Navigating the FAFSA: Keys to Financial Aid Success

Webinar Transcription

2025-01-06 – Navigating the FAFSA: Keys to Financial Aid Success

Anesha: Hi, everybody, and welcome to tonight’s webinar. My name is Anesha Grant. I am a senior advisor at CollegeAdvisor, and I will be your moderator today. Today’s webinar is, “Navigating the FAFSA: Keys to Financial Aid Success.” before we get started. Just to orient everyone with the webinar timing, we will start with a presentation, and then we will open up to answer your questions in a live Q and A. On the sidebar, you can download our slides under the handouts tab, and you can start submitting your questions whenever you get ready under the Q, under the Q and A tab. But first, let’s meet our presenter, Frank Ranieri. Hey, Frank, how are you?

Frank: I’m great. Thank you.

Anesha: Tell us a little bit about yourself and your background.

Frank: Yes, absolutely. Um, I’ve been working with CollegeAdvisor for over three years as part of the financial aid team specialist is my role here. Um, I am from, uh, New York. I went to a, I went to a SUNY school up in New York when I went to college, uh, played basketball there.

Uh, and I’ve been in financial aid now almost 16 years professionally. Um, At five different colleges and or universities, I’m excited to kind of, uh, fill you all in on on the FASFA and some good things that have happened and, and kind of, uh, how to navigate this, uh, as, as, as we say.

Anesha: Awesome. Well, we’re lucky to have you with all your years of experience.

But before we get started, just going to do a quick poll. So if you’re out there, just let us know what grade you are in. Um, and if you’re a parent or a teacher, you’re welcome to stay, but you can go ahead and select other, you don’t have to select a grade level. Um, as we’re waiting for folks, Frank, Um, where was your favorite institution to work at?

I know that’s a loaded question, but of those that you worked at, um, do you have a favorite or preferred or even a favorite or preferred city? Um,

Frank: well, I worked at Columbia University, um, which is Ivy League, and I was the I was an assistant director there, but I was also the athletics liaison. Um, so being an athlete myself or a former athlete, um, I could really relate to my students.

And, uh, at the Ivy League, even though they were division one athletics, they did not get any athletic scholarships. So they still had to, like, Um, you know, review financial need and only eligible if, if they’re, you know, the finances said they were. So, um, it was a, it was rewarding, but, uh, definitely, definitely a difficult role at the same time.

Anesha: Well, thank you for saying that. That’s amazing. I’m sure they were. happy to have your experience as an athlete and having gone through it in addition to getting some of the context within your financial aid experience. So I’m very curious about your experience as an athlete, having dealt with some recently, but we can get to that in a different conversation.

Uh, we’ll go ahead and close our poll. Um, and so we’re kind of evenly split for right now amongst, um, the grade levels, which makes sense, but, uh, I’ll stop talking and let you go ahead and get started with. The presentation.

Frank: Okay. Awesome. Thank you. Um, all right, I can just kind of, uh, so wanted to kind of start off this.

Um, with kind of defining or some terms of financial aid. Um, essentially like when a school or an administrator or, or a college is speaking on financial aid, um, that’s made up of kind of all things financially. So a lot of people, when they hear financial aid, they think free money, and that’s not necessarily how it’s viewed, um, from colleges standpoint.

Financial aid is essentially made up of three different sectors. Your grants which is going to be free money based on income and assets your financial need Scholarships, which is going to be free money based on academic merit. And then there are your loans, which again is considered financial aid, but do have to be paid back.

Um, and you know, the, the FAFSA is going to determine your eligibility for both federal grants, uh, potentially institutional grants from a school and obviously your loans and your work study. And work study is just like a fancy term. Um, essentially it’s, it’s, it’s an amount that you could potentially earn as a student on campus.

It’s not like you get, uh, a grant and you got to work it off. Um, and yeah, so that’s just kind of like, what is financial aid? Cost versus versus the value. Um, again, this is more kind of taking a holistic approach is like kind of at the end, what is going to be most important for you? Um, is it the school?

Is it how great of a school’s name it is? Is it? Is the how big of a role does budgeting take into account? You know, how much debt are you willing to go into to get the degree from your school of choice? Is going into debt even an option? Um, again, a lot of this needs to be considered by both student and parents when making this, uh, decision.

Um, you know, potential earnings, um, you know, how are you going to pay these loan backs if you need to do, um, loan, uh, you know, is, is a school that you don’t have to pay anything for if, is, is that worth it again? These are all questions that. you know, you, your advisor and your parents and the students themselves would have to answer.

Understanding the costs. So you’ll see a lot of these terms on the school’s financial aid web pages. Um, you’ll see what’s called, if you look at the third bullet point here, it says the overall cost of attendance. That’s kind of like the overall price. That can be expected to pay, but that’s including direct and indirect costs, you know, meaning the billable costs are going to be your tuition fees, room board, um, and the non billable costs are going to be your book supplies, you know, travel as in getting to and from campus, um, you know, personal expenses, um, what you want to, how you want to spend your money and your free time, um, essentially, um, there are the billable costs and then there’s a, there’s also the added cost of what it actually costs to be a student.

All right, now let’s get into essentially why we’re here, right? You know, what is the FAFSA? I’m sure most of you have at least heard of the FAFSA. It does have kind of a, uh, if not a negative, uh, ideal, it’s just, it just always seems daunting. Um, the acronym itself is free application for student for federal student aid.

Um, the FAFSA is the free. a financial aid application. Um, and it’s determining your federal eligibility. Um, what it will calculate. It’s what’s called the student aid index, which used to be called the estimated family contribution. So in years past, the FAFSA was calculating the EFC or the expected family contribution that was updated actually this year to the student aid index.

It was part of the FAFSA Simplification Act. So now the Student Aid Index, the SAI, replaced the family contribution, and it’s supposed to be a more accurate determination of financial need.

Frank: Essentially, what the Student Aid Index is trying to portray is what a family can afford for going to school. Now, um, That cost is the same cost no matter how much your school costs.

For example, you know, I said I work in the Ivy League with no financial aid, you know, their costs are nearly, you know, at 80, 000, you know, there are, could be some state schools where your, where your cost could be like 20, 000. The idea of the FAFSA is it’s going to say, you know, you, a family can afford to pay this much towards school.

So rather you’re going to an Ivy league or a state school, you’re what you can afford. That number stays the same. Again, it does become up to the school as far as how much aid they want to give. Like, are they going to meet your full demonstrated need and things like that? But that’s kind of the idea is the FAFSA is going to say, This is how much a family can afford.

This family can afford, you know, $18,000 to pay themselves. And that means you technically should be paying 18 K rather it’s that state school, rather it’s a public, rather it’s a private. Um, but again, um, it is a tool. Um, schools that are giving out their own money do not need to necessarily give all the aid that you could be eligible for based on the FAFSA.

Um, meaning this is a federal form. Schools can kind of do what they want with their funding, so to speak. Um, when you’re filling out the FAFSA, Um, you will, as a parent, you would have to complete your section of the FAFSA, which is called the parent contributor. Um, in the next slide or the next couple, we’ll kind of get into what that looks like.

But basically, um, there are, the FAFSA itself is just the student’s form. It is, you know, it’s, it’s student, it’s their form. They need to complete their portion due to demographics, where they went to high school, what schools they’re applying to their income and assets. Uh, part of their application will be putting in their contribute, the, uh, the contributors information, meaning, you know, parents, email, phone number, social.

And then once they submit their portion, the parent will be notified to go in and do their portion. Um, the nice thing about this new FAFSA is, you know, mom and or dad don’t need to be in the same room. Um, don’t need to be in the same, you know, vicinity as the student to complete the form. It allows students to do their section and parents do their section and not necessarily do it together.

Um, it’s not to say that you can’t do it together, but it’s two separate logins for student and parent. Um, most deadlines are going to be set by the schools themselves. For example, um, most schools had a January 15th deadline, and that was based on the federal government saying the FAFSA will be ready December one.

And this is talking for, Uh, freshmen going into 25/26. So if you were a senior in high school right now, um, you know, uh, the, the FAFSA’s been, uh, available and the deadline most likely is coming up here, um, for, for families. Um, but again, that is not straight across the board. Um, and it depends on what, um, application process you are in.

Um, for like the early decision, early action, the deadlines were typically mid January for regular decisions. They were around mid Feb. Um, but that could change next year. Um, it would be, it’s dependent upon when the federal government says the fast foot is available.

All right. What materials do I need? Um, there is an FSA ID that needs to be created. Um, this is simply a username and password. Again, as I mentioned before, student needs to have their own, and one, uh, parent needs to have their own. FSA ID. Um, it’s literally just like creating an email account almost, um, where you put in your email, you put in your date of birth, your name, your social security.

Uh, you have to answer, um, you have to create five or six security questions and answers. You have to do a safe key, which is like a, almost like a second password. Um, so all of these things need to be, um, stored in a safe place. Um, and then essentially you hit submit and then the federal government, it can take up to 72 hours for them to verify.

Typically it’s right between 12 and 24 where you’ll get an email back. That’s like, you know, your FSA ID is set. You know, you can now complete the FAFSA. Um, again, this would need to be done for both student and parent. Okay. When you complete the FSA ID, You want to complete the FSA ID before you do the FAFSA.

Because again, if you’re coming up on a deadline, um, it does take at least a day for your FSA ID to be verified. So if you did your FSA ID today, you couldn’t do your FAFSA till tomorrow. Um, are the taxes required? Yes, they are. With the FSA ID, everything is linked to your social, which is also linked to the federal government as well as the IRS.

So as a parent, when you’re completing this form, if you’ve filed your taxes and they were accepted by the government and you’re not on extension, um, It’s a few click of the buttons that you understand that your information is going to be pulled from the IRS to the FAFSA and all of that is done on the back end where, um, it’s a few clicks of the button and all of your information from the IRS is automatically entered in the FAFSA and it’s stored there securely.

And then schools can have that information. Um, if you’re on extension, if You know, you didn’t file taxes. If, um, you know, there was a change in your taxes, um, then yes, you would have to take your physical taxes and then complete the forms, um, manually. Um, they will give you a line by line, you know, line 11, put that number here, go to your taxes, page two, line 17, put that number here.

So it is a pretty straightforward approach, even if you have to do it manually. Um, but if you, and again, uh, with the FAFSA, it’s always the prior, prior year, uh, information. So like if you were a, If you were going to school this next fall, fall 25, it’d be based on you and your parents, 2023 taxes. So again, majority of people, you know, the deadline to file those taxes was over a year and a half ago.

So in most cases it’s just a few click of the button and everything is done on the backend. How long will it take you? If all, if you filed taxes and everything is within the IRS, um, Each section should not take, meaning parent and, and, uh, and student section should not take more than 30 minutes for each of you.

Um, if you’re applying, you can apply to up to 20 schools on the FAFSA and you can even add more if you’re applying to more so that in that instance, it can take longer than that. But in most cases, um, each, in under an hour, you’ll be done with the FAFSA, which is, which is a great change from where it was a few years back.

All right. What happens after I submit my FAFSA? Um,

so once the FAFSA is submitted, it will take, you know, two to three business days for it to be reviewed and accepted by the federal government. And then at that point schools can then go into their systems and pull the information from the government so they can see everything. Okay. So within Within three to five business days, this every school you’ve listed on your FAFSA will be able to see your information.

Um, if a financial change happens, there’s two things that can be done. Number one, you can go in and update the FAFSA in most cases. Um, In most cases, that’s not going to be accurate because any change would have happened would have been post your filing taxes. Right? So like if everything was pulled in your 2023 and you had some sort of financial change, rather it was 2024 loss of income or, or loss of job or, you know, it was some sort of, uh, you know, your assets were depleted.

In most cases, you are going to have to contact the schools you’re applying to and appeal with that. Um, because if you go in and update the FAFSA, um, schools will be notified of the update and most likely they’ll reach out to you to kind of explain the situation. Um, but if ever you need to update the FAFSA or there’s, there has been a change, you’re going to want to contact the schools directly, um, common mistakes.

issues families have. Um, uh, the biggest one, like I said, is, um, is waiting to the last minute and then kind of putting pressure on yourself. Um, again, if, if taxes were filed, you did the FSA ID, the FAFSA is, is much, much simpler than it’s ever been. And it makes it a lot less stress on the families. Um, you know, if you’re manually inputting the tax information, then, you know, there is a human error where, you know, you could, you know, add a zero where you shouldn’t.

Or, you know, what have you, but any mistakes that are made can be fixed, adjusted simply by either uploading, uploading your taxes or speaking to the school directly. Um, you know, so the biggest mistake is just kind of like either missing timelines, missing deadlines, you know, or not, or not completing the form in that time limit.

Uh, what resources are available? Um, you know, obviously us here at CollegeAdvisor, um, Uh, myself as part of the financial aid specialist team, uh, there’s a, there’s five, six other people in my role here. Um, so once you have an advisor and admissions rep here, uh, you will have access to one of the financial aid specialists.

So by all means, you know, use us as that, um, as that helping hand. Reaching out to the school directly. Again, once a, once you apply to a school, um, even before a school admits you, even before a school has reviewed your application, you will be in the, in the, uh, college’s database. Um, uh, most schools will reach out and remind you, remind the students to create an online portal, which will list, you know, typically schools have a to do list or things forthcoming or something like that.

Where, you know, the schools will list what’s next. Uh, you know, Oh, you’ve applied. Have you done your financial aid? You’ve done your financial aid. Uh, the next deadline is X, Y, or Z. Um, so if you ever have questions on what a school is missing, going to the online portal can typically give your answers quickly.

And if there’s ever something you don’t understand, that’s when you could either contact someone like myself here at CollegeAdvisor or the school directly. Um, can I contact the federal government? You absolutely can. There is an email address and there is a phone number to call. Um, it can be a bit of a bear to kind of get through to them and it depends on your situation.

Like, you know, is it, if it’s updating a username or password, that’s pretty much going to going to fall back on you or everything needs to be done. Like, you know, securely setting up a new password. Uh, if it’s updating the forms again, they’re going to re, advise you to check on the form, check with your schools directly.

You know, if there is an issue with completing the form or your FSA ID won’t go through, or they’re saying your social security number is wrong, you know, or your taxes aren’t matching up to the social, that’s the, those are the issues that you can call for. Um, but you certainly, you certainly can contact them directly.

And on that same, on that same breath, like how do we stay organized? How do we keep track of the financial aid deadlines? Uh, most schools financial aid deadlines are going to be the same. Okay. Dependent upon what admission cycle you’re in. Are you doing early decision, early action, regular decision? What have you?

Um, for example, you know, most schools that were early decision. Um, the some of the forms, well, the FASFA obviously wasn’t available, but they would say the CSS profile and your admissions application was due by say, January one and then the rest of the financial aid, January 15th. And then the regular decision, typically everything is due like February one or February 15th.

Um, you know, when you work with CollegeAdvisor, we will give you, um, a few Tips and tricks and like a Google sheet where you can create your own college list. Not only listing all the schools you’re applying to, but you know, what’s the deadline for application? What’s the deadline for financial aid? What is the cost?

What’s the price before loans? Like we kind of had this nice little table for you all to use as well. Um, and again, uh, the online portal at each individual school, um, And in between all of them, there’ll be no surprises on your timeline.

Anesha: Okay, I’m just going to come back in and do another quick poll just to see where folks are in the college application process and these answers could apply to your college application or even your financial aid application. So, where are you in the process? If you’re getting started, if you’re still trying to do some research, or if you’re nearly done while waiting for some responses to come in, Frank, I had a question regarding.

The timeline for updates to the school’s website. I have some students who just submit everything and they’re like, why isn’t it updated on the portal yet? Um, and so I’m wondering, you know, how, how much time should students give it for the portal to kind of reflect everything they know they’ve done?

Frank: That’s a very good question. Number one, Um, like before it does take probably three business days, maybe even up to five for the fast food self to update, meaning, uh, because what you want to do is make sure you listed that school, right? So, you know, if you’re applying to You know, say Columbia, um, and you didn’t add them to the FAFSA.

If you didn’t add the school code, uh, then, then Columbia would never get that FAFSA. So number one is making sure that school is added. And then number two, once the school, once you’re sure the school is added, Once it’s processed through the federal government, then you’re probably looking at another probably three to seven days before the school can, can view it.

So you’re looking at probably a solid week from when you complete to when, when the school can see it.

Anesha: Thank you for that. I felt like I needed to know. And then I I’ve had students over the last few months being like, why isn’t this updated? And I’m like, I think some schools are closed for the holidays.

Frank: Um, everything will

Anesha: be updated shortly. Okay. And a lot

Frank: of schools, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s, They’re kind of on, you know, your larger schools, everything’s kind of done in mass. So someone probably has to like go in and click the, like a query or turn on, or, you

Anesha: know,

Frank: bring in the information from the FAFSA to whatever online system the schools use.

So there is, there is a bit of work on the back end from schools to government.

Anesha: And like, the message is be patient. All right, we’ll go ahead and close the poll. We’re kind of split between folks who are almost done and still researching schools. And so are still doing some research, perhaps around the FAFSA application.

So that makes sense. Good luck to the folks who are almost finishing. Um, all right, I’ll stop talking and let you get back and come back on for questions.

Frank: Yeah, absolutely. Um, but, but yes, that, that, that is a good point that, um, On that note, whatever day, uh, you guys hit submit and the student and the parent contributor are both submitted.

Once that, once you hit submit, that’s the, it’ll be backdated to that date. So again, most schools are pretty lenient with their deadlines, but I would not wait till the last minute. But, you know, let’s say you submitted your FAFSA on Monday, January 6th, you hit submit, you know, it takes 48 hours for the government’s website, the FAFSA website to update.

And then it takes another week for your school to see the information. Your school will have a date of January 6th when you hit submit. So that’s something to kind of like, you know, to help, to help, uh, Breathe easy is it’s always going to be backdated to the, to when you actually submitted the form. So, and then again, even if you didn’t add your school at first and you went back in and add the school later, everything would backdate to that January 6th or when and whenever you could submit.

Um, so estimating your costs, what will I pay? Um, and this is, this can be, you know, before you apply, after you apply, what have you, but you know, how can we estimate these costs before doing the FAFSA? The biggest thing is going to be the net net cost calculators. Most schools have what’s called a net cost or a net price calculator, NPC or NC on their website, where you can kind of input your parents tax information and they can give you an estimate of what your aid will look like.

Um, these net price calculators are going to be different than the FAFSA because again, the FAFSA. is trying to come up with, Hey, you can afford. X amount the net price calculators are trying to are trying to give you a better idea of how much their aid package is going to look like. Because again, just because you do a fast foot, just because the federal government says you can afford X doesn’t mean a school has to provide you with free money to get you to that number.

Um, schools have different rules, different budgets. When it comes to their own money, they do have the ability to kind of make their own decisions. Um, full need debt free. Um, when you were looking at these schools, you may see these terms Like we, we meet 100 percent of full demonstrated need. What that means is they’re going to, once they determine what your need is, rather that’s with the FAFSA or other forms, they’re going to give you aid to get you to that number.

Again, that’s what they feel your need is. So sometimes there can be a disconnect where if they, uh, You know, a school says you can pay 50 K so they give you 30 K grants, but, um, you think you can only pay 20 grand, you know, that’s a 30 K difference in there. So, um, while a school meeting full need is a good thing, it doesn’t always, it’s not always going to meet your need.

I hope that makes sense. But, um, um, you know, in some schools are what’s called debt free. What that means is they’re giving you a financial aid award package and award letter without any loans on it. It doesn’t mean that you’re not going to have a bill with the school. It just means the loans won’t be on there.

So again, if a school, if a, um, you know, if your demonstrated need is 40, 000, um, and the school costs 80, you, you could in theory get 40 K in free money, but then you’d still have a bill due of that 40, 000. Um, and to pay that bill. Just because the loan’s not in the award letter, sometimes loans are going to be the only options for some families to pay.

So, um, I just like to preface that because, you know, uh, some families have see like, Oh, this school is debt free. This is great. But it doesn’t mean that you are going to be getting out of it without loans. Now, again, you have money put away, you have money to side, you know, you have scholarships, things like that.

You can, you can get the bill, uh, further reduced. Uh, it just means in the award letter, there won’t be any loans in there. Um, state schools in state tuition, um, versus out of state. Um, typically if you live in a state and then you go to school in that state and it’s one of these state schools or public schools, um, you can expect a lower tuition rate based on, based on that factor.

Now, if it’s a private school, all the tuition is going to be the same. Again, I’m from New York. Uh, Columbia obviously is in New York, but it’s a private school. So rather you’re from New York, California, or. you know, the other side of the world, the tuition is the same for everybody. Um, typically your state schools aren’t going to have as much funding as say a Columbia or an Ivy league where, um, the benefit you get for going there is that lower tuition, but most cases, state schools do not have a lot of institutional funding.

So the break you’re going to see is not going to be in like some large grants. It’s going to be, you know, your tuition is less because you’re a resident.

Alright, how will I pay? Um, getting away from the FAFSA here, now we’re kind of diving into a little bit of scholarships, which always tends to be on families minds. Um, what is a marriage scholarship? Um, they can be institutional or external. Institutional is going to be just that, where the institution themselves offers, free money based on your admissions application and, uh, you know, things like standardized test scores, your class rank, um, you know, your, your, um, extracurricular GPA, things like that.

Um, you know, if you apply to, you know, let’s say Duke university of Texas and the university of Arizona, all three of those schools, One could offer you a very large scholarship from their institution. One could offer you none. And that would just be based on their own admissions review and how they determine their own individual institutional scholarship.

As far as external scholarships, um, there are a number of different, you know, websites, foundations, companies, non profits that offer scholarships to students. Those cases, the onus does fall on the student to apply for them, but when a student applies to an outside scholarship, If that third party foundation says, yes, we want to give you money.

They’re giving you money to go to really whatever college you pick. So it’s not stuck on, you know, again, if you’re applying, if Duke gives you a 20 K and university of Texas gives you 10, you can’t take Dukes and take it, bring it to Texas and vice versa. Um, uh, need blind is another term that you will see.

Um, this goes for both scholarships and admissions. Most schools these days are what’s called. Need blind where they’re not looking at your financial need when they’re making rather it’s an admissions decision or a scholarship decision. So, you know, rather you are a family that’s, you know, below poverty or you’re a, uh, you know, you’re a lottery winner.

It’s not going to play a role in both admissions and the scholarships. Uh, again, at most schools, um, sometimes it can be demographic based, meaning, you know, for some outside parties. You may have to be a resident of resident of New York going to school in California. That might be a rule for what one of these scholarships have.

So again, you just want to kind of like apply and review as many as you can when it comes to outside scholarships. We have a number of websites that we give to students and families, uh, when it comes to looking for outside scholarships.

Um, types of aid. We spoke on this earlier. Um, but again, there’s going to be the institutional, uh, the state, federal and external. And again, that’s going as far as grants and scholarships. Uh, proof of financial need the fast for the S. A. I. The tax forms eligibility for government programs. You know what documentation proves your financial need typically that’s going to be just your taxes Participating schools and programs and and demographic based, right?

So All of these factors are going to be what kind of makes your financial Package and award letter and what your bill Ultimately, it looks like

all right sources of aid things to know when I meet with families, I always, always tell them to make sure they’re paying attention. You know, you have your top three or top five schools you’re applying to be very well versed with the website, not just the financial aid that I have listed here, but also the admissions websites.

You know, have the online portal open at all times. Make sure you’re not missing deadlines and make sure you’re familiar with what documents are needed. Um, again, the phrases we do like need blind, meaningful need, zero debt. Again, these are all good things when you’re looking for a school, but they are not the end all be all.

Um, and use the net price, the net cost calculator. So you do have an idea of what your aid package could look like based on your parents finances. Um, identifying the following, what is the average financial aid package? What’s the average out of cost per student? What’s the average loans borrowed per student?

Um, private loans among the undergrad population. What does that look like? Um, so the, the federal government caps how much loans you can take from the federal government as a student. Um, freshman year, it’s 5, 500. sophomore year, 6500 junior and senior year, you are going to be capped at 7500. Um, so that’s about 27, a little over 27 K in total that you’re allowed to borrow from the federal government.

Now, if, um, you know, if you’re not getting any grant or scholarship, um, and you’re going to an expensive school, That five to six to seven K per year is not going to cut it as far as covering the bill. So again, some families, some students do have to look into private loans and the, and that debt can increase very high.

Um, so it’s a good thing to know is to look at what these schools is. Do they have a lot of private loan debt? Is it just federal debt? Do most families, students get away without a lot of debt? This tends to be a case by case year by year basis. Um, because again, what most schools will say, you know, the Ivy leagues included is, you know, um, of the, of the, you know, 90 percent of kids who apply for financial aid, get some sort of aid.

Uh, that could mean work study. That could mean a 500 grant. So, um, you definitely want to kind of, uh, understand the numbers and, and what other students are doing at that school. And you can find that out either by the website or calling schools directly. And again, you know, you have every right to call these schools and find out information, whether it’s general or specific for you and your students.

Um, and again, I advise not only my families to be very well versed in the school’s website. You know, by all means you can email you can call these schools and make sure that you completely understand everything, you know Or come to myself or my my colleagues here at CollegeAdvisors.

Um another form. Uh, I just wanted to touch on this Um, it’s called the css profile in addition to the FAFSA. There is a secondary Financial aid form that’s going to do the same thing. The FAFSA does it’s going to try and calculate your family contribution or your family need Now, the CSS profile is, um, through the college board website.

Uh, if your children or students don’t have, um, a college board account yet, they will, because typically that’s how they schedule their SATs. Um, Unlike the FASFA, the college board, a student can just sign in with their information and they’re off to the runnings to complete the profile. Now you will need parents information.

It’s like a 17 step, uh, form process. Um, but you know, students can give parent login, they can go in and do everything. The parents can just simply give the kids their taxes and they do it. Um, you guys could go in together, you know, sitting in front of your, you know, you and your students, you and your child’s laptop and do the forms together.

Okay. Not every school requires it. Typically, you’re more expensive. Your private schools, schools that do have a lot of money or tend to give a lot of grants, use the profile because it’s a more detailed form than the FAFSA. With that, it’s not free. So, The it’s 25 for the first school you apply and then 16 for every school after that.

Um, it is a very manual process. So this form itself will take an hour if not a little bit longer. Again, it is, um, it’s pretty straightforward. Same idea. You have your taxes in front of you, you know, when you’re on your, the parent income section, it will literally list, you know, go to page one, line 15, your taxes, put that number here.

Put this number here. So it’s a very straightforward. Um, um, application and it will be line by line verbatim of, you know, untaxed income line this, put this number here. Uh, but it does tend to be a tedious process with this form. You also have to upload copies of your taxes. So I always tell families this as well.

You know, if you make a mistake entering the forms, it’s okay because the schools are going to have access to the taxes and they will correct any errors you’ve made. Um, just to kind of touch on the CSS profile. All right. How do I find need based aid? Um, again, institutional need based aid, need based financial aid, scholarships, the university admissions office, uh, external federal need based aid is going to be your FAFSA, um, your state forms.

Um, any websites as far as scholarship or third party alumni networks and local organizations

who else can pay when it comes to external aid, um, funded by outside organization and third party payers, uh, direct pay versus paid to school. Any scholarship a student receives 95 percent of the time, probably even a higher percentage than that. The money is going to go directly to the school. They’re not going to send it directly to the student.

You know, some scholarships will, you know, here’s 2, 000, uh, in a check directly to the student, most foundations don’t do that. They’re not going to send, you know, an 18 year old kid, the check they’re going to send directly to the school. Um, is the outside source renewable, uh, or is it a single year? Is it tuition restricted versus unrestricted?

Meaning does it have to go towards tuition? Only, uh, institutional aid reduction. What that means is if you get an outside scholarship that is that increases the amount of money you got over what your need is in some instances, the aid can be reduced at a school. That’s going to be a case by case, uh, review based on how that school handles their budget and how they can fit outside scholarships.

And, um, a lot of scholarships or some scholarships will give the option like, you know, Hey, you’ve been awarded 20, 000. You can split this up over the four years or we can give it to you all in year one. Uh, I typically advise families to split that up, but there are families that want to take it all up front.

Um, Because you know, they, they have a good amount of assets saved or savings. They want to pay out of pocket the first two years and the second two years, maybe they’ll look at loans. Um, so really it becomes a family decision on how you want to break down, um, the outside award. Uh, and again, I touched on this before, uh, institutional marriage scholarships.

Most is directly through the admissions office and it’s all part of the Uh, application process and the admitted student portal. There are some schools that will have, uh, secondary, uh, forms to complete for applying for scholarships, uh, external scholarships. These are some of the sites that I had had. I didn’t say these sites, but I’d mentioned them before the going Mary scholarly scholarship owl.

Um, group program, activity leaders, high school, college, counselor, alumni networks. If you’re, if your student or child has done any type of volunteering or, you know, church or nonprofit, those can be good, uh, avenues to look for outside scholarships as well.

Then how can we help with identifying, applying for scholarship? We can help develop search strategies. defining your narrative and fit for scholarships and schools, preparing for the interviews and reviewing advising on the forms, deadlines, and scholarships. So if you go to the one of those websites like going marry or scholarship owl, in most cases you create a profile and then these sites kind of use an algorithm based on your profile to give you hundreds of scholarships that meets your situation.

You then go in and review those scholarships to say, Oh, this is a good fit. This one, not so much. Oh, I really want to apply for this one. Okay. Oh, this one needs, needs an essay. Let me speak to CollegeAdvisor if they can help me with that. Or what I’ve seen a lot recently is, uh, you know, they want short videos.

Give us a video and in 45 seconds or less, tell us why you’d be a good fit for this scholarship that represents, you know, philanthropy. And then you got to kind of turn on your phone or your computer and video yourself answering the question. So, um, it’s a lot easier to apply for more scholarships than it was in the past, obviously.

Um, but there is a lot to navigate. Uh, there as well. And again, uh, the online portal can’t say it enough. Once you apply to a school, all the information is going to be there. Anything missing, anything you need to do as a student, a parent is going to be there.

Anesha: Okay. Thank you so much, Frank, for that thoughtful run through of the FAFSA and then a lot of other financial aid components. So that is the end of the presentation part of the webinar. I hope you found it Helpful. And just remember, you can download the slides under the handouts tab. We’re going to move on to the live Q and a the way that it will work.

I’ll read through the questions you submitted to the Q and a tab, paste them into the public chat so that Frank will have an opportunity to answer them. Um, and then. Uh, yeah, so if you’re having any challenges with submitting questions, just know that you have to make sure you are logged in through the link you received.

via your email and not through our webinar landing page. Before we get started with the questions, one question I have for you, uh, Frank, what’s about completing the FAFSA MSCS’s profile year over year? I know there’s repetition for one and not for the other, so if you could just talk about how often after the first year of college folks have to engage with the financial aid application process.

Frank: Yep. Yep. Um, if, if you get any type of, if you use a federal loan, you get any money from the government or from your school, um, you’ll have to complete the FAFSA every year as well as the profile if that school requires the profile. Um, the good news is from year over year is, um, as a continuing students, most schools, uh, don’t have a deadline until like.

May 1st or even June 1st. Um, and the forms are available much earlier. So you’re not like crunch like you are as a freshman because a lot of families, it’s your first time going through it and you got to get it done before the first, before January one, say like, you know, January, obviously one just passed, but as a continuing student, you know, getting those forms done in April, May is completely fine.

And once you get through it once you’ll kind of, Have a decent understanding and a lot of the demographics part is pulled in and it’s just updating the information with that New Year’s tax information.

Anesha: Thank you. Thank you for, uh, addressing that. Um, so the first question I have for you that I’ve gotten from a couple of my students is, is it worth filling out the FAFSA if I think my family won’t qualify for financial aid?

Frank: Uh, absolutely. For year one, and the reason I say that is some schools. I’ve heard that they won’t review you for scholarships without the financial aid forms done now what that means is again They a school can still be need blind meaning. Hey, we’re not going to look at your income when determining scholarship or admissions, however If you don’t fill out the forms, you’re kind of like in this bucket for admissions, but you’re not going to be reviewed for scholarships.

And if you do fill out the forms, then you can be reviewed for scholarships. Not all schools do that, but some do. And so for year one, I advise to do the forms. Thank you.

Anesha: Um, someone asked, can I submit the FAFSA late? And if I do, what are the consequences for not getting it in on time?

Frank: Um, It’s, it’s going to depend on the school as far as like by turning in the financial aid forms late, you can lose potential institutional funds.

Right? Like if a school, a school can simply run out of money, even though they’re just discounting their own tuition, there are budgeting constraints, you know, when it comes to, you know, whatever school you go to their own grant funding, when it comes to the federal aid, as long as you’re not like, as long as the semester hasn’t ended, then typically federal aid can be awarded, meaning your loans.

your federal Pell grant, things like that. But again, I would, I would be in the habit of getting everything done on time. So you don’t lose out on potential institutional aid. Um, most schools don’t, don’t have too strict of a deadline to be honest with you, but, um, you know, if a school says February 1st, I would get it in before February 1st.

Anesha: given that, uh, processing that we’ve talked about before. Um, yeah. Uh, I have a, so families come in all shapes and sizes. So what if my parents are divorced or separated? Whose information should I use? And then a combo to that question, do I need to include step parents on the FAFSA? Uh,

Frank: on the FAFSA, as far as the contributor is concerned, it only needs to be, um, the custodial parent, meaning which parent do you live with 51 percent of the time.

Okay. Now, if it’s completely split custody where, you know, if, um, where, where both parents have, have that even share, um, typically you’d want to go with what information, whose information is on the application. What address did you put? Whose home is that mom or dads? Um, when it comes to the, um, step parents on the FASFA.

Now, if your parents are remarried and they married filing jointly, like it’s going to have, when they load the taxes, it’s going to have that step parents information. Um, and then it’s kind of the school’s discretion. So some schools will say, Hey, your household is your household. That’s what we’re looking at.

Some schools will take out the step parent when it comes to the aid review. Now, the CSS profile is, uh, if you’re unfamiliar, not to go too deep into this, but typically there’s a custodial and a non custodial piece. So it doesn’t matter if you live with mom or dad. Both parents are going to have to do their own section of the form.

Now, if you know one parent’s out of the picture, there’s waivers and we can discuss that at a later point. Um, but as far as like getting the FAFSA done, it’s going to have, it’s going to in one, uh, Democrat, one of the, uh, Biological parents, uh, needs to be the main contributor and that’s typically where you live.

Um, and again, um, if, if it’s truly 50, 50, whoever you put, like whatever your address is for like high school and what you put on the admissions app, whosoever home that is, go with that one.

Anesha: I normally default and tell my students, whoever claims you on the taxes, um, whoever, whoever name, you know, your social security is the

Frank: problem with that is a lot of families in a divorce will have a agreement where every other year it changes.

Anesha: Oh, wow.

Frank: Okay. Okay. So like, you know, last year, mom was able to claim next year, dad claims as a dependent. So While that makes a lot of sense whoever claims the student doesn’t make them good custodial or non custodial got it Yeah,

Anesha: I’m glad I said that And

Frank: that’s one and that’s where families kind of default to so you’re not That’s not a wrong statement.

But again, even if You know, let’s say, let’s say, uh, parents are divorced, um, and they, and, you know, the child lives with, with mom and, you know, there might be an agreement where dad pays alimony and he gets to claim them every year on the taxes. So, you know, there are those types of situations.

Anesha: Yeah. No, like I said, yeah.

Families come in all shapes and sizes, as do their financial priorities. Um, okay. Um, someone asked what if my family’s financial situation changes after I submit the FAFSA? I know, I guess this is partially like, can I correct it? And then what happens also in the long run if my family earns more money down the line?

Frank: Yep. Um, if, if, you know, If income goes up later or within the academic year, and it’s not based on the year that’s being reviewed, that doesn’t matter. That’ll get caught up in future years. Now, if, you know, you filed your, you, like, for example, if you were doing this year, you filled out your FAFSA, um, and then let’s say mom or dad lost their job the end of 2024.

Um, in that situation, You’d have to contact the school directly and fill out whatever their appeal form is. In most cases, when it comes to a reduction in income, schools were very willing and able to work with you, but there needs to be some sort of documentation. Sometimes it’s as simple as You know, mom lost their job in the middle of 2024.

Once my 24 taxes are filed, you’ll see my 23. It’s, it’s half of what my 23 is in those situations. It’s really simple. You know, you just got to get the school, your updated taxes. Now, if it’s, you know, you lost your job in 2025 and it’s not going to show until you file your 25 taxes. In those instances, schools will collect things like, you know, your last pay stub, your severance, your termination letter.

schools can kind of estimate or you, you give an estimate of what your income will be. And then schools kind of use that to prorate and recalc the funding. But pretty much any change in finances that you have, um, we’ll have to go through the school you’re applying to, to kind of see the benefits of any of those changes.

Anesha: Is that a new thing that you can no longer do FAFSA corrections?

Frank: So you can do a FAFSA correction, but typically what’s going to happen is, it’s going to like alert the school to kind of like, Hey, they made a change. Okay. It doesn’t just automatically like change your financial need. So they’ll be able to see where the change was.

Sometimes it’s simple stuff or like, you know, um, um, you know, yeah, I, I put our, our savings was 50, 000. It was really 5, 000, right? That’s an easy mistake. And most schools just take a word for it. Sometimes they need to have like a. Uh, statement. Um, but again, in most cases, schools need to see some sort of documentation of the change.

So you just going in and changing it, you’re, you can still absolutely do that. It just won’t change the award letter without the conversation with the school.

Anesha: I’m gonna let you keep going with the questions. Gonna do a quick, uh, little Plug here for CollegeAdvisor. Um, for those who are in the room who are currently working with us, we know how overwhelming admissions process can be.

CollegeAdvisor has a team of over 300 former admissions officers and admissions experts like Frank, um, who are ready to help you and your family navigate the college admissions and financial aid processes through one on one advising sessions. After analyzing our 2021 through 2024 data, we found that CollegeAdvisor students are over two times more likely to be admitted to colleges like Harvard, Stanford, Stanford and Princeton, you can increase your odds and take the next step in your college admissions journey by signing up for a free 45 minute strategy session with an admission specialist on our team by using the QR code.

That is on the screen during that conversation, you will receive a preliminary assessment and get some tips on how to. Prepare your college list review of your academic profile and other resources that will help you stand out. Um, you also receive an overview of our 1, our premium 1 on 1 packages and be paired with an expert.

But we’ll leave that QR code up on the screen and get back to our questions for you. You answered 1 of my key questions regarding the FAFSA. Correction pieces. Oh, I wanted to ask this is out of curiosity. I know I worked in New York for a bit and I know that you used to be able to go straight from the FAFSA to the New York state app.

Is there still this connection between the FAFSA and state aid apps? Or is that severed now in the update?

Frank: Yes, that’s still the same. Um, it, what prompts that is, you know, the demographic question and then the schools you’re applying to. So, you know, if you, if you’re a New York resident and you apply to a New York school, yes, the, the HSC is New York state tap application will, will populate.

Yes. Um, I believe that happens in most states still, but I’m. Not 100 percent sure. Um, but yes, in my, it still does for for New York. I know that New York.

Anesha: Yeah, I’m mostly know New York and Pennsylvania. But yeah, I’m not sure of the other other states. Um, Someone asked, how can I, oh, I lost the question. Oh, how do I report income if my parents are self employed?

Frank: So again, as long as they filed their taxes and their taxes were accepted and, you know, even if your parents own a business, they still have to file their own personal taxes and whatever income they make from that business is reported in their personal. So, um, as far as like, you know, You upload, uh, or excuse me, as long as the taxes were filed and accepted by the government on time, everything can be done on the backend.

There might be a couple of questions of like, what’s the business value or what’s the, what’s the overall, you know, the asset value, uh, or what assets are associated with the business. What’s the business worth? Um, but anything is regarding the business and the income that all be handled in the personal taxes, which would, um, automatically be shared over.

Now, again, if you have to manually report it. Uh, your parents, a parent’s personal taxes, that final number of what their income is, is going to take into account all of their sources, rather it’s a w two or their own business or what have you. So, um, there’s really no difference as far as the FAFSA is concerned with completing that portion.

Anesha: So long as you’re filing your taxes, correct. How long does it take to receive my student aid index and what should I do with it?

Frank: So there’s really not much to do with it. Yeah. Once the FASFA is like that three to five days I spoke about as far as the FASFA getting in processes. Once they process it, you’ll know what that index is.

Um, and essentially again, schools are going to use that for how much money they can give you. Um, any federal aid, whether it’s federal loans or federal grants that’s mandated by the federal government, uh, things like the federal Pell grants, um, you know, to get the Pell grant, which I didn’t mention before, uh, it’s, that one’s a very strict income and typically the income needs to be on, on the lower end to get any type of, uh, federal Pell money, but, um, rather it’s a Pell grant or federal loans.

Those are all set by the FAFSA. And then the institutional aid is, is, you know, decided by the institution.

Anesha: Um, someone asked, how do I know if I’m eligible for subsidized versus unsubsidized loan? Is that something I can find out through the fafsa?

Frank: Uh, so the FAFSA’s going to determine that eligibility, uh, the subsidized loan is going to be the portion of the loan.

It doesn’t gain interest till after, uh, graduation. And the unsubsidized is gonna gain interest as soon as the money disperses. Um, that is both, those are considered need-based. You know, the, the subsidized loan you have to have the federal need eligibility, the unsubsidized any student can get, regardless of the need.

Um, but typically that’s going to be based on kind of how the college awards. So for example, a college could give money, give you free grant money, um, but then only given unsubsidized because they used up your need to give you the free money versus taking out a loan. So, uh, it will be determined by the school, uh, and the FAFSA together, but you won’t know exactly.

Um, until after the school does their review.

Anesha: All right, we in our last few minutes. I feel like we’ve gone through a lot of vocab words So i’m gonna I guess put it on you to define everything. So what’s the difference between a grant and a scholarship? Loans, what is work study and how is all that kind of featured out of the FAFSA?

Frank: Yes. Great question. Um, Grants are free money based on financial needs. So income and asset is how grants are calculated Um scholarship is free money based on academics grades, scores, things like that. Like the student themselves going to be directly, uh, how they get a scholarship grants. Typically they’re going to be based on parents finances.

Um, loans obviously need to be paid back rather than from the federal government. Um, rather than our private, um, loan, um, work study is from the federal government. But it’s a, it’s a potential and earnings a student can get. Meaning if you have a work study grant and you work at the library on campus instead of the library or the school funding your paycheck, um, the government’s funding your paycheck.

But as far as you, as the student is concerned, you’re just going to get a paycheck. Rather you worked at the library or worked at a restaurant. It’s all going to look the same to you. Um, it’s just going to be a paycheck. Um, uh, the, your federal loan eligibility, your federal grant eligibility, the federal work study are all going to be determined on the FAFSA.

The FAFSA and the school’s review of that FAFSA is going to say you’re eligible for this loan. Potentially this grant and this work study and then the school themselves are going to determine what grants from the school and what scholarships from the school.

Anesha: I feel like that’s a great place to end it on this, on the vocab review.

Um, so thank you so much, Frank. Thank you for folks for tuning in. Um, we hope that you will join us for our future sessions, but we hope that you are leaving tonight with a greater understanding of the FAFSA. Take care and good evening, everybody. Until next time.

Frank: Thank you. Good luck.