Demystifying the Student Aid Index: What It Means for Your Financial Aid

Webinar Transcription

2025-11-11-Demystifying the Student Aid Index

Lydia: [00:00:00] Hello everyone. Welcome to, “Demystifying the Student Aid Index and What it Means for your Financial Aid.” My name is Lydia Hollon. I’m gonna be your moderator tonight, and I’m a senior advisor here at CollegeAdvisor. I’ve been with the company for about four years now, and in addition to advising students, I’m also a proud graduate of New York University.

Lydia: So this webinar is brought to you today by Juno. We’re very excited to have you so that you can learn more about financial aid and what it means for your family. To orient everyone with the webinar timing for tonight, we’re gonna start off with a presentation. Then answer your questions in a live q and a on the sidebar.

Lydia: You can download our slides and start submitting questions in the q and a tab. We’ll also be recording this session so that you [00:01:00] can review the webinar again later. Now let’s meet our presenter.

Eddy: All right. Hello everyone. Um, wanted to confirm an audio check. Um, I think we’re having some, some issues kind of backend, um, between, uh, Lydia and myself, but I’m hoping everyone can hear. So please paste, uh, something in the, in the chat. Let us know if everything’s good to go. Um, so we know that we’re good to go.

Lydia: I’m not seeing anything in the, 

Eddy: okay. 

Lydia: Okay, 

Eddy: great. Alright, sounds good. Perfect. All right, let’s do it. So, um, uh, Lydia and I will, we’ll coordinate kind of on the back end. Thank you for your help with the q and a, um, and I’m excited to get started. Thank you all for being here with us. Uh, [00:02:00] I’m Eddy. Uh, I’m excited to talk to you about the Student Aid Index.

Eddy: We have a lot of information to cover. And so I want to be mindful of our time together. Uh, I know there may be a lot of questions that come in and that’s great. Please feel free to ask your questions. Um, we will get to what we can. Um, but also just rest assured that if we are not able to answer your question, um, I’ll ask that.

Eddy: We, we will just download the, uh, the q and a and then I’ll work on responses on the backend so that anything we’re not able to cover, uh, we will end up getting a response back in, uh, emailing all of you. So please ask your questions. Um, they’re super helpful for many others as well, who are probably thinking similar, similarly along the lines as you are.

Eddy: And we will get to as many as we can during this live q and a, uh, the live q and a session that we have. But of course, if, uh, if we’re not able to cover any all of it, we’ll be sure to, um, to follow up with, with the response. So, I’m Eddy again. Uh, I’m here [00:03:00] at Juno. It’s a, it’s an honor to be presenting here because I actually am a Juno member.

Eddy: I’m a current, uh, graduate student at the Kellogg School of Management. And so I started with Juno actually as a user. Um, I am use, I used them to pay for my loans and ultimately I loved saving money. I ended up saving money, especially when, uh, when I had previously compared it to the grad loans. Uh, um, and so I started as a user and saved money and I really care a lot about that and hopeful, hopefully the same will be true for you.

Eddy: Now, I wanted to, uh, launch just a quick poll here to get a sense of who is joining us today.

Eddy: All right, we’ll give it just a [00:04:00] little bit longer.

Eddy: All right. Today, can you share the results as well? 

Lydia: Yes. So looking at responses, we have 1% in ninth grade. So early bird gets the worm, uh, 29% and 11th, 55% in 12th and 15% in that other or parent category. So we’ve got a nice healthy mix going on.

Eddy: All right. So I see as well many 12th graders. Great to see a lot of in 11th grad, and then other potentially parents or even college students. Um, so let’s jump in. Uh, I I wanted to [00:05:00] talk to you about how student aid works. Um, so for the next hour, so we will, uh, go through various items of this agenda, but really starting with an overview of the timeline.

Eddy: So what happens between when you submit the fafsa, um, all the way through the point of the tuition bill being due. Now again, some of, uh, some of the seniors in the room may have actually already applied, and if that’s the case, uh, in the early, the early deadlines, which the earliest deadlines were November 1st, and some of them are all throughout the, uh, throughout November, this is certainly gonna be especially relevant for you and additionally for any seniors who may be applying regular decision.

Eddy: Certainly even on, uh, younger students who are navigating through this process, um, parents of younger students to figure out what exactly, uh, this number is and how it’s, how it’s meaningful for your financial aid award. Um, so this is gonna be important, uh, within the context of our conversation today, as well as future webinars.

Eddy: Um, we’ll just talk about an overview of what, [00:06:00] uh, the student aid Index actually is. Um, filling out the FAFSA is an important part of the process and it’s gonna give you a number. The number used by is used by financial aid offices to ultimately create your financial aid award or the, uh, the financial aid package that you will receive that tells you how much you then are expected to pay.

Eddy: Um, so we’ll walk through that, uh, tonight, um, so that you have a good understanding of how this number is calculated.

Eddy: So we’ll start off again by, uh, if you’ve joined us for a, for the previous presentation that we hosted on the fafsa, uh, we have that available for you. Uh, we can in the follow-up, we can also include it again, if that’d be helpful. But the first step is, again, filling out the fafsa, which is gonna be really important for anyone who is attending college in the fall of 2026.

Eddy: Um, every, you can actually fill it out, seniors, a again, it opened a few days before August 1st. Typically it will go [00:07:00] live, uh, excuse me, October 1st. It will typically go live October 1st, every single year. This year it opened a few days early, uh, in late September. But even if you are an, uh, a younger student, you can actually fill out the FAFSA and it doesn’t go anywhere.

Eddy: You don’t have to send it to colleges. Um, ’cause that is part of the application process is you select a list of colleges to send it to. But if you wanna get a, an early start, especially for the parents as well in the room, if you wanna get an early start on understanding what exactly is gonna be expected, what documents are gonna be asked of you, then you’re more than welcome to create an account.

Eddy: Now, I would say just be, make sure you remember your login credentials because your F-S-A-I-D, uh, which is your, the credentials for your FAFSA is unique to you and it’s unique to your social security number. So just make sure you remember your credentials. But you’ll get this, uh, once you complete the fafsa, you will get this student aid index, or SAI as I’ve been referring to it.

Eddy: [00:08:00] Um, this is gonna be the important number that we’ll walk through, uh, over the course of this evening that talks about what your overall package is. So for regular decision, again, um, these early and regular decision, uh, this is what financial officers are using to calculate your aid. Um, we will host another, uh, uh, uh, a series of other webinars as well as we go through the process.

Eddy: Uh, when you apply to appeal appealing financial aid. After you’ve received it. Um, then, uh, families will decide ultimately which school to attend. Looking at other options for funding sources, potentially additional scholarships, uh, that may be available to the students if you do need to take out loans to help fill the gap, um, before that tuition date is due.

Eddy: So allow me to just, uh, share one quick thing here before we dive in. Um, this year there’s been, there will be some changes for anyone who’s a current high school senior and younger. [00:09:00] Uh, and so what’s important to, uh, to, to know is that as a result, as a result of legislation that passed in Congress over the summer, there will be reduced loan limits for parents in future years.

Eddy: So if, if anyone is listening is either already enrolled in college or is a parent of a current college student and you have taken out a parent plus loan, which is an, an opportunity for the parent to borrow in their name to help pay for college, then you are actually eligible to be grandfathered in to the old terms of the Parent plus loan, which as you see, uh, the current policy is the borrowing limit is the, uh, up to the cost of attendance.

Eddy: Um, and there’s no lifetime limit for that. Now for anyone who is a high school senior or the parent of a high school, senior and younger, um, this will apply most directly to your, uh, to your class years and, and younger, such that your new borrowing limit for the Parent plus program will be $20,000 [00:10:00] annually with a lifetime limit of $65,000.

Eddy: So it may be the case where it’s 20,000, your first, uh, freshman year of high, uh, college, excuse me, 20,000 sophomore year, 20,000 junior year, and then 5,000 in the senior year of college. It’s important to note this is a big change that resulted, uh, we’ll certainly talk more about this, uh, in future webinars as well.

Eddy: But it’s important to know how much and the capacity you have to borrow, um, as a result of these updated changes to, um, federal loan policy. Now, I won’t get too much into this. Um, actually, let me, I’ll come back to this ’cause I wanna be mindful of our time here. Um, I’ll come back to more, more on Juno here.

Eddy: But today again, we’re, we’re gonna focus on, um, the Student Aid Index, um, and important to get a grasp of this and the steps that are involved in the process. We’ll go through the calculations of how to understand it. It is gonna be a little bit of a more, uh, intense, uh, calculation [00:11:00] webinar than maybe, uh, in previous ones if, if you’ve attended any in the past.

Eddy: But ultimately, the goal is to give you a good understanding of how the Student Aid Index works, how it’s calculated, and ultimately how it impacts that Financial aid award, that calculation of the Financial Aid Award. Now, once you get that number again, it will determine whether or not you can appeal, how you should appeal, and how the SAI fits into the appeals process.

Eddy: So again, um, this is gonna be a number that collects data, uh, from several different sources. Uh, it’s based on a formula that Congress has, uh, created and families are asked to submit the FAFSA in order to collect information on income, on family assets and family size. Um, all these pieces of information that you put in then turn into a single number.

Eddy: It boils down into this student aid index. [00:12:00] And so this is the number that’s helpful for financial office offices to then determine how much you can, or, uh, how much financial help you, you may or may not need in order to attend college. Now it’s not a perfect number. Um, not everything in the financial aid, in your financial aid picture can be captured on the fafsa.

Eddy: Uh, it really is a starting point that’s meant to be. Applicable to the broadest set of people. So just know that, um, I wanted to emphasize that, um, there are, though there is gonna be specific ways that this number is calculated. It is not perfect. Um, and as a result, this is gonna serve as the basis and the foundation of any potential appeals that come in the future.

Eddy: In terms of, um, focusing on what the, uh, what the [00:13:00] SAI is, again, I wanna, uh, I wanna explain it by giving an example, um, at the, and we’ll walk through an example. At the highest level, the student aid index is not a financial aid award, so I wanna be clear about that. It’s a number that the office will use, the financial office will use to then calculate the how to allocate various aspects of federal funding and other sources of, of funding.

Eddy: In order to maximize how much aid that they can give you, um, it ranges from negative 1500 to a really large number. Uh, in itself, the number doesn’t mean much. Um, but usually the lower the number, uh, the, the better, uh, the more financial aid you’ll, uh, you will qualify for. So this is a way for I, uh, admissions of financial aid officers to determine how much you may actually need in terms of aid.

Eddy: So if you’re in at a negative 1500, that means you qualify for the most, uh, financial aid, or you, you [00:14:00] know, you need the most financial assistance in order to help pay for college.

Eddy: The way they’re gonna use it, uh, is sort of at this very basic level. So financial need is very specific in the way that the office is trying to calculate. Uh, and the formula is taking the total cost of attendance. Um, in this case, we’re using just an example of $20,000. That includes tuition fees, um, any other living room and board health insurance, anything that’s expected of you, uh, as part of paying, uh, the cost associated with college.

Eddy: From there, the aid office will subtract the student aid index number, and again, this what’s calculated from the FAFSA and what’s left with then the difference between them is what is projected to be your total need. So the lower the number as you, as you can see, the more you need. So if, if your student aid index was [00:15:00] zero, then your financial need for a $20,000 institution would be $20,000.

Eddy: If your student aid index, let’s say, was. 50,000 and your total cost of attendance of the school is only 20,000, then you would have zero financial need. Um, because it would be determined that based on income and assets you can cover the full cost of attendance.

Eddy: Now we often get a question of how do you find this number? Where does it come from? So you’ll get a copy of this presentation. Uh, you don’t have to take detailed notes unless you want to, but there’s gonna be two times that you see it. The first is when you submit the fafsa, uh, and then you’ll get an estimated student aid index.

Eddy: And then about a few days later, uh, you’ll see on the FAFSA submission summary that there will be a con, a confirmed Student Aid index number. So you can find this on student aid.gov, which is the website where you will fill out [00:16:00] the fafsa. You’ll be able, once you get your, uh, official Student aid index, then that’ll give you a better picture of your, uh, financial expectations and how, again, how financial offices will use that number to subtract from the total cost of attendance to determine your financial need.

Eddy: It, it, in the number in itself is not the financial aid award. I just wanted to emphasize that again. Um, it will be used to calculate your financial, uh, financial aid package by the financial officers, and they’re trying to figure out how to best equitably allocate their resources, both federal and institutional resources, in order to be distributed across all students who’ve applied and were admitted.

Eddy: Now, again, this is a formula that’s made up of several different components. Uh, we’ll walk through each of these next components over the next half hour or so. Um, and then before we continue, um, moving, moving forward, so. The first thing that is going to cal that we’re gonna calculate [00:17:00] is called the parent contribution.

Eddy: So when you submit your fafsa, there’s gonna be a lot of information that you provide about your income, uh, and your assets as a parent, and then that’s gonna get boiled down to a single number called the Parent Contribution. Um, now what’s also gonna be expected is that the student contributes to their education.

Eddy: So, um, the, so it will ask, uh, the formula will ask for student income and also for student assets. Um, this is what’s available in the student’s name in order to help pay for college. So all of these numbers go into calculating the final SAI from the financial aid award. Uh, they all get it, they all get added together, and we’ll go through, uh, how we derive each of these.

Eddy: Now, it’s also important to understand that, um. The income that you report on your FAFSA is always based on what’s called prior, prior year. You may have heard this if you were, if you attended our previous, um, FAFSA 1 0 1 [00:18:00] session. So prior, prior year is income data from two years ago. So for any, uh, students who are going to college in, uh, senior, any seniors who are gonna college in the fall of 2026, then, excuse me, any stu, any students who are going, yeah, co going to college in the fall of 26, 20 26, you will use your 2024 tax data to fill out the fafsa.

Eddy: Now, for anyone who’s entering involved 2027, you’ll use 2025 tax data and so on. Um, now you will have to fill out the FAFSA every single year. So make sure every, every year you update it with the, uh, the next year’s, uh, tax documents. The assets will be based though on the value of those assets at the time of submission of the fafsa.

Eddy: So we have income that’s based on two years, uh, ago data prior, prior year, but assets being based on the value of their worth at the time of completion.[00:19:00] 

Eddy: We will go through, uh, a very specific example over the course of the next several slides. And just for simplicity, uh, in this case, let’s just assume, uh, that we’re submitting the FAFSA and, and to calculate the eight index. And this is for a family of four, um, with a dependent student and the parents are married and filing jointly.

Eddy: Again, we’re just keeping it a, a fairly straightforward example here. We’ll assume that the parents combined income, uh, is $80,000. This is the adjusted gross income, um, for the relevant tax year that they’re, uh, submitting. And we’re gonna assume, uh, assets of $50,000. Uh, this excludes the value of primary residence as well as it also excludes any retirement accounts.

Eddy: We’re also gonna make the assumption that the student has, uh, $15,000 of income and about $2,000 of assets in the form of a savings account. [00:20:00] We’ll be using this example all throughout, uh, to determine how the Student Aid Index is calculated. So in this first example. We’re gonna go through, uh, first calculating the parent available income.

Eddy: Um, so again, bear with me ’cause we’re gonna go through some, um, some more specific numbers here. Um, but it’s important I think for you all to see how this, uh, ultimately plays into the overall calculation. So the first section here is going to be to calculate the parent contribution at the end of it. And we start with parent available income.

Eddy: So like we mentioned, you’ll use let’s say 2024 tax data for anyone who’s starting college in the fall of 2026. So, uh, if you had some, uh, some in the $80,000 income, uh, as we mentioned, you’ll then we’ll subtract the taxes from that. Um, so we can’t count that as part of the income ’cause that’s not gonna be available to help pay for college.

Eddy: And then there’s also a certain level of income that is excluded. Uh, there’s an entire [00:21:00] chart, uh, that’s available. Uh, on the student aid, uh, website. Um, but this is all public knowledge. So, uh, depending on family size, a certain, uh, a certain level and number of your income is protected, uh, in the expectation that you still need those available resources to help pay for everyday expenses to pay for your mortgage and everything else.

Eddy: So that piece of it will get excluded from the total parent income, uh, and as we see the re the remaining available income, uh, will be just under $15,000. Now, from that, we’ll take it to

Eddy: the next step where, uh, we see the parent contribution from assets. So, at first we started with income, uh, parent available income, and now we’re gonna focus on, uh, available assets. [00:22:00] We assumed, again, a family of 50, uh, with a net worth of $50,000. We just made this up for the sake of the example. Um, but we oftentimes get, uh, uh, get questions about what to include or not to include in the FAFSA form.

Eddy: Um, and there’s some important things that you shouldn’t be including at all. Um, again, we have a, a if, if anyone was here at, at our last presentation, we have a specific slide that covers this. Um, and again, we can link to it so that you can reference it, uh, in in future, uh, in future for, uh, reference it, uh, in the future.

Eddy: But what I’ll just say kind of, uh, very broadly is that you don’t wanna include the value of your primary home. Um, that should not be in the FAFSA calculations. And then additionally, you don’t wanna report any retirement accounts that you have. Um, there’s a few other things that, uh, that you can exclude as well as things that you should include.

Eddy: So the assets are based on how much you have in your account or in your possession at the [00:23:00] time of filling out the form. So you may have, uh, you know, savings, uh, various different savings account you may have stocks that you own, other investment properties. Um, how much are they worth? Then when you’re filling out the fafsa, you’re gonna include those in this total of net worth of assets.

Eddy: Now you won’t be using the entire value, uh, or you won’t be expected to, to leverage the entire value of those assets that you have in order to pay for college. There are two sets of adjustments that the formula makes. Um, and so, uh, at, at the net worth of assets, we will be, uh, assessed at a 12% conversion rate.

Eddy: So only 12% of that $50,000 is going to. Be added to the total parent contribution here, which then filters into the total Student aid index. So again, that $6,000 number is going to be what we use, uh, for the [00:24:00] sake of, uh, for the sake of the parent, uh, uh, uh, the available parent, um, contribution from assets specifically.

Eddy: Then from there, uh, we will add these up, uh, and get the total amount. Um, and so this $20,840 is what the Department of Education thinks that you have a available to help pay for school. Um, it’s gonna be a combination of, uh, what we calculated from the parent available income portion as well as the parent contribution from the assets.

Eddy: So that’s how we get to 20,840. Now, there’s one more adjustment that we have to make before we get to the final parent contribution. So, uh, from there, it, the 20,800, uh, 40 is what they’ve determined to help pay for school, uh, in terms of the federal formulas. Um, but they’re not gonna, the government is not gonna ask you to put all of that towards school.[00:25:00] 

Eddy: Instead, we have this additional adjustment. Um, and as you can see from the chart, you can almost think about it as, uh, tax brackets. Um, so these incremental marginal tax brackets that, uh, that the US has. So of the available income, uh, the parent adjusted available income that you have. Then we’ll look at the chart and say, essentially for the, um, for the first 21,800 that’s gonna be assessed at a 22% rate, then anything beyond that from 21 thou, uh, 21,801 to 27,300, that piece of it.

Eddy: Will get assessed at a 25% rate. So not the total amount, but the first 21,800 is under the 22% rate and then et cetera, et cetera. It just keeps, it will keep going at this, uh, at this marginal rate. Now, if you end up, uh, having a parent, uh, a parent adjusted available income of over [00:26:00] $43,900, then effectively any amount above that is going to be assessed at the marginal rate of 47%.

Eddy: So that’s how this is adjusted. Um, and so once you get anything above that, uh, you’ll get to the marginal, the top marginal rate.

Eddy: Now, that was a lot. I know we’re going through it, uh, relatively quickly here. Um, but we will look at, uh, what’s called a sensitivity table, um, which is the. Uh, it’s sort of a chart and distribution of available assets and income and what the Student Aid Index, uh, is projected to be. Now, there there are scenarios where families can have a really high income and small amount of assets, or vice versa, a very large amount of in, uh, of assets and a low income.

Eddy: Um, either way, there may still be a, [00:27:00] a fairly large contribution to the state, uh, to the Student Aid Index. Now, you, again, the way that, uh, these numbers are calculated, you won’t end up having to contribute all of your income or all of your assets to paying for college. Uh, there are a lot of reductions that go into it.

Eddy: Um, as we showed, there are some certain adjustments that we make in order to then, uh, lower that amount, um, because again, families still do have to live. They still have to pay, you know, in, uh, rent. They still have to pay for groceries and other daily living expenses. One. Um, one really important piece again, as we mentioned, is when you, um, when you are reporting your assets, again, report it at the time of, um, at the time that you are submitting the fafsa, there’s something that we see sort of some confu, some confusion about, uh, and a lot of questions end up coming from it.

Eddy: Now, we then [00:28:00] get to this final parent contribution number, uh, after the 22%, um, uh, contribution rate. So we land at $4,585, uh, from the, from the beginning, $80,000 of income, $50,000 of assets only for about $4,500. A little over $4,500 for the upcoming school year is going to be expected to be contributed to the Student Aid index, uh, and the calculations here.

Eddy: So. The next ones, uh, are gonna be simpler to calculate. Um, again, uh, the FAFSA will be, uh, the FAFSA form will determine, um, how the student income gets treated. Uh, and then we’ll also look at student assets. We’ve calculated the hard part, uh, to get that first 45, 85 number.

Eddy: Now, [00:29:00] we made the assumption that the student has a $15,000 income. Um, again, this would’ve been the income they received two years ago, um, because it’s still uses prior, prior year data even for the student. Um, for most students, it’s, uh, it’s gonna, their income is gonna be a lot smaller than this. Some students have no income, and so that’s, that’s okay.

Eddy: But we’re just using this for the sake of the example, so we can see how much gets calculated. There is also a set of allowances against the income. Uh, and we can see here that, again, we’ll subtract taxes paid, and then there’s an $11,770, um, allowance or, uh, consideration based on the student’s, uh, dependent income.

Eddy: So this is subtracted from that total amount. It’s just an amount that has been preset, uh, for any student. So if, if a student earns certainly less than that, then their student, their student available income would be zero. Uh, let’s say a student had a 15 a a $10,000 student income, [00:30:00] they’re gonna be below the total, uh, allowance of uh, just about 11,800.

Eddy: So your available income at that point would, would be zero in the case of this student. Uh, we subtract taxes and then that, uh, and then that allowance, uh, which is gonna give us, get us to the $583 number that you see in student available income. Now we have to take one more step from here. Um, this is not the end of the story.

Eddy: From there, available student income is, is then calculated, or it’s assessed at a 50% rate. So it’s fairly straightforward here. We just take that 5 83 number, we cut it in half, and this will be the final student contribution from income that we can then add into the greater formula.

Eddy: Now the last big piece that we’ll focus on is the student [00:31:00] assets. Um, this is gonna be even simpler. Uh, and so we assumed, again, a $2,000, uh, uh, savings account for the student as of the day the FAFSA was submitted. Uh, we are going to take a 20% assessment of that number, and that’s gonna be how much the student is expected to contribute from their assets.

Eddy: So, 20,000 times 20, uh, two, excuse me, 2000 times 20%, we’re gonna include $400 to the student aid calculation, uh, which will be, uh, part of the overall calculation. Now, one important note here that I think everyone should consider is student assets are assessed at a higher rate than parent assets. Um, so a 20% rate, uh, versus a maximum 5.64% rate of parent assets.

Eddy: Parents typically have a lot more expenses usually than students in almost all cases. Um, again, assuming a student is a [00:32:00] dependent student and not considered an independent student for FAFSA purposes, but in that case, colleges know and, and the government knows that, um, parents have a lot more bills to pay, um, and other responsibilities to take care of.

Eddy: Um, so parent, parent assets are assumed, uh, assessed at a lower rate than the student assets.

Eddy: As we bring all of that together, we see a few, uh, a final student in student aid index number. So we’ve gone through all of the tough math. Um, uh, I hope you’re still sticking with me through, through all that. Um, I know it was a lot that we went through relatively quickly, um, but. Uh, we, we then use all of those numbers that we’ve calculated to come up with this total Student aid index, this final Student aid index number.[00:33:00] 

Eddy: Um, this was a, a family with $80,000, um, income, $50,000 in assets. Uh, and they’re contributing a total of, uh, again, they were, uh, their, from their portion of it, the 45 85 number from the parent side of things, the student aid, uh, the student income was $15,000, which ended up translating to a final $291 of student available income.

Eddy: And then that $2,000, uh, student asset piece. From there, we assessed it at a 20% rate to get that final $400 number. So we finally made it to the Student Aid Index of $5,276. Again, as we think about this number and what it means, uh, you know, at face value and. May, may not mean much, um, but we’ll go through and show, uh, exactly how it’s going to, how to interpret it, and what it means for the level of financial aid that you receive.

Eddy: As a reminder, the lower the student [00:34:00] aid index number that you see, that signifies a higher need. So again, the numbers from negative 1500 to upwards of almost, you know, 999,000, um, the lower your number, the more aid, uh, you’re going to be expected to need to help pay for college.

Eddy: There’s a lot on this slide as well. Uh, and so bear with me for a moment just as I walk through this in understanding how the student eight number. Uh, actually means in the context of the type of school that you may be attending. Uh, and particularly here we have, uh, calculations for the financial need of the cost of attendance of a school up to $40,000.

Eddy: Uh, and then also, uh, cost of attendance of up to $90,000. [00:35:00] Now in this grid, um, this is really just meant to show how the Student Aid index for a family of four, uh, where the parents, again, are married and filing jointly. Were making these assumptions, um, based on the income that you see on the left hand side.

Eddy: Uh. And also the assets across the top. Uh, these are approximations, of course. There’s, there are always, uh, more nuances that go into it, um, than, uh, and, and that are more precise and exact numbers, um, based on what’s input into the fafsa. Um, but this is a general estimation of what, uh, what the calculations for a family of four would, uh, would result in.

Eddy: Um, so let’s say, for example, if we are looking at this, uh, and there’s $250,000 of assets, uh, across the top and let’s say 200,000 in income, uh, that, that falls squarely in the middle of this chart. And so you’re, you’re going to [00:36:00] look to, to receive about a $53,000 or 53,000 student aid index. Um, this is fairly high.

Eddy: Uh, and so it’s als it’s high in the perspective from the perspective of the financial office in terms of what they may be able to provide. But, um, what, what, what we have to focus on here is that, um, the, the school may or may not be able to provide available resources. Um. Based on the cost of the school itself.

Eddy: So if you remember from ear from earlier, we take the total cost of attendance, and from that we subtract the SAI number to calculate the total need. So if the, if the cost of attendance is high and you have a 53 th, uh, 53,000 student aid index number, then you may still qualify for some level of financial aid.

Eddy: Uh, anytime there’s a gap between the cost of attendance and you have a [00:37:00] lower SAI number, then there’s going to be a determined financial need. Um, now these are ways in which financial offices are able to, um, to capture your family situation in order to best allocate their resources to you. Um, what you see here in the yellow is.

Eddy: Really what it’s meant to communicate is that if your cost of attendance is $40,000, then various different combinations of income and assets in any of these yellow cells. You may receive, um, financial aid on a needs based needs, uh, needs aid basis, basis. For the green areas that you see here, uh, we’re assuming a more expensive college, uh, degree, uh, upwards of a cost of total cost of attendance of $90,000.

Eddy: Now, in those cases, uh, you might still be [00:38:00] eligible for some form of school-based aid, uh, de uh, depending on exactly where your SA SAI number is. But, uh, given the total cost of attendance is relatively on the higher side at 90,000, if, uh, if any combination of parents, parent assets or parent income falls in a, in sort of these.

Eddy: Rough estimates of green cells, then you can expect to receive some level of financial need. And then towards the bottom, uh, more the red cells, usually, uh, these are cases in which a school is not going to be able to offer you much, uh, much or any financial need. Uh, so we’ll go through again some examples of how this might look, uh, from the perspective of a financial aid officer.

Eddy: Now, uh, federal aid is only one piece of aid that can be available. Um, there is also institutional aid, as I’ve mentioned. Uh, this is money that the school has [00:39:00] available, uh, to allocate towards families, uh, typically come, comes from their own institutional financial aid budgets, uh, every single year. Now, these are really meant to, um.

Eddy: To show the perspective from the federal aid side, um, there can be different rules and different cutoffs, um, per school. So schools will use both fe Some schools may use federal methodology to calculate it based, based on, based off of the fafsa. Other sch uh, schools may also use a combination of both that and institutional methodology to allocate any of their institutional funds that they have available to them.

Eddy: But what the ultimate message here is the, and the key, really the key takeaway is that, um, income is a big driver of eligibility, uh, uh, for student aid index. Um, ’cause once you really get to the higher numbers here, um, you know, in the $300,000 range, depending on sometimes 250,000, uh. You know, depending on your [00:40:00] assets, and again, the cost of the school, it may be unlikely that you would qualify for, um, for much, uh, assistance.

Eddy: Your, your student aid index number is gonna be fairly high at that point, um, for, for students to then students and families to be receiving, you know, significant type of financial assistance.

Eddy: Now, I wanted to share, uh, just, uh, quickly as well how certain, certain strategies that families can use to potentially minimize the Student Aid Index. Um, now. There’s not a lot of, you know, really significant or, you know, crazy sophisticated things that you can do to change that number. Um, I mentioned this ’cause, you know, there may be some, some services out there that will try to like, you know, you get you to pay to minimize, you know, your SAI number.

Eddy: Um, you know, the degree to which you can do, do so is fairly limited, [00:41:00] but there are some factors that you can consider, at least in terms of the pieces of information that then ultimately get calculated into this final number. So the first piece of that is considering the timing of purchasing a particular asset.

Eddy: Um, there’s some, some, one of the quirks of the FAFSA is in how the Student Aid Index gets calculated is, is again, in how you’re reporting assets and, um, when. You report them based on the time of when you’re submitting the form, as we mentioned before. So at, on that particular day, at that particular time, you calculate the value of those assets and that’s when you report them.

Eddy: So if you, if you know, for example, that you may need to purchase a new vehicle or you, you know, maybe something more urgent like, uh, uh, a new roof ’cause you just had a leak or you know, [00:42:00] your HVAC system went out, whatever the case might be. Uh, these are not considered assets in the, for the purposes of the fafsa.

Eddy: And so if you do use available funds from a savings account to purchase these things, then that is a reduction in available assets that does get calculated into something that is not showing up on. On the FAFSA form and is not calculated in the Student aid index at all. Now, I also wanna be clear here, I’m not encouraging irresponsible spending.

Eddy: Um, this is merely an example to share. If you know, again, you’ve known for a while that maybe you do need a new roof, um, that’s an opportunity for you to then reduce some of the available, um, asset information, uh, for something that is already needed for your, uh, for your family, and of which it will not get reported on the fafsa.

Eddy: Uh, the [00:43:00] second point ends, a common mistake that we see here is, uh, that the folks, uh, folks oftentimes forget to report the net value, uh, or, uh, you know, or I should say for the third point, um, families, uh, families forget to, that they need report the, the net value, not the total value. Um, so make sure you subtract any.

Eddy: Uh, any debt that you hold. So let’s say if you do have an investment property, uh, it’s worth $500,000 and you have a mortgage on it of $300,000, um, you don’t report the full value of the 500. Um, you would then at that point report $200,000 ’cause you still have a mortgage on the property so that you’re still reporting the net value.

Eddy: Um, now there’s been also a change on the FAFSA for the upcoming year on small businesses, um, that are excluded. Uh, so whether you live on a farm or also commercial, uh, fishing businesses were included in this so that those assets [00:44:00] are excluded. Uh, 5 29 plans, uh, are reported as an asset on the fafsa, uh, in the parent’s name, uh, Ty most typically.

Eddy: Um, but if someone else holds a 5 29 plan, uh, outside of the parent or the student, there’s actually nowhere to report this on the fafsa, so it’s not included at all. Um, now this could be, uh, a 5 29 plan that the parent, that the grandparent, excuse me, uh, owns, uh, it’s in their name. Uh, it could be an aunt, an uncle, a, you know, a friend, uh, if they’re so willing.

Eddy: Um, but for the purposes of the fafsa, that actually is not included anywhere. Uh, if it’s not in the parent or the student’s name, it’s not considered an asset. Um, so that’s a, uh, one strategy that families can think about.

Eddy: Family size is an important part in the overall calculation of [00:45:00] the financial aid award. So it may seem like an obvious, uh, thing, but make sure that if family size has changed in any way, please update that on your FAFSA form. Um, because family size very strongly indicates the, um, the amount of. Uh, protections, that’s, uh, income protections especially that, um, that gets excluded for the purpose of the SAI calculations.

Eddy: Um, again, financial officers, the government understand that, you know, feeding a family of, uh, six or seven is very different than, you know, provide or, you know, feeding and providing for a, a larger family is very different than providing for a family of three. So, household size is crucial here. Um, this can include grandparents if the family’s caring for more than 50% of grandparents, uh, everyday needs.

Eddy: Uh, and of course it could include, um, you know, um, [00:46:00] births in the family as well. Now, uh, we’ll talk again more about this, uh, but. Uh, more about this, uh, in future webinars as well. Um, it’s important to, uh, to appeal a financial aid award if the, uh, if income that you report from prior, prior years data is not indicative of your current financial situation.

Eddy: Um, it is one of the largest reasons to appeal, and you absolutely should appeal if, uh, income data from two years ago is no longer relevant. Um, particularly if there’s been a, a reduction in income. Certainly there may be an increase in income, and if that’s the case that will get, uh, reviewed in future years.

Eddy: But especially if there’s been a loss of income, a reduction of income in any way, it could be unemployment, parent may have gone, gone, laid off, um, or they could have just had to take a reduction in salary. Then whatever, for whatever reason, that’s gonna be a, a very significant [00:47:00] reason to appeal the financial aid decision.

Eddy: So that admission, uh, uh, admissions offices and financial offices, uh, particularly financial offices as well, can capture that in, um, in the up updated, uh, updated calculations and they can leverage professional judgment to make accommodations and, uh, slightly modify the expectations that’s, uh, that the family will have to pay.

Eddy: Alright, so then, uh, we’ll just talk a little bit again how the Student Aid Index impacts the federal student, um, AID award now, uh. We’ll, uh, we’ll sort of assume, uh, pretend I’m a financial officer for the next couple slides, uh, who’s doing my best to calculate a, an aid package for this family? Um, now we’ll use the same examples that we’ve been talking about throughout this family of four income of $80,000 where, uh, parents are filing jointly where we [00:48:00] ultimately ended up with this student aid index number of 5,276.

Eddy: So what we’ll do now is we’ll walk through the, how you get from the total cost of attendance. Uh, you know, that sticker price that you oftentimes see, uh, associated with colleges to, uh, the school and the level of financial need that the school thinks that you and the family have. And then the various different sources of, of money that, uh, that, uh, financial officers can provide to help minimize that, uh, that total, uh, total financial.

Eddy: Um, in this example we’ll go through again, uh, estimating or the cost of attendance at about $20,000, just to keep it simple. Um, so once you filled out the fafsa, then you’ve got that student aid index number of 52 76 that will get subtracted from the total cost of attendance to get your total need, your final need of [00:49:00] $14,724.

Eddy: Now, from the perspective of the financial aid officer who’s putting this together, you know that number, uh, that 5,300, about 5,300 number is what the family has available. And then, uh, the remaining amount of about 14,700 is there. So. I’m then looking at, you know, financial officers are gonna be looking at various different resources that could be available, uh, from the federal side, especially to offer, uh, grants and scholarships that don’t have to be paid back.

Eddy: Now, it may not always be the case that it’s, uh, free money. There are certain there are other options available, but the first, uh, the first case of it really will be thinking about grants and scholarships, uh, as much as possible. So I’ll look to that to, uh, consider minimizing the financial need on behalf of the family as much as possible.[00:50:00] 

Eddy: Now, we’ll, we ended up with this total financial need, uh, above about 14,700 as I just mentioned. And, uh, we’ll then calculate, uh, what opportunities we have available to then start minimizing that. So as we look to, uh, grants available, uh, the first thing is con to consider Pell Grants, which is a federal grant that’s given, uh, it’s not anything that has to be paid back by the family.

Eddy: Uh, there’s different ways that a family can qualify for Pell. Um, but generally what’s important to understand here is that the lower your Student aid index number, the more Pell grants you’re able to qualify for. Um. So again, if your student aid index is higher, um, then you may not, you’re not likely to be eligible, um, for this first bucket of funding, um, that is grant money and doesn’t have to be paid back.

Eddy: Uh, [00:51:00] so you can qualify for up to $7,395. Um, that’s the maximum Pell Award. Uh, if parents don’t, are not required to file taxes or if the adjusted gross income of the families, uh, below this threshold, uh, this federal, uh, federal poverty threshold, uh, range. Um, and then families can also still qualify for the minimum Pell Grant as well of seven $740.

Eddy: So, uh, it, it may be a range anywhere between those numbers based on where the, um, where the family income is.

Eddy: Now again, um, this is part of the buckets of funding that is available to. Offer up to $7,395. Um, we will take the student aid index amount and then we’ll subtract that from the maximum PE award to then provide the number that you see of [00:52:00] $2,119 for this year, uh, for the student in terms of their Pell Grant.

Eddy: So this is gonna be, uh, the amount of money for this current academic year that the student qualifies for. This will get reassessed every single year because you have to apply for financial every single year. The Student Aid index can change every single year. Um, but, uh, here is, uh, an option. And this, in the case of this student, they will actually qualify for a small amount of the Pell Grant.

Eddy: Now, the next option to consider is the Federal Supplemental Education Opportunity Grant. Um, there’s still need beyond that we can see, uh, for the family. Uh, even after considering Pell. So we’ll go to the next step. Uh, and financial officers can offer up to $4,000 through this second grant. Um, and this is funding that’s available through the federal government.

Eddy: Now, the amount that a student can qualify for is gonna vary by school and by institution. Um, each school has slightly different ways in which they’ll [00:53:00] allocate this funding, um, across all their, across their student population. But generally speaking, it will go to students who have the lowest student A and X first, and then it’s graduated from there

Eddy: Now. That’s all the funding available from, uh, the grant perspective. It’s also possible for financial officers to then give a student a, uh, or to consider a, a federal work study job, which is an on-campus job that’s, uh, in part subsidized by the federal government, um, through this federal work study program.

Eddy: Um, most students will be working a reasonable range, uh, when this, uh, within this case, uh, it can be anywhere between 1000 to $5,000 per year. Uh, again, they want, uh, they wanna ensure that students are still able to be students and not full-time workers in this, uh, in this process. So this is [00:54:00] meant to help alleviate some of the financial, uh, burden where the student is earning, uh, an income to help them pay for college.

Eddy: So in this case, uh, let’s assume that, uh, we’ll offer the student a thousand dollars as part of the work study, and there’s still going to be some financial need though.

Eddy: So from the next step, um, what we can do is offer, uh, one or two different, uh, loan programs, uh, through the federal government. So we have a, a, a really long presentation. Um, you know, we, we host these presentations in, uh, especially in the summertime that goes through how these feral loan programs work in a lot of detail.

Eddy: So I’ll just go through these, uh, on the quicker side, but in this example here, uh, we would consider using, uh, leveraging the, the maximum of, uh, $3,500 in loans that the student can take out in a subsidized direct loan. So this is a loan taken [00:55:00] out in the student’s name. Um, the maximum amount is $3,500, and then that can be subsidized, and then the remaining amount would be a $2,000 unsubsidized loan.

Eddy: So on the first $3,500 that financial officers may give. That interest, um, won’t start accruing until after you graduate. So the federal government will actually pay that interest on behalf of the student until that student graduates. So that’s why it’s a subsidized loan. Um, on the unsubsidized loan, that 2000 amount, um, the interest will start accrue, accruing once that loan is dispersed, once the school receives it from the government.

Eddy: Um, but it is another option available, uh, to financial officers, uh, and, and students as well, in particular to be able to help pay for, uh, for college.

Eddy: Now, after all of that, uh, we’ve calculated, [00:56:00] uh, you know, the amount of Pell grants. We’ve calculated the, um, F-S-E-O-G grant, federal work study, um, subsidized and un unsubsidized loans. Uh, we can see then that there is a. Need of a little bit over $5,100. Um, so in some way we still need to find a way to pay for this to meet the full cost of, uh, attendance from here.

Eddy: Um, this is where we’ll then focus on, uh, after exhausting all the options. What other areas of aid are available? There can be cases of state-based aid. Um, there can be cases of institutional aid, uh, that the school itself will give out and has availability. Um, the level of available funds at an institution will significantly vary across each school.

Eddy: Um, some schools have a lot more resources than others. Um, so the, the amount that a student can qualify for is, uh, is gonna [00:57:00] be dependent on their, their, their school that they attend. Now, for most programs, again, um. How much they’ll, they’ll be able to provide, um, out, uh, out outside scholarships or inter, uh, institutional scholarships will vary.

Eddy: But there’s ways to then explore appealing your aid to help reduce the Student aid index number in the hopes of, uh, of appealing for a, uh, uh, uh, more financial aid. This is where as well to reduce the remaining need. Um, students can apply for any, any types of external scholarships or outside scholarships to help reduce this remaining need amount.

Eddy: And then, uh, if needed, uh, after exhausting all types of grant funding, scholarship funding, uh, financial aid options, then parents, uh, and students can explore any additional loan opportunities. So either the federal, uh, parent plus program or potentially even exploring, uh, private [00:58:00] student loans. So that was a lot that we covered.

Eddy: Um, I just wanna, um, spend maybe one minute going really quickly in terms of how Juno fits into this process and then we’ll look to, uh, q and a. Um, but, uh, Juno started, uh, about seven years ago when two Harvard, MBA students, uh, needed to take out loans to help pay for co uh, for school. Um, it was really an experiment, uh, that brought out for 500 students together from across programs around the country, and they actually successfully negotiated as a group, um, directly with lenders.

Eddy: Um, since then, we, uh, we’ve grown to over 200,000 members. Um, what’s important to note here that Juno is not a lender. Uh, we’re totally free to parents and students. Um, there’s no hard credit check, uh, on your profile. Um, really what it is, is more of a wait list, and I can speak again directly from this ’cause I actually started, uh, uh, my familiarity with Juno started as a user and I actually still am using them, uh, for, uh, for my graduate school loans.

Eddy: It really is the wait [00:59:00] list. So between now and the beginning of May, really anyone who, uh, who may be looking to go to college next fall or has a child going to college next fall, um, what we ask is just really to sign up for a, a waiting list. Um, it’s not selling anything we’re not gonna ask for, for money or anything like that.

Eddy: It’s really to keep you updated on what we’re able to find in the market that can be a good solution for families who need to take out, um, uh, loans, uh, for their college process. So it’s fairly straightforward. The, the more families we have in the negotiation group, the better rates we’re typically able to get.

Eddy: The more, the more leverage we have when we go to the negotiating table, uh, with, with various different lenders. So again, just really quickly to summarize, there’s no cost, no sign up. It’s really straightforward. Um, we never sell data. Um, Juno will always be free for families. So what’s really important as well is if there are any.

Eddy: Uh, any, any questions that you have. Our team is super available. Uh, we host a [01:00:00] lot of individual one-on-one conversations. I talk to a lot of families, especially about undergraduate options, uh, particularly with some of the changes that are happening in this upcoming academic year. So July 1st, 2026. As I referenced earlier, the student loan process is changing for families, and so I wanna, we wanna make sure that you are well versed in, uh, in those changes.

Eddy: And if you need have any specific questions, then we’re available to answer those. Alright. Thank you for sticking with me. That was, I know that was a lot. It was, it’s one of our very intensely detailed presentations to go through it. But, uh, you know, if you zoned out, feel free to, uh, to tune back in for questions, but also, um, feel free to come, uh, come back to the recording, uh, for any of those minute details that, um, that we may have covered.

Lydia: Yes. Thank you, Eddy. So for our first question, we have, do the school, see your actual income or assets? 

Eddy: Otherwise, [01:01:00] um, we, uh, so we see there’s a lot of questions here in the chat. Um, awesome. Thanks for these great questions. So, um, do school see your actual income and assets or otherwise? Uh, or only the SAI, um, schools will see you, you’re required to provide documentation.

Eddy: Um, so, uh, yes, schools, um, schools will, uh, you report based on the value of, uh, your income information and, uh, it’s assumed that you, you know, you’re, you’re going to. Uh, to provide accurate data, uh, on any other types of types of assets. Um, they schools can, if there’s any doubt or concern, um, schools can ask for additional documentation to prove what what you’re saying matches up.

Eddy: Um, but you’re expected to be forthright in the process, um, so that, uh, you are receiving accurate information in the calculations. [01:02:00] 

Lydia: Got it. Uh, another question is about an adult living. Um, 

Eddy: I see a question, uh, about, uh, does my adult son living at home count for family size, even if he’s not a dependent on the tax return?

Eddy: So it can vary. Um, it, so if, if you are providing more than 50% support, uh, then that can be considered as an additional family member. Um. It can be less, it can be more ambiguous if there are, um, you know, if there’s different like separations between what they provide for themselves versus what you provide if it’s only living expenses versus other, other factors of daily life, daily living experiences.

Eddy: Um, when we think of family size, so, you know, we do think of even what is included is students who are still going off to college. Um, so even if a student [01:03:00] is, uh, is a way for the year, they’re still considered dependent. Um, if a, you know, if there’s a, if there is a grandparent that is for whom you’re providing majority care, maybe they’re sick, they’re not able to take care of themselves, um, those are cases in which that does count in the total family size.

Eddy: Um, I see, uh. How does the process differ for divorced families? Great question. So for the purposes of the fafsa, this is a really important question. Um, for the purposes of the fafsa, a the parent who is considered the contributing parent or the contributor on the FAFSA as the terminology goes, is the parent, uh, who provides the majority care for the student in the last 12 months.

Eddy: So [01:04:00] what I mean by that is there’s, in the case of divorce, uh, one parent is included on the FAFSA and is expected to fill out the FAFSA form. From there, uh, it can vary based on whether or not that parent is remarried or not. Uh, so if the parent is remarried, if, if parents are divorced, and let’s say, um, parent one provides majority care for the child versus parent two.

Eddy: Uh, now these are, uh, these are considered biological or legally adopted parents for the purposes of the fafsa. So let’s say in this example, parent one provides majority support, um, compared to parent two. Then parent one’s information is what’s gonna be on the FAFSA because they provide more care.

Eddy: Parent two will not be included on, on the fafsa. Now, from there, once we’ve determined that parent one is the contributor, if that parent has remarried, [01:05:00] then the, uh, the spouse, the new spouse is information does have to be included. If they’re not included, then um. Oh, excuse me. If they’re not remarried, then that’s not, that’s not relevant.

Eddy: Um, so there’s a, there’s a, uh, a helpful, uh, tool on, on, uh, on the student aid website, uh, student aid.gov website that actually, uh, walks through who is, who is a contributor. Uh, and so, uh, it’s a, it’s a great and helpful tool to use.

Eddy: I see. Um, question about clarifying 5 29 accounts. Um, are they considered, uh, parent assets? Uh, so yes. Uh, so five 20 nines are reported on the fafsa. Uh, it is an, uh, uh, available funds a avail, uh, available funds that parents have access to in order to pay for college. They’re designed specifically to pay for college.

Eddy: And so this is [01:06:00] part of the asset calculation, uh, for, uh, for. FAFSA and for calculating the SAI, um, so great question there. Now, we had mentioned this a little bit earlier, where there, there are cases where, depending on who the name of the 5 29 plan is in it, may it for the purpose of the fafsa, it’s sort of a, a, a, a quirk in the system where it’s not reported.

Eddy: So if a grandparent, uh, if a grandparent has a 5 29 plan for this, uh, for the, the student as the beneficiary, there’s actually nowhere to include that on the fafsa. Um, if it’s another, you know, relative outside of biological parents or, uh, or the student themselves, it’s not, uh, it’s not included anywhere on the fafsa.

Eddy: Here’s a good question. So, yeah. Does [01:07:00] fafsa, does, does FAFSA account for the cost of living in students’ hometown? Uh, or does it just assume national average cost of living? This is fafsa, unfortunately, does not, uh, account for it. So this is a, this could be a, a reason to appeal your financial if you live in a particularly high, um, high cost of living area.

Eddy: And if your income might be particularly, particularly lower than the average, then that could be a really significant disparity. Um. Many places will usually offer, uh, you know, higher income, uh, or higher income as part of a job, but it’s not always the case. Um, right. So, uh, if, if, um, someone is making a minimum wage, that’s a set amount regardless of where you’re living, um, this could be a, a, a reason to appeal the financial aid award?

Eddy: Oh, here’s a great [01:08:00] question. Um, does FAFSA consider family’s debts, uh, when calculating the SAI so not typically. Uh, so consumer debt is not factored in at all. Uh, so if you have, you know, um, you know, if you, if you have, let’s say a really expensive car payment, um, that’s not factored in, um, that’s just something that the family will.

Eddy: The family is going to be responsible for, um, it does not consider other levels or other types of consumer debt. Like if, uh, like any type of credit card debt. Um, the, I I saw a question actually about medical bills and whether you can report medical bills, which I think is, uh, related to this question. So there isn’t anywhere to report medical bills.

Eddy: Um, ’cause again, this could be a diff, this is a, a type of, uh, type of debt, but there are opportunities [01:09:00] to consider, um. Appealing and for financial aid officers to use professional judgment in recalculating the Student Aid Index and essentially recalculating the financial aid award. Um, there are specific ways, less so on the consumer debt side, but more so on things outside of a family’s control.

Eddy: So let, let’s say a parent was seriously ill and, and the family has incurred high medical debt, um, that is a really important reason for the family to appeal because that’s not captured on the fafsa. And so of course that’s a very real part of the family situation, um, because you may have to be paying for those monthly, uh, for the me, uh, for the medical debt.

Eddy: Um, that is a strong reason to provide documentation for that, uh, such that financial aid officers are aware, they know the current situation and they can more accurately assess. [01:10:00] What factors should be taken into account when calculating a final financial aid award? So, huge factor into it. Some debts will matter.

Eddy: It could be the case as well. Colleges, um, can allow, can, can provide a, a, a level of allowance for. Uh, current parent, uh, student loan debt as well. If, uh, ’cause we’re seeing a lot of times, especially now, parents who have gone to college themselves, uh, are still paying off their student loans while now having to then pay for their children who are going off to.

Eddy: Uh, so including that can also be valuable so that financial officers see the full or see a better financially financial picture, uh, and understand the full financial health of a family. ’cause if you have, I’m just gonna say, let’s say you have a thousand dollars a month student loan payment, um, then that is a significant draw on, on your income and on your resources.

Eddy: So those [01:11:00] types of, of expenses can and should be considered for an appeal, uh, so that financial officers can reassess, uh, and, and have a better picture of who you are. But again, other types of consumer debts are usually not factored.

See.

Lydia: Well thank you so much Eddy, for, 

Eddy: I think we are close on time, so I think we may be wrapping up, but again, I think anything that we were not able to get to, um, definitely will, uh uh. Uh, follow, we’ll follow up, we’ll be able to, to collect those questions, um, and then reach out with answers. 

Lydia: Yeah. Thank you so much, Eddy, for an awesome presentation.

Lydia: Uh, if you wanna watch this presentation [01:12:00] again, we were recording, so you’ll be able to go to our website to watch it back again. And we also have in the handouts tab, as I said at the beginning, um, the PDF slides that we went through tonight so that you can review those again on your own time. But thank you so much for joining us and we hope to see you again soon.

Lydia: Have a great evening.