systems in place and our software up to date and ready to receive this new FAFSA information.

So, FAFSA. gov, um, is. Supposedly going to have this ready in December for your students and families, um, students will put their information on, but also their parents, um, and they are now called contributors. So we're going to talk about some new language in the FAFSA. Um, Application itself. A contributor is anybody whose information is going to be on the FAFSA.

So, um, it could be an adoptive parent. It could be a parent. It's certainly the student. Everybody's contributing to the FAFSA application. The student needs to start the FAFSA themselves by, um, getting what's called an FSA ID. We're going to talk about that in a little bit. Um, and then they invite anybody else to the form.

To contribute their information. Um, so I think right now it's a little bit tricky. I'm stumbling over the words only because this is brand new to me. But for those families, for families who are just starting the process, this will all feel, everything's new. So it won't be confusing. I think it's, it's these next couple of years that we're all going to be, if you've done it for the fewer prior years, it's just a little bit of new language to get used to.

So, similar to prior FAFSAs, the student has a section, the parents have a section, and now we're going to say that each contributor has a section of the FAFSA to do. And then the last person who's completing the FAFSA or contributing to the FAFSA can submit it. It doesn't have to be the student like it does now.

One. Brand new thing. And we are learning, I have to say, MIFA, financial aid offices, all of us, we're learning new things every day about this process. And most recently I have learned that after 45 days of a student beginning their FAFSA, if it's not completed and submitted, then the FAFSA gets deleted and a student has to start all over again.

That is very different than the FAFSA of today of this academic year. So they're telling us reminders are going to be sent so that hopefully this won't happen very often. I know my students better and I'm afraid that it might happen more often than not. Hopefully though this FAFSA is simplified and it will be, um, easy to re restart.

But I think it's important right from the get go to let our families know that once you start the fafsa, just do it all in one, all in one day if you can. If the contributor needs a couple of days to get their stuff together and to do it, that's okay, but after 45 days, the whole thing has to start over from scratch.

And when you're looking at deadlines, that can be a, a pretty important thing. So I mentioned earlier the. FSA ID. This is how families will submit the FAFSA electronically. No more paper. No more signatures. It's all electronic. FSA ID gives the students and families and contributors a username and a password that will be theirs for life if they take good care of it.

You need that information to log into the FAFSA. Students can do it now that doesn't need to the FAFSA doesn't have to be available for next year to do that. So if you are, you know, talking with your seniors, if you're having some seminars or college preparedness activities, have them do their set up their FSA ID.

It's very easy. And it's nice to have in ahead of the time when they really have to get that FAFSA done in January. Students need an email address. Um, and a really great tip that that a wise financial aid person said one time is to not use the students don't necessarily use the students. school email address, but to create a family email address.

So for example, when my student, my kids were applying to college, we set up a Gmail address, um, you know, beard at gmail. com and all of us had access to that email box. So that when the department of ed and the FAFSA center, uh, noticed that the FAFSA was processed. My daughter knew, but I knew as well when the college is sent.

Don't forget to send in this form that we asked you for three weeks ago. My son saw it and ignored it. And, but I didn't. Um, so it's, it really does. It gave me peace of mind as a mom. Um, but it's also, I think it's, it's a way that as much as I wanted my, my My kids particularly and personally to do this on their own.

I knew better that they still needed a little bit of help. So to have a family email is one of the best pieces of advice I've heard in a long time for this process. So the student will get their FSA ID, the, their spouse if they're married, but for the most part, we're going to assume that they're all dependents of their parents.

Um, Every parent on the FAFSA, um, needs an FSA ID. However, if parents are married and they file jointly, that means it's one set of tax information. So only one parent needs an FSA ID. If they're married filing separately, then both parents will need an FSA ID. It's really based on the tax information that's with the federal government is kind of what drives who needs to be a contributor on the FAFSA.

Okay, and and there are some families sometimes or parents that don't have a social security number, and they can still access this based on some knowledge base questions that are asked.

So the information. Susan Can I just

Julie Shields-Rutyna: interrupt you for one sec. I have heard that. The students who need to use the knowledge based process that that they're not able to use it yet. Is that true? I think I think I'll be able to use it soon, but I don't think that process is set up yet. So great. Thank you.

More information will be coming on that, but they will have a process and it should be soon. Thank you. That was, that was something new that we

Susan Beard: heard. Thank you. Great. Every day, every day. I know. Um, are there any questions at this point, Julie?

Julie Shields-Rutyna: No, no. A few that I've been answering

Susan Beard: behind the scenes, but thank you.

Great. Um, let's talk about what's on the FAFSA itself. Some of the stuff is the same as usual and some of the stuff is different. So, um, citizenship status has not changed. Students, U. S. citizens, eligible non citizens can receive federal financial aid. Um, New brand new and exciting and excellent is that undocumented students in Massachusetts now are eligible for Massachusetts in state tuition and state aid, which is a wonderful thing, um, college and I'll assume that all of you are from, um, Massachusetts colleges, I think, or high schools, colleges where, um Each student is applying will receive the FAFSA, and students are able to put, I believe it's up to 20 colleges now, it used to be 10 colleges at a time, but now students can put up to 20 colleges on the FAFSA itself, so that's awesome too.

Parent, parental information, their marital status. And here's a question we get a lot. If my parents aren't married, do I have to put both of their information on? Yes, if they live together in the same household, even if they're not married, um, the FAFSA does require information from both parents. Um, divorce and separated parents, though, it's a little bit different and it can be tricky and it seems like no two situations are exactly alike.

So if you have a student or a family who's asking which, which parent, Fills out the FAFSA. That's a very common question each and every year. Um, it's the parent who provided the most financial support. Whether that's the custodial parent. In other words, the student lives with that parent most of the time or not.

It's the one who creates, who provides most financial support. Usually that is the custodial parent, but sometimes it's not. Um, and then you'll get the next layer of questions. Well, my parents, I live with them equally one week here, one week there. Then we, then we go to the second level and we say, well, whichever parent gives you most the highest financial support.

That's the person who fills out the, um, the FAFSA. And there is within the FAFSA itself, um, some questions that help, you know, which who's my parent and they can click on that information to get more defined or better definition of which parent to use. I will say for you as guidance counselors to encourage your students.

Um, because after you, you know, after they do it this once with you, they're off on their own, but it's much easier, um, when a student has, uh, consistent information from year to year in the college. Now, I know it's not always true that a student will remain with the same parent year or even receive financial, um, financial support.

equally year after year, but generally speaking that does happen. What is really difficult is when we get a FAFSA one year and then they flip to the parent of the other parent the next year and then back and forth. Um, we do have to ask more questions. It takes a little bit longer. So I, um, I always encourage students to try to be as consistent as, as, as, as possible for their situation.

Legal guardians are not parents. That's another question we get all the time. You know, I live with my legal guardians, whether they're my grandparents or my older siblings. Um, they are not considered parents and they do not have to put information on the FAFSA with the caveat that if the legal guardians have adopted that child, then they do need to put that information on.

Um, number and household is going to be pulled from the tax return, um, or the IRS database, but Families do have the opportunity to update that on the FAFSA. One big example is if a parent is divorced and they have one dependent one year and then the next year they have a different dependent or an additional dependent, that could be a situation arrived at.

based on their divorce decree, um, and not necessarily who's living in their household. So, um, while it does get pulled off of a tax return, there is opportunity to change that on the application itself. And finally, the number of children in college in the household, um, is still going to be asked on the FAFSA, despite the fact that it is no longer part of the financial aid need analysis.

So this can be really confusing, where you know one of the big headlines that we've been reading is with this new FAFSA formula is that number in college doesn't count like it used to. And yet, the FAFSA is still going to ask that question so I'm just, if a family has the question why are they asking it, they are still.

Collecting that data, colleges may still want to know, um, how many students in the household are attending college for their own institutional money. So there are a number of reasons why it's still asked, but it does create a little bit of confusion in my opinion. Financial information on the FAFSA, we're going to be looking at, or it's going to be collecting data from 2022.

So we, we affectionately refer to it as prior, prior year. So they're entering, students are entering college in 2024, but they're reporting data that was, that happened or that was earned in 2022. Um, the contributors on the FAFSA will give the FAFSA permission to pull in Information from the I. R. S. They have to give consent.

It's highly confidential, and it's not even seen on the form itself. It just sort of flows into the form into the form and is not even presented, I guess, on the screen to the families. Anything that's on the tax return, taxable and untaxed income will be present and will be pulled into the FAFSA. Um, on the asset side, it's, these are self reported because obviously assets are not on a tax return.

But students and families need to include the value of their savings accounts, their checking accounts, investments, businesses and farms are collected. The value of a business and farm is now collected again on the FAFSA form. And any other property other than their primary resident will be collected on the FAFSA.

That is the same as always. This is a change for 529 accounts. So college savings plans, um, in prior years. The, uh, this question collected the value of all 529 plans that a parent owned, but now it's only asking for the 529 plan that is for that particular student on the FAFSA. Did I say that right, Julie?

Good. You're nodding. I can't hear. Great. Thumbs up. That is, um, that, so that is a change. And I think it's a good change because we, we financial aid offices often had, well, I've got all these other children that I've saved for, and I have to put their savings on this child's FAFSA. No, they've, they've refined that question.

So I think that's, that's a little bit better. Again, don't, they shouldn't include their primary residence. We see that happen more often than you'd think. Um, and that can really skew the, the analysis for family, um, for federal aid when it is not supposed to include the value of, or, um, the equity in a person's home.

Don't include the value of their retirement plans. Life insurance and again, five 20 nines for other children. Another change to the fafsa. Um, the, if this is your first fafsa, go around, it won't make make a difference. But if you've been doing this before with Families, child Support received used to be considered income received in the, um, calendar year.

Instead, now, child support received is going to be included as an asset to the family, and assets are treated less. Um, heavily, if you will, in the formula than income. So in this regard, this is another thing that's going to help families, especially families who, um, there are some single parents who rely solely on child support to, to meet their financial obligations.

So it won't be included as income Now, it will belu included as an asset. Mipha is going to help families with a deep dive into the FAFSA and really go over all these questions in detail. So keep this date in mind, um, December 13th and refer your families to that. Um, I think it'll be really much more helpful than what I'm, I'm presenting today.

Um, and in a lot more detail.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: No, it's great, Susan. I just have one question that I think it might help to address here. Um, someone asked the question, is parent interchangeable with guardian? So I thought you might just want to address that.

Susan Beard: Right. So, um, for FAFSA purposes, it is not. A parent, a guardian, legal guardian or otherwise, is not obligated to put their information on the FAFSA.

Again, unless that guardian has adopted the child. Um, so a lot of times I'll see grandparents who have been a guardian for their child. grandchild for years and years and years, but never legally adopted them. And they do not have to put their information on the FAFSA. That child is considered independent for purposes of the FAFSA.

So in addition to the FAFSA, many of you may be familiar with the CSS profile and a lot of private colleges and universities require the CSS profile be collected as well as the FAFSA. It is not a free CSS profile like the free application for federal student aid, but it is it's, um, I'm just so impressed that the College Board has kept the price, the same for, I would say, almost a decade.

It does cost 25 to process and then 16 for each additional college to receive that information. But there are a few waivers available and apparent parental income or family income is less than 100, 000. Um, families can qualify for that. So that's a huge improvement over just even a few years ago. Fewer and fewer families do find that they have to shell out a lot of money for the CSS profile.

This application is available next week. Um, and it's sort of, I'd like to say it's the FAFSA on steroids. It asks many of the same questions that the FAFSA will ask, but also it goes into much greater detail. For instance, it'll ask for 2022 earned income, but it will also ask for 2023 and 2021 so it gives you, it gives the colleges a better Picture of a family situation and not just one year in time.

The CSS profile will also ask for home equity and the value of a home if a family owns a home as part of that information collection and colleges and universities will use the data from the CSS profile to determine eligibility for their own institutional grants and scholarships. So again, while the FAFSA collects information for federal student aid, and some colleges will use it for their own institutional resources, the CSS profile is collected with more data points to further refine a family's eligibility for institutional grants and scholarships.

So that could be confusing for families going through this process, especially if they've got three or 410 colleges that they're applying to. Um, so it's really important that they keep straight all the colleges across that Google spreadsheet will want the FAFSA, but only some of the colleges will want the the CSS profile.

And then some colleges will want a third application, their own institutional application, or they may have kind of taken the questions from the CSS profile and created their own institutional application. So again, that spreadsheet comes into play in helping families understand which colleges want which applications.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: And Susan, I have another question here. Does the CSS profile, um, have any retrieval technology with the IRS?

Susan Beard: That's the question. Yes and no. Um, unfortunately not. It is because the FAFSA is a federal form. They were able to, to work out all those systems that are necessary to, to have the data feedback and forth.

CSS profile is manually, all manually reported. So if a family asks you, this is kind of always an interesting data point. Um, Families will come to us and say, I don't have a whole weekend to do these forms and really it shouldn't take a whole weekend. The FAFSA, I think on average, Julie, I don't know if you've heard this, it takes less than 30 minutes for the FAFSA to be completed if everything goes smoothly.

The CSS profile I don't know the exact minutes, but I would I would say less than an hour so it does take a little bit longer again it depends how organized the family is if they have to pause and find tax returns or if they have to save it and go to an appointment or whatnot. It does, it can take it can, I guess, feel like it takes a weekend.

Um, I was just going to say having

Julie Shields-Rutyna: completed it a number of times, I'd say get a strong

Susan Beard: cup of tea, whatever that means. Right, absolutely. Yeah, I used to have a slide that I showed actually a cup of coffee and a bottle of ibuprofen before they actually did these forms but Um, the other tidbit to that you can tell your families as it gets easier after the first year, this first year is really, it can seem a little bit traumatic.

But if you're organized and if you just take it one, one question at a time, I think families who are form phobic are, are surprised to find out that the logic now incorporated into these forms do help them out in terms of filling, filling out, filling it out with fewer and fewer questions or hurdles.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: And just to follow up for the question, Susan, also, so what, what does someone need to complete their CSS profile? They need their tax return with them, pay stubs as well. Yep,

Susan Beard: tax return, um, W 2 forms, uh, income, or bank statements for, uh, the, the actual when, when, Families are asked for asset information. Um, it's as of the day that they fill out the form.

So to get a year end, uh, investment statement really wouldn't help unless, of course, you're filling it out on December 31st. Um, it's really the asset information, um, Oh, one question about value of homes. Some people say, you know, I don't know the value of my home. What do I have to hire an appraiser? And that's certainly I wouldn't recommend they have to do that.

They can use Zillow. They can talk to their neighbor down the street who might know of, you know, another house that's for sale and kind of what the neighborhood price is going for. Colleges and universities are very aware of the real estate market and which states have higher costs of living than other states.

You know, my house in Massachusetts is going to have a different value than my friend's house in Arkansas, even though her house is much, much bigger. And so those things are kind of built into the formulas that we use at our schools. So, um, For families that get too bogged down in, you know, knowing their home value to the dollar, help them relax a little bit and say, you know, a general idea is fine when they're putting down that value.

Um, but as far as their own investments, they should be able to be able to draw up. You know, they are as of today what what their investments are worth and put that on the profile and the FAFSA.

Okay, so I'm going to speed things up a little bit after you apply after that your students apply. They should know the colleges that's when we and state, state organizations get that information electronically. The students and families, parents contributors will receive. FAFSA submission summary, FSS.

That's a new, new term. Um, used to be the student aid report, SAR, but now it's a FAFSA submission summary by email. Again, if you have that family email, everybody will know that that process, that, um, application has been processed. Colleges may be in touch with you to, or with your families. To, uh, get additional information, verification documents, uh, some of you may know that FAFSAs are randomly chosen to, for verification.

And what that means is that colleges and universities, we get your FAFSA, we get a student's FAFSA, and sometimes we have to go an extra mile to verify all the data that's on that FAFSA. So, um, families should never feel like they're You know, singled out for any particular reason when they're selected for verification, just tell them to do what the college asks in a timely manner so that we can determine financial aid awards as quickly as possible.

So we'll review the FAFSA, we'll review the profile, we'll review the institutional aid application and determine a financial aid officer. Um, some colleges will release that financial aid office off. For with the admission decision, and some will do it a little bit later. So it all depends on the college but families should be aware, or ready for either answer, whether it will come together or not.

With the new. FAFSA not being available till December. I alluded to this a little bit earlier today that some schools are going to be using the CSS profile to determine earlier financial aid awards in the fall for their early decision and early action candidates. And then follow it up with a real award once the FAFSA is ready.

Um, College websites, those are critical to pay attention to this year because we are updating, NEEF is updating, we're all updating our information almost daily. It's not a joke, it's, we're, we're learning things each and every day. Um, and families, our main goal is to help families. Understand that they do not have to commit to a college without knowing how much it's going to cost them.

So, um, early action, early decision deadlines to deposit may be extended more than any other year so that families really do have ample amount of time to get a financial aid award and know what it will cost them to enroll. Verification I spoke about earlier, um, make sure your students and, and families, one, don't feel bad about being selected for verification and to comply with anything that the financial aid office is asking for.

Um, financial aid office is a great partner for your families for your parents and students, especially, I love when the students, email us and call us directly. Um, Nine out of ten times it is mom or dad or their adoptive parent, um, calling us. But a lot, when a student makes their way through and says, you know, I'm trying to get down to the bottom of what I need to do, we're so proud of them.

And, um, it can be scary for them to do, but it's part of life's lessons to take care of their, their business and their applications. Make sure that everything's in on time. Um, make sure they're relaying to the financial aid offices on college campuses, what. You know, there might be an extraordinary circumstance that a FAFSA is not gonna not gonna show, um, tax returns income situations back in 2022 could be very different than what's happening now, um, in 2023, or about to happen next year.

So make sure your students feel comfortable in reaching out or at least getting on a Zoom with their parent because the more they're aware, the more helpful it is once they progress into in college. This is the fun part. I think how decisions are made, how we calculate a school, uh, families or students financial aid packages, um, each and every year.

The students will fill out their applications for need based financial aid and we take the cost of attendance, which is, um, the typical things that you would think that go into a budget. Our college's tuition fees, mandatory fees, room and board if they are living on campus, um, lab fees, anything that is actually, uh, billed on a college bill, those are called direct or, um, build expenses.

That's part of our cost of attendance. The other part that goes into our budgeting are the non billed things. Um, students will have to obtain books and supplies, but that's different for every single student. So that's not on a college bill. Transportation to and from college. Um, we have students at Wheaton that live.

Down the street in Mansfield. We also have students at Wheaton that live in Hawaii, and their travel expenses are much different than the student that lives in Mansfield. So we build that transportation cost for our students that live further away into our, our budget and personal expenses that includes, um, Stuff that they need for their dorm stuff that they need to like a laptop or or anything that has to do with their collegiate experience or academic experience during the year will be built into the cost of attendance.

So once we have that budget, we will then take the results of the FAFSA and the profile, um, and It's now called rather, uh, used to be the expected family contribution for years and years and, um, families were rightly so under the impression that whatever the FAFSA said was their expected family contribution is what they had to pay.

Um, and that's not always the case many of you know that. That's the minimum amount that families will have to pay and then the colleges can do whatever they want in terms of filling that financial aid eligibility with their money. So now the results of the FAFSA are called, is called the Student Aid Index and it gives us an A number that enables us to determine eligibility for federal Pell Grant.

It will give us a number on which to base our financial aid packages, but it won't be as confusing I think for families, instead of hearing that expected family contribution. Now it's more of an index that allows us to assess eligibility. So that might be, hopefully, the intent is to be a little more simple for families to understand.

Colleges that require the profile will or may use an institutional formula. So it kind of takes that SAI and then adds a little bit a lot of times. Um, when, uh, when the profile requests the home equity, for example, that's going to increase the FAFSA SAI. Theoretically, if they have equity in their home.

Um, on the flip side, some colleges are still going to include or put emphasis on the number of students number of children in college in one academic year. So when the FAFSA formula does not include that. The CSS profile or the institutional formula at some colleges may include it. This is where it gets so tricky for families to understand like why is one form collecting this data and this other forms collecting another data and it's all for the same school and it all at the end of the day is to determine their eligibility for as much financial aid as possible for that family.

Julie, I'm so impressed to see that MIFA has an SAI calculator now for families to go in and to play around. Um, I am also going to use that SAI calculator, because it is such a different formula than, than what we, grew up with and know and love. So, um, I think it's a great tool for just to direct families to guidance counselors.

If you want to go in and play with it too. Um, you can see the questions, how the questions differ from last year or from prior years. And then, um, What we're doing, Julie, at our school, uh, for some families, for our returning students, is to take this year's EFC, plug it into the new SAI calculator, and see how much of it, of a change, if any.

The government is telling us, uh, friends at high schools, that this new formula was created to expand eligibility for students, for families to get more Pell Grants. Um, there are some populations, however, that will lose their Pell grant. Um, and those are the families with, um, where they would benefit from more than one in college and now they're not going to have that benefit.

So, colleges and universities are scrambling to figure out how we can help those families. Do we have the extra money to make up for loss of Pell grants, we're not sure. We don't know how really it's going to affect our returning students at this point. So that's a little bit too much in the weeds for everybody, but I just wanted to kind of tell you some of the things that, that we're grappling with, and that perhaps your families with older siblings in college may be asking questions

Julie Shields-Rutyna: about.

And thank you, Susan, because some of the questions behind the scenes have been about that. And yeah, yep.

Susan Beard: It's um, it's, it's. It'll even out in a few years, but these next couple years are going to be a little, um, a little tricky for families and if, if you have families asking, just encourage them to talk to the financial aid office.

We are more than happy to sit and take a little longer than usual to go over family situations and talk about what that means for them for future financial aid eligibility. So I'm going to quick, quick, quick go. I know everybody's probably got got things to do in a few minutes, but colleges, we will take our cost minus that student aid index and determine what the financial aid eligibility is for students.

And I fill this in real quick. When we award financial aid, we're going to take that SAI here at the bottom. That's the basis of what families will need to pay. And then we'll fill in this particular Used to be a barrel, but now it's a big chart. This block is it signifies the cost of the college. So it's this particular college costs 45, 000.

It's probably a private school. In our financial aid package here. We've got grants and scholarships of 27, 500 we've plugged in some student loans and a job on campus that is not Obligatory, it is optional, but it does count as financial aid. So this family has a total package that still leaves this unmet need at the top of 5, 000.

All said and done equals 45, 000. So this particular family, even though their SAI is 5, 000, that's their minimum amount they're going to pay. They're also going to be responsible for paying up to or, um, another 5, 000 or so. I feel like I'm not saying that very gracefully, but hopefully everybody got that, got the gist of that.

Um, net price calculated. And

Julie Shields-Rutyna: Susan, I don't know if this is the right place for that, but sometimes I think on either this chart or the coming up one. Someone asked, could you talk about how outside scholarships affect financial aid? So maybe

Susan Beard: that's a place or on the next slide. I like to talk about it here, actually.

Yeah, great. So while while all these resources on this page can't go above the cost of college 45, 000, there is still room, if you will, at the top of this chart, the unmet need is the amount of money that the college didn't fund for this particular family. And if they got an outside scholarship. From the local community organization or the Girl Scouts of America or Coca Cola or Bill Gates.

Um, that can fill that unmet need up to 5, 000 and then the family has resources that equal 45. Sometimes students will get even more in outside scholarships than their unmet need. You've all got some superstars I know at your high schools that are going to apply for lots of things are eligible for lots of things and then ultimately get more.

Then their unmet need, and it's really important for them to ask the colleges and universities what they'll do to the financial aid package. Most colleges, I'm happy to report will then go. If this particular student let's, in this example, receive 10, 000 of a scholarship. It fills in the 5000 of the unmet need, but then we would at Wheaton and a lot of other colleges will would remove the work and the loans, we would eat, eat, fill in these, what's called self help portion of the package.

The last thing colleges want to do is reduce their grants and scholarships. We want to reward the student for doing the research for receiving that outside award and. Help them, maybe not work their first year or maybe take less of a loan their first year. What does get tricky about these outside scholarships that students are sometimes surprised about is that they're only for one year.

They're not renewable so when you are directing your students to outside scholarship research. One of the key things is to find the renewable ones, so that that does give them that resource for not just the first year but for subsequent years as well. Net price calculators. Some of you may be using these already.

Each college and university has this on their website. It's a tool that we have that will enable families to get an estimate of if they applied to the college and were accepted what their financial aid would be, both merit and need based aid. Now I have to, Say that this with a caveat that most of our calculators are not up to date for 2425.

And that's simply because of this brand new formula, um, that the government is still releasing and our software developers are still implementing. So they're out there, but they really need to be taken with a grain of salt for this first transitional year. Here's another chart real quick. I'll try to explain as quickly as I can.

This is just to display how financial aid award letters can vary, even if the colleges all cost the same. So here are three colleges, A, B, and C, they all cost 45, 000, but you can see that each college awards very differently. We're back to our family with this SAI of 5, 000. And. You can see across the top line, College A probably has the biggest endowment because their scholarships are quite generous.

College B goes down a little bit and College C even further. Student loans that if you remember back to when I was talking about student loans, freshmen, first year students can borrow a maximum of 5, 500. So that's going to be a standard amount that most of your students will see in their packages. Work study very similarly ranges anywhere from 3, depending on where the college is located, but 2, 000 is a very, very common amount of employment to see on a package.

So the grants and the scholarships really are the thing that varies from college to college. So all three colleges cost 45, 000, but your student here has to grapple with unmet need of nothing or 7, 000 or 15, 000. So that college C is going to be the most expensive option for that, for that particular student.

Um, and the types of awards in financial aid award letters can vary so we've got these three colleges again all costing 45, 000 college a continues to be my favorite college with the most generous grants and scholarships, they put grants scholarships loans and work. With that unmet need of 5, 000 not so bad.

College B, though, has included this new line parent loan of 10, 000. So, at first glance, it looks like it's as generous as college a with the 35, 000 bottom line. But they've incorporated a plus or parent loan in this package and college see definitely not my favorite no grants and scholarships only loans in the package.

But again, at first glance, you would say, oh, they also gave us 35, 000, but really it's just in loans and. Only the student loan is guaranteed. The parent loans are based on credit. So schools that offer or put parent loans in a financial aid award letter are not doing families such a great service because that's not a guarantee they have to apply for those loans and be approved based on their credit.

But this is just a great example to show when a student shows you their financial aid award letters, they're all giving me 35, 000. They're there. The makeup of that money is very, very different.

Families have lots of different options to pay for colleges and here at Wheaton and all of my financial aid friends across the country. We are busy all spring and summer helping families figure out, um, as are my NIFA colleagues, helping families figure out how they can finance, let's say a 20, 000 bill.

So we do say kind of look at it from three ways. How much money do you have