Thank you all for being here tonight. My name is Eddie. I'm on the Juno team, and I'm excited to talk to you all about financial aid appeals. Now this is a really important topic. I recognize we may have different audience members who for whom this is especially relevant, especially for seniors in the room or parents of seniors.

But, of course, this is an important topic for families across the board, whether you're a junior or younger, the the parent of a junior or younger, certainly any college students or if you have a current college student. Important note here is that financial aid is you apply every single year, and so this is an ongoing process. The knowledge that you gain today is going to be applicable over the entirety of the four years of college.

So, just a quick disclaimer that Juno is not an investment adviser. We don't provide investment advice. So let's jump in to, let's jump into our agenda where we'll discuss the timeline of financial aid awards.

We'll spend a little bit of time also going into merit based appeals and then the bulk of our time discussing need based appeals. So what the process is like, what you can what you can expect, what you might be what might qualify as a valid reason for an appeal, and especially what documentation you'll need to provide.

I'll share just a little bit about Juno and then get into q and a as needed. Please use the q and a feature. If we're not able to answer all the questions during our time today, don't worry. I'll make sure to compile all of the questions that have come in.

I'll I'll respond to those and follow-up with those with those answers.

I'll also be sure to send the webinar recording as well as these slides. So you're welcome to take notes if it's helpful to you, but don't feel like you need to feverishly jot down every single thing that you see. You will get a copy of the recording. You will get a copy of the notes. You will get a copy of any q and a that has come in as well. So let's jump in. And as we think about where we've been in the process so far, you may have joined us for previous webinars on the FAFSA, on the student aid index.

And so those are processes where you are submitting the documentation, and then you ultimately apply to college. Now some of you may have applied regular decision. A few of you may have applied even earlier than that in the early action or early decision processes.

And so whenever that time line is, financial aid will come immediately alongside that. You'll get your financial aid package.

So this may be where some of the families are at this point for any of the seniors. If you've submitted your RD applications and now you're eagerly awaiting to see what happens both with your admissions decision and certainly with the financial aid award that comes after that.

Then you can appeal the financial aid offer, ultimately decide what makes the most sense for your family, and then figure out how you might pay for that. So whether it's scholarship money, grant money, outside or external scholarships, potentially loans if needed, and then ultimately to pay the tuition at the end of the day.

So as we've as I mentioned, we've covered a few different topics already, and today, we're gonna emphasize and focus on appealing financial aid. So let's assume that you've received your financial aid award or offer already.

Now what I wanna emphasize here is think about the financial financial aid award not as the end all, be all. Think about it more so as the first draft. Now financial aid officers are in your corner. I wanna emphasize this because oftentimes students and families think that their financial officers wanna withhold as much money as possible, but it's actually the opposite.

They're trying to distribute and allocate their available funds as much as possible, as equitably as possible across all of their student applicants. And so there are situations that arise where students and families, what they've submitted doesn't quite align with the the specific circumstances that you've now found yourself in.

So if you really want to go to that school that you may have been admitted to, then think about this more as a conversation. Right? Initiate that conversation with the financial aid office.

They're on your side, again, but they also have to be responsible for the entire student population and the many requests that they get, that they receive in terms of an appeal.

So it's always helpful, though, to ask for more. There isn't a harm in that. The worst that can happen is that a school is not able to offer you any more any more financial aid. They are not gonna rescind your offer of acceptance just because you've tried to inquire and appeal for more aid.

We'll go through two general types of financial aid appeals tonight. The first is what's called merit based appeals. Again, we'll spend less time on this than need based, but still really important to cover.

It's relevant to anyone who's been admitted to more than one school with different levels of scholarships or grants provided to you. So think about it in this way where schools really want you because of some aspect of what you presented in your admissions. It could be the academic piece. You had a particularly high GPA, really high test score that they really want to bring and improve their numbers in their school. Maybe you have some kind of talent in athletics, in the arts, in music that's really important for their campus.

Maybe you've done a really incredible community service project that stands out.

Colleges want to bring you to their campus, and they want to the students who have been admitted to come because it improves their yield. And so they want you on their classes, as I mentioned.

So they'll be able to offer some type of merit based discount effectively, a a tuition discount. Now need based financial aid is sort of everything else beyond that. When you fill out the FAFSA, the free application for federal student aid, or in some cases for some schools, the CSS profile, The schools will use those pieces of information from these applications in order to best determine how how much financial aid to provide, how much your family is able to afford relative to the cost of attendance, and how much in financial aid they're able to give you based on the resources that they have available to their institution. Now some of these funds may come from the institution. Many of the funds may also come from federal sources.

So if you do need to appeal, we'll we'll think through sources from merit based and also need based.

Focusing in on merit based, I wanna share a few tips when it comes to asking for more aid.

It's helpful to be selective about which schools you do ask for for money.

Now if you are have no interest in attending a school that you've been admitted to and, realistically, you wouldn't attend even if they gave you more money, then don't consider requesting more from that school. You're just gonna waste your time. You're gonna waste the financial aid office's time.

The more detail that you can provide, though, for the schools that you really want to enroll in and demonstrate your your ability or your willingness to enroll, then, again, the school wants to work with you. And if they can increase your aid just a little bit, then and that makes you more likely to attend, then that's where the conversation begins.

And so if you will actually enroll with a little bit more more resources, then that's where you wanna give it a shot.

So if you do have more than one admission offer from different schools, that tends to be very helpful.

Schools are competing for you. They're competing to bring you to their campus based on your talents and your abilities. And so, effectively, you can use leverage from another from another acceptance of a similar peer school to the one that you really want to attend in order to navigate through this appeals process. It can be helpful, especially and I say a near peer school because in that way, they an institution will want to draw you away from from that school. If this if the institution doesn't consider it an a near peer, they may be less willing to and say, you know, you have to weigh out the options as they are and then make your decision from there.

But, again, think about the ways that you can maximize your your opportunities for for this appeals process.

If you've already been accepted to a school, again, they won't change their minds. I wanna emphasize this a lot because it can be difficult to difficult to think about how to best propose this, and and we'll talk about how best the language that you might need to use to make it most effective, but there is no harm. Please please make sure you ask. There's no harm in asking for more money, and importantly, as we'll talk about, in documenting that. So in the in the merit process, this is where all of your qualifications will come into play.

In thinking about some strategies that you might want to leverage, the structure, as I mentioned, the the terminology, the enthusiasm that you can that you convey is really important. You wanna make sure that a school really sees that you are value valuing the institution, and then you're initiating this conversation. You know the programs that they offer. You know the opportunities.

All the amazing things that you said in the admissions application, then reiterating that in the appeal because that's why you were drawn to the institution as a whole. Admissions and financial aid work in tandem in order to get these amazing students to their campuses. You wanna document your achievements. Maybe you had an increase in your GPA because you performed exceptionally well towards in your senior year after you've submitted your application already, and that's not shown.

Those are the types of things that can really sway a a financial aid committee and even in cases of an admissions committee on the merit side to want to bring you to their school compared to other applicants.

This may go without saying, but I do need to say it.

Be polite in your request. Kindness does go a long way. And, again, it might sound silly, but you don't want to go into this with any kind of arrogance in in any with any kind of entitlement.

Because at the end of the day, this is you're talking to human beings on the other end of the process. And so coming at it with a harsh tone or or even, you know, some level of deception, if you overexaggerate any kind of offers that you have, that is an immediate turnoff, and it's very unlikely that this is gonna work in your favor. I understand everyone wants more resources. College is expensive, but come at this in a process where you mean well and you genuinely want to see this work out in your favor, and colleges will try to make it work out if at all possible.

So thinking about when to do this, you wanna submit an a a merit appeal award a merit appeal after you've received multiple offers, but make sure that you you you do it before the enrollment deadline. Now this is important because the enrollment deadline secures your spot in a class, whichever in a particular college or university. If you haven't submitted by that point, then colleges may just move on to students on their waitlist, and then you may that may not secure your spot in the class anymore. It can vary school to school. So please make sure you do it beforehand.

It is helpful to follow-up if you've if you've applied and you haven't heard back.

Give time because as you might imagine, this is a condensed time frame with the financial aid process.

But if it does drag on too long, give it a a few weeks, two weeks. Beyond that, then you wanna check-in.

Admission admission offices and financial aid offices work in collaboration in this merit appeals process, and they are busy. They're they're going through as many as they can as fast as they can.

Again, the point of contact may be one or the other or, in some cases, both.

If you're approved, that is wonderful news. It worked. It helps defray the cost of attendance for you as a family. They may increase your scholarships or grant money, potentially even work study opportunities.

Now other outcomes could be a partial increase. Maybe not the full amount that you expected, but they're really trying to make it work for you and your family. They're doing the best with the resources available and at their disposal. So if that's sufficient enough for you for you as a family, then, again, that can also be a win. Even if it is a let's say, an an extra three thousand dollars maybe towards housing costs or towards tuition, that is a huge win. It may not be that, you know, eight, nine, ten thousand dollar scholarship that you were hoping for, but every amount of free grants that you get is less money that you have to pay out of your pocket.

And I also wanna be honest. The there's a very real chance that appeals can get denied. We'll talk about opportunities and the most important information that you need to communicate in this process to successfully appeal. There are things that financial aid officers are looking for, but it's still possible to be denied. And if that's the case, you can still use it as an opportunity to consider whether this is it's possible to still consider be considered for additional aid in future years as well.

Can't emphasize this enough.

Please don't be shy about appealing. Financial aid officers are not gonna hold it against you.

If you're if you're not asking for more aid, chances are someone else at the university is. It's a very common practice.

If you don't qualify for financial aid or the the the school has determined that, you don't qualify for financial aid, you can still appeal.

We'll talk about that again in the needs based process coming up here. But if you had some significant achievements on the merit on the merit side, if you had a really in a strong increase in your GPA, you wanna exhaust all the options that are available to you in that regard.

So as we think about now pivoting to need based aid, it is calculated based on the financial aid documents that you submit to as part of your financial aid application.

There's some issues with that. And if you've been in any of our previous webinars on the FAFSA, on the student aid index, we've talked about these information.

The inputs on the FAFSA, for example, are outdated. They may not truly reflect where your financial aid situation where the family's household financial financial picture is today.

And so the importance here is thinking about what was the baseline, what was the initial comparison point at time of application, at time of when you submitted your documents to where you are today and what that means for your process, what that means for any kind of extra information that you might need to provide in order to help convince a financial aid officer or to show them that these situations, the data that they were using in their aid calculations needs to have some new updated figures, or there's other context that wasn't included previously.

That I can't emphasize enough because the application, especially the FAFSA, doesn't ask certain questions, doesn't allow you to include certain pieces of information that we'll get to. And so if your family situation is different now than where it was two years ago, which if you applied if you're applying for college this year, for the twenty twenty six academic year, twenty six, twenty seven academic year, you'll be using twenty twenty four tax data. So it is outdated data. And, again, that is part of the process. This is why financial aid appeals are not that uncommon. It's it's built into the calendar cycle of the financial aid officer's workload.

So this might be a little bit of a review, again, if you were on on a pre on our previous presentations, but I just wanna emphasize it and spend a little bit of time here going through it. If you have the cost of attendance, then from there, you'll subtract whatever your student aid index is. So that is what the total financial need is determined to be. It's the difference between those two.

And so, again, I won't get into the student aid index at in at at length again, but it's the the lower your student aid index is, the lower that number, generally, more aid you'll you'll the the more your financial aid will be and the more opportunities colleges have to provide financial aid to meet that gap.

And so what we see then is with your total financial need, colleges will do their best to fill this number to meet the eighteen thousand five hundred dollars. Not every school, unfortunately, is able to meet what's called full meet full need or meet one hundred percent demonstrated need. This is a question that you can ask and you should ask, especially in the admissions process. For anyone who's younger in the audience, it's important to ask, do you meet full need, or do you meet one hundred percent of a student's demonstrated financial need? Now if they don't, they may give a portion of this eighteen thousand five hundred dollars and then expect the family to make up the rest, however they see fit. Namely, it it will be in terms of other additional loan types.

So if you think about all of the pieces of information that is used to calculate the student aid index. It's based on household income and assets, family size, all of the data that you put in to the FAFSA application, which then spits out the student aid number, and that ultimately is what's used to subtract from the total cost of attendance to get your total need. Now, again, it's not a perfect process.

Appeals are important. It's a built in process for financial aid officers because there's a recognition that income data is outdated. Your financial picture from two years ago from twenty twenty four is not where you are now. There's a whole lot that can happen between that between that period.

So, for example, there may have been a decrease in income. Now, conversely, there may be an increase in income. And if there's been an increase in income, then you expect that your financial aid package might decrease. But if there is a decrease in income from prior prior year from twenty twenty four taxes to where you are today in that two year span, then, of course, that's vital information for an appeals process.

Now other types of assets, for example so the FAFSA does not consider any type of expenses that might be a drain or that might reduce your assets.

And so your financial office might be able to actually consider these and, in likely cases, may be able to consider these expenses in your appeal.

The other important piece here that I'll reiterate again is the FAFSA doesn't currently consider it did in the in the past, but since it's changed, it no longer considers multiple children in college.

So it doesn't adjust for that.

Now, clearly, if a family has, let's say, two or even three children in college, we'll stick we'll stick with two for this example. If you have two children in college, one an incoming first year and maybe one is a junior or a senior, then diverting your resources, your income, and your assets to two children compared to one is much more difficult. And so in the reality of the of the aid award, if there is another student, another sibling in college, then that is a very significant reason to appeal because families, again, have to divert their resources across the board. So it is a huge factor to consider.

That is it is it it's an imperfect process, as I mentioned, and we wanna make sure that we provide any kind of updates, any kind of information in order to move and support your goal of appealing aid and to provide the important re documentation that is needed.

So I'll I'm gonna cover twelve of the big main, I guess, main reasons and more more common reasons that we see for reasons to appeal.

Now first, as we mentioned just just a moment ago, if your income has reduced from your from your twenty twenty four taxes to where you are now, an important reason. If there has been a job loss involuntarily, you may not be working. You're unemployed now compared to you have you had a job two years ago as as it was shown on your tax documentation.

Your situation now is incredibly different than where it was before.

Now if there also was some kind of change in income where we've seen this happen a lot. We've talked to we have supportive families in this case as well, where you may have had either, let's say, an inheritance, maybe a sale of any assets that aren't typical.

Maybe you won the lottery. Know, hope I'm hoping you all win the lottery. But, right, if there was any kind of onetime significant increase that maybe that happened in twenty twenty four. But now in twenty twenty six, that's that's not indicative of your income every single year. So if that was a onetime change, then that's important to note so that it's it's not assumed that that is your annual income year after year. Now we've I've seen this a lot more with families, parents who work in sales and who work on a commissions basis, where one year, you may have a really, really strong year, but then the cyclical nature of sales is it is possible where another year was tough.

So in those cases as well, that volatility is important to to think about and to showcase in this in this appeals process. Now, again, financial aid will be calculated year after year. So if you did have an especially high year or, again, maybe you you had a a really successful two years in a row, and then this current year right now, has been tough. The market has been slow.

That is important to consider and to to document, for the financial aid to consider.

If there's been also any kind of decreased income from a reduction in child support as well.

What's important here and what what I'll emphasize over and over again, you've heard me saying this already, is the value and the necessity to document. So I won't go through all the doc you'll you can see on in the third column here what's what might be needed, some of the appropriate appropriate pieces of information. But financial aid officers need proof in order to successfully change any of the the financial aid offer.

Without that, absence of any kind of documentation, they won't be able to do anything.

They have to convince their colleagues, their peers, their fellow financial aid officers, and then, again, showcase, provide explanation as to why the initial financial aid offer was not sufficient or why there may have been why they can change it based on their professional judgment.

They have to document that professional judgment change on the financial aid the new financial aid offer.

Now there are other reasons, particularly high expenses that might not be reflected on the FAFSA that you absolutely wanna consider when appealing aid. So any kind of unexpected medical expenses, particularly especially those, I should say, out of pocket medical expenses that have not been covered by insurance.

This is a very common one that I've seen families I've discussed with families because medical bills can be extraordinarily expensive.

And so if you're stuck paying medical bills even from two, three, four years ago, and this is ongoing, it's part of your daily life, That is a piece that is not currently captured in the FAFSA that is absolutely pivotal because it it it's income that is taken away from your ability to contribute to college expenses. So anything that is taking away your ability to contribute that's not currently documented in or that's not currently reflected in your financial aid application is very imperative to include so that financial aid offers have the full picture. Don't suffer with, let's just say, you know, tooth maybe you're paying two thousand dollars a month or or whatever amount in in monthly medical expenses because you had maybe a surgery that, again, was partially covered by insurance but not fully covered by insurance, we wanna know about that. That is your that affects your day to day life.

If there even is any ongoing medical medical conditions, medical treatments, medication, therapies that are not covered by insurance, those chronic conditions are still can still be very valid reasons to submit an appeal.

Now, again, other factors that may be considered care for elderly or sick family members. If you've taken on significant financial responsibilities to care for somebody, that's important to know about. Now this is there's a very specific definition. So for example, if in from this from the student's vantage point, if their grandparent has now lived in their home, There are very specific parameters as to whether or not or when that grandparent can be considered a dependent in the household, and that's if the family provides more than fifty percent of care.

Now it's not always it doesn't always a grandparent living in your home doesn't automatically mean that they're a dependent. They may receive most of their income through Social Security or through a pension or through any other any other retirement savings.

So it's not an automatic, but this is more so meant for unique circumstances where the family is providing significant levels of care, which is not captured anywhere on the FAFSA, but it's it's draining the resources of the family in order to to provide the best care level of care for the sick member.

And, again, there there are also cases in which you may have high fixed expenses that are that are required payments, so, you know, any kind of court ordered obligations. What I'll say here really quickly because we do get this question, does some does this count does something like credit card bills count here?

Or maybe even if a parent has their own student loans and is still paying those off and also is now expected to take out additional loans in for their child. Now credit card payments generally any kind of balance that you hold will generally not be factored in. There is there can be, certain admission offices, more sympathy for something like a parent who may have their own loans that they're still paying off because it's a very real part of life for for parents now where they're sort of squeezed between their own loans and now their children going off to college. So it is a possible valid reason for for consideration. It can vary school by school.

And then lastly, I wanted to emphasize other family circumstances that can warrant more aid.

If a sibling is in college at the same time, this is one of the most common reasons we see. We've talked to hundreds of families about these scenarios.

This is no longer, as I mentioned, considered on the on the FAFSA in the aid calculations, so it is possible for a financial officer to consider it in their professional judgment review, and often oftentimes, they do.

Any changes in family size, and so if your family has grown in terms of the number of dependents that you can claim on your taxes, then that is really important to know.

Family size, I mentioned on the case of a grandparent, but also on the case of the birth of a of another child in the family, the there are certain income protections that are considered for family size through the federal government. So any updated tax returns that you can provide are gonna be really important in demonstrating or documenting this change.

Because a family of six, for example you know, I'm just gonna exaggerate for the sake of this example. But a family of six is gonna need much more resources to provide general levels of care just to live everyday life than a family of three does. So that's why family size is actually quite important in this process because more of a family's income is sort of protected in the financial aid calculations based on what the family size is.

Now sort of a little bit more in in terms of the the unfortunate and sort of extremely extremely difficult and sad cases of death of a parent or divorce even divorce or separation, there are if there are changes in family size in this manner, it's not it's uncommon, but it has been seen across the board in financial offices where a parent has passed away. Unfortunately, this will this can will significantly change the financial aid calculations.

Now if parents have divorced or separated after you've already submitted the FAFSA, then, again, that's where you provide the documentation. And on the FAFSA, to in the in the case of divorce or separation, only one family one parent is considered as the primary contributor, and that's generally the parent who provides more than fifty percent of the financial resources for the child in the last twelve months. Doesn't it's not necessarily the the parent that the child lives with, though in those cases, it it's very common for it to be, but not necessarily. It's whoever provides more than fifty percent of the financial resources for the child over the last twelve months.

So these were all important factors that contribute to the financial calculations, that final student aid index number that we talked about earlier, and then how that number gets subtracted from the cost of attendance. So as long as you can provide documentation for these in these circumstances, you are doing your part to then help the financial aid officer know exactly what to point to, have the documentation that's needed to show proof. They can't just do it just based on an email that you sent. You you have to provide the proof of that such that they can make professional judgment decisions on your aid package.

Great. Now as we think about how the appeal process works, you usually want to contact the financial aid office, and the earlier, the better.

So start that conversation. If you have concerns, you wanna start that conversation early. It's a busy time all around, but, again, financial office officers know and expect this as part of their timeline of work.

And you wanna make sure you also know what might be needed from each individual institutions.

Appeals are reviewed on case by case basis.

And as a result, financial officers have the ability and they have the authority to adjust your financial aid award, your financial aid offer, and that's through the professional professional appeal authority that they have.

So when you then when they review and notify you, if approved, then they will adjust it.

Typically happens by a committee. So, again, they financial officers have to convince or may have to convince a cohort of their colleagues that this adjustment is needed in order to and this adjustment is needed and appropriate in order to best reflect your current family circumstances, where you are today, not where you're where the picture is determined from income data of two years ago, for example.

There are opportunities in some cases for additional review if you're denied, so think about those. But, again, you really it may be the case that you you didn't provide sufficient evidence or you or there's maybe something else came up, and that also warrants new information for the financial officers to consider.

As we think about what you'll need, then one of the biggest pieces that we've been talking around is this appeal letter. Right? How do you document everything? What do you say? What do you what kind of terminology do you need to share, and what's most relevant?

There there can be a lot of irrelevant information that is shared in the appeal letter that again, I understand why students and families may want to include it, but it's not necessarily beneficial in the appeal letter for this year.

And I'll just give you example of that. Because we I we just reviewed an appeal letter from a family, from a a Juno family, who wanted to share more about a another student, a younger sibling who is going to be in college in a few years. So it's a younger sibling, you know, to say two two two, three years younger, and family is trying to plan in advance from now. And so they included in the appeal letter that they have there is a younger sibling, and the family is concerned about, you know, eventually paying for for multiple children in college.

Now that is completely understandable. It's a very valid reason and an an understandable reason that that would be included in the appeal letter.

Now the feedback that we gave that family was, while that absolutely is a concern, it's not relevant for this year.

It will absolutely be relevant in two years' time when that younger sibling is applying to college and will enroll in college.

For now, it's not as relevant. So let's focus on what is the most relevant to best maximize your chance of a successful appeal. And I'll mention here as well, if if you have appeal letters, we are happy to review them. You can send it to us via email. We'd be happy to give you feedback, just adjustments based on what we've seen to work. Last year, we read over a hundred appeals letters that families sent in to us.

We had you know, it can it varies based on timing that a family submits it. We've seen about twenty five percent of of families successfully appeal and get more money as a result of it. So, again, please use us as a resource if we can help in any way. But, But, again, the biggest part of that is actually drafting the letter, explaining the things that are that were not included, not reflected in the original application, any unique and special special circumstances that your family is in now that wasn't the case when when you previously applied.

Then you wanna collect all of your important documentation. This is gonna serve as evidence. Financial officers need evidence. I wanna emphasize that again and again. They need concrete evidence in order to be able to leverage their professional judgment.

And then, again, anything else that you might need, recent tax returns, pay stubs, bank statements, any other supporting documentation that you might need, please have all this compiled together. You wanna put your best foot forward the first time around. You don't wanna have to go back and forth with a financial officer to say, oh, but I I forgot this. Oh, wait. Now there was this other form that I realized that that, you know, you said I needed, and let me send that to you now.

So do your best. If you can communicate with your financial office in advance in terms of what they do need, if there are any unique aspects, then feel free to do so. You know, we covered a lot of supporting documentation as well. You'll have access. You can go back to these slides.

But make sure you collect as much information as possible. Be as comprehensive as possible so that you can submit your appeal letter and the best foot put your best foot forward at the beginning so that you don't have to keep going back and forth.

Schools have to consider your your aid appeal and all requests that that do come in for a potential adjustment. They have to disclose the option and the process on their website. But, again, there is no guarantee that just because you appeal, that financial aid will give you more.

There's no harm in doing it, but there also is no guarantee of it.

I wanted to also share just a few things that don't count or shouldn't be included in the appeal.

If there's been a reduction in any four zero one k's or any retirement values, that's not included. That's not considered in a success that won't be considered for a successful financial appeal.

Investment any retirement income in the first place is actually not reported on FAFSA at all.

And so it's it won't generally, it's not even included.

But even if there's a reduction, that's not something that you should include.

If there's been similarly a reduction in any other investment assets that you own, whether it's stocks, bonds, real estate, anything of the sort, business businesses that you may own that are less than a hundred excuse me, that are greater than a hundred a hundred full time employees.

So those things would be considered assets, would be reported to the university.

Those are factored into the financial calculations. But if there's fluctuations, then that doesn't that that isn't considered in the appeals process. You are absolutely reporting them at time that you submitted, but these are that's that's the nature of volatile markets. Things go up.

Things go down. I hope they go up. Right? But if if the if things have gone down, then that's not a reason that's not a sufficient reason to submit an appeal.

If a parent refuses to contribute to the student's education, it is a really difficult position for the student to be in, but, unfortunately, that doesn't count as well in in reasons to appeal. An unwillingness to pay is not the same as an ability to pay. And so just because colleges will expect both parents, both biological parents to contribute to the child's education, So that's the default. Again, there are situations in which that differs in case of divorce or separation.

In case of abuse, of course, there's then that won't be that parent would not be considered or expected to con to contribute to the child's education. But in most cases, both biological parents are expected to contribute, and so a refusal alone is not a sufficient justification.

If a parent doesn't want to borrow Parent PLUS loans, that similarly is not a sufficient justification to a financial aid office or a lack of creditworthy signers.

Now what I wanted to spend actually just a little bit of time talking about because we we have a resource that I think can be extraordinarily helpful. We've been talking a lot about what to include, what type of terminology is needed. And so Juno has been working on for the past few months a tool that I think is gonna extremely helpful and that we're gonna make free for all families.

And so and it will always be free. Please leverage this resource. We spent a lot of time working on it. It'll go live likely at the end at the end of this week or potentially next week, so stay tuned. It's it's very, very near completion here. And so what this does is that you you will input a few pieces of information, and it will generate a financial aid appeal letter for you. So everything that we've talked about up until this point gets gets combined into this tool.

And so it's not just for first year college students or, you know, students high school students going into college, but every year of high school, this is relevant because you're applying for financial aid every single year.

So it'll start with just a very quick question whether you are already whether you're starting college soon or whether you'll be you'll you are already enrolled in college.

And then it'll ask you the type of aid that you are appealing, whether it is a merit aid reconsideration, a need based aid reconsideration, multiple children in college, or if it's a dependency override.

And that dependency override is if a student is considered independent for FAFSA for FAFSA purposes. It's not it doesn't have to do with any dependency on tax on on taxes or tax returns.

It's there's a very narrow definition of what it means for a student to be independent for FAFSA purposes.

So you'll determine which type of aid appeal you are making.

And then from there, you'll enter details.

From there, you'll enter details about where you've been admitted. And so you can include the different schools here, and the the tool is smart enough and sophisticated enough to look at the options that you've presented and to draft an appeal letter based on the one that would be the best fit and maximize your, maximize a successful aid appeal. Right? So I mentioned, for example, schools that consider, that are considered near peer.

Right? Ohio State and Duke are both phenomenal institutions. One is public. One is private. They offer aid in completely different ways.

There's very different considerations in how in how they package aid. And so you might you may have applied to University of Michigan. I'm sorry I'm sorry to invoke the rivalry here, but maybe you applied to University of Michigan, and you also received an offer from Ohio State, both large public public state institutions. That would be more of a near peer example.

And so as you're going through through the tool, you'll be able to then, again, think about specific reasons of why why you're appealing and the circumstances around it. In the needs based appeals process, you'll select those reasons, share some details, and then, again, it'll write a compelling letter on your behalf, taking all of what you said into account, all of what you've shared here.

So we're excited for you to we're excited to preview this and for to launch it very quickly.

The aid appeal will will then guide you through some of the documents that you might need as we talked about. You can come back to this presentation, and then it'll share as well some some of the suggested documents that you'll need as a result.

A few I just wanna mention a few more quick quick things, and then turn I will turn our attention to q and a.

If you've been on any of our previous presentations, you've you've heard this, but I wanna emphasize this because this is a very dramatic change happening in starting July first.

The federal government is stepping back from student loans, and so they're restricting parent plus loans starting July first.

Families will parents will only be able to borrow a maximum of twenty thousand dollars per year in the parent plus program.

And on top of that, there is a lifetime limit of sixty five thousand dollars per child. So this is not per parent, so two parents cannot both borrow sixty five thousand dollars for one student. This is per child.

And so it would be twenty thousand first year of college, twenty thousand second year, twenty thousand third year, and then five thousand senior year of college. Those are the new caps to the parent plus loan program.

Before, you used to be able to borrow up to the cost of attendance. So one important note here that I'll mention is if there are any current college students or the parents of any current college students, then you can still borrow under the old terms of the parent plus loan program. So you can still borrow. You can be it's con you'll be considered legacy, sort of, like you'll receive legacy status in order to then still borrow up to the cost of attendance under the parent plus loan program if you need to. You just need to have taken out a direct loan.

The student you'd have to take out a direct loan. The parents can still have taken out a parent plus loan in the past. You will then be considered for legacy borrowing considerations, which is up to the cost of attendance without any lifetime limits. I say that again because the Parent PLUS loan program may not it's not the best loan that's out there, but it also may not be the worst loan. And so if you are a parent of a current college student, I strongly encourage you to ensure that you are you are granted legacy status. Just make sure your student has borrowed a direct loan at some point in their college career before June thirtieth. So effectively now, this is the last the last semester you can do this.

And so that will allow you to then operate under the old provisions of the parentless parent plus program. And then in that case, the parent plus program loan will become the worst option that that you can qualify for. Hopefully, you know, if there's other options, they're better than that, but it serves as an insurance policy as almost a ceiling where it will your loan will never go above that, or or any loans that you're exploring will never go above that. So, again, it serves as an insurance policy for the family.

Let me just share a very quick note on Juno, and then I really wanna get to questions. We started Juno in order to help this exact situation.

There's power in numbers.

And from that, Juno has been able to negotiate lower rates on behalf of families.

And so what we're doing here is essentially not asking families to commit to anything.

Juno is free. Juno's always been free for families. What we're doing is building a collective bargaining group similar to a union for student loans. The more families we have in our group by April thirtieth, the better and the more negotiating power and the more leverage we have when we have the conversations with banks and lenders afterwards starting, you know, starting May first onwards.

So if you're willing to consider, I would just ask if one one quick note here is just a willingness to be considered for effectively a mailing list, an emailing list. We don't ask for any of your your financial information at all. There's no spot to include that anywhere on anywhere in Juneau. We ask a few basic questions because we have to understand the general creditworthiness of the group and then share that with lenders in those negotiations.

But, again, we don't ask for money at any point. This process is completely free. I just wanna emphasize that there's no credit check. There's there's no cost to sign up or anything like that.

We offer a lot of one on one support for free. I'd love to meet with any families that have questions. You can sign up for book a time with to meet with me on our website.

We have a lot several colleagues devoted to just this is serving serving you in the best way that we can to provide you information that is most important for you, most relevant for your family situation.

And so there were there have been times when we've spoken with families about the Parent PLUS loan program being the best option for them. Now, again, upcoming this year after July first, those conversations are going to change because of the caps on Parent PLUS, But, ultimately, we're not obligating you to anything.

What we're asking for is strength in numbers. Though the more families we have in our group, the better and the more powerful we are as a collective in order to to influence lenders to offer better rates and better terms.

And so that's really the the Juno proposition is please shop around. Please explore what your options are.

Don't stick with don't only look at one or two lenders. Shop around. And as part of that, we hope you consider what Juno what Juno might offer. Again, we are not a lender directly.

I just wanna emphasize that. But we partner with lenders, and we negotiate with them in order to have better rates or better terms in the loan process. K. Let's let me turn to q and a.

I see a few here that are listed.

Let's start. I see a question about if there's another sibling in Catholic grade school, not college, is that a reason to appeal?

It can be in some at some institutions.

Typically, for schools that use AFSA only, they they generally won't they they may they generally won't consider that as part of the successful appeals process. There are there are about two hundred colleges that also use the CSS profile. It's much more in-depth of an application, and there are considerations for k twelve education and certain certain protections that can be considered there. It's not gonna be significant, but it's also a recognition that if your high school has been you know, if you've been paying a lot for a student's high school education or anything prior to that as well, that is a recognition that that is a large investment that doesn't allow you to have as much available resources.

But I will say it is limited. I don't wanna overpromise or or get anyone's hopes up in that because that is a if that is a decision that your family has made, that's totally appropriate, and, you know, that's that has been that may have been a great educational opportunity for your child. It is, though, a a decision that the family made and has chosen to make in that regard. So it can be considered by some schools, but it is it it can vary in terms of how how the extent to which it is considered.

Great question.

When is the best time to submit for need based appeals based off medical considerations?

Do you do it when you receive a preliminary package or the full package?

Are you able to appeal both need and merit or only one? These are excellent questions. I'm gonna go by one by one. What and then additional questions in this.

What if I appeal for apply for an appeal on need and it helps a bit, but my child also has competing offers? Yep. Excellent. So we're gonna we're gonna tackle all these.

The early so when you should apply for both need and and merit. You want to apply to after after you have received your admissions decision, but before your deadline, the enrollment deadline of May first.

Now let me speak a little bit more as to why you wanna wait until your admission decision. There are some cases where, you know, more on the need based side, especially, where if you know, I mean, if you know you have ongoing medical expenses, that's not a surprise. Right? So you might you might wanna let financial offices know that as soon as possible. Now I'll encourage you to wait just a little bit until you receive the offer of admission first.

Typically, that will come sometime in March. You know, maybe a little bit earlier. It can depend on when for regular decision, most decision most students hear back in March.

Now once you receive the offer of admission, then they're not they're not gonna rescind it. They're not gonna take it back because you you've appealed. Right? If you submit information in advance, many schools around the US are need aware in their admissions process.

So what I mean by that is that they do factor in how much aid is going to be expected, how much aid they might be expected to allocate towards you as a family compared to other families compared to other families, and that's because they have limited budgets.

And so if they know then that you plan to appeal because you have some kind of extenuating circumstances and you will need more financial aid, then it is possible for them to use that against you to say, okay. This student is actually gonna be more expensive for our institution. And I I I I don't mean that to say that in a crass manner, but will the student be more expensive on the university in terms of available financial aid that they can offer or not?

I wanna be really honest with you and say, I would much prefer, and I strongly encourage you to wait until you have the financial aid offer. And then as soon as you have that, then begin the conversation with the financial office.

Collect your documents early. Absolutely. So get ready for it. Collect your documents if you know what you need, and then you can get started right away, you know, the same day you receive the the same day you receive your aid offer.

The piece that I'll mention here as well is some schools will release admissions decisions and financial aid letter offers at the same time. So you'll get both together. It'll be one package.

If that's the case, that's great. The other consideration, schools may release financial aid offers a couple days later or even a couple weeks later.

I would still encourage you to wait. You can ask the financial office in terms of the timeline. They will very likely tell you to wait for the preliminary offer first, the initial aid offer first, and then appeal from there.

And so, generally, they have to have that first that baseline, that first offer available. And then from there, they make professional judgments. There's there are steps in the process that they have to follow.

Let me look at some of the other questions that you asked here.

Oh, yeah. You absolutely can can appeal for both. So if you have achievements, for example, if you have a competing offer elsewhere, anywhere you can maximize money, absolutely consider that.

Generally, if, you know, if you have some level of need that wasn't reported so this is an example. Let's say you included you included your primary residence on your FAFSA application, which is one of the things you're not supposed to do. Your your primary residence is not included anywhere or should not be included anywhere, but maybe you included it in the asset section of the FAFSA.

Definitely clarify that. You want that to get changed, but you also have a competing offer from another university. Now it could be the case that you actually need to reach out to both of those universities to correct the FAFSA. Right? Because chances are if you made a mistake on one, it got that mistake got sent to all all other universities.

It could be the case where you made the mistake. Maybe you heard us, you know, in these presentations talking about how you shouldn't do that, so then you made changes, and then the rest of them that you sent out were correct from there. Right? So just hypothetically.

Absolutely. You wanna do both. Appeal merit, appeal need, especially if something was missing on the need based or something was wrong or a a mistaken on the need based process for your financial calculations, you definitely wanna appeal that.

So I think I covered all of those excellent questions altogether there.

Okay. So here's a question on plan to appeal both merit and financial aid. Admissions rep recommended appealing merit first.

Appeal letter is ready. We have at least six schools with significantly higher merit offers.

Great. So if that's the case, that's a very compelling reason. Everyone else is seeing something within the student that maybe the school is not able you know, didn't initially see. And if they're drawn enough to to the student to admit them and they wanna compete for the student, then they could absolutely they could absolutely increase their their merit award.

That's fine. I think from there, depending on the school, that's likely a a common pathway, especially if the school doesn't have as many institutional resources to consider. But so I'm I'm okay with that process. I do agree, Vivian, with that.

The other thing, though, that I wanted to mention is just make sure you're informed.

Now you may not you may not have a reason to appeal based on need. Right? If you submitted all the information appropriately and correctly, nothing changes in from that perspective, then they're not gonna change the needs process. But I would just say I would encourage you to to make sure go through our previous webinars, you know, join journal dot com slash webinars.

Just make sure you're informed in the process because I gave a couple examples. We have a lot of other examples on that assets that you should include on your FAFSA, assets that you should not include on your FAFSA. So if you overreported your assets, then I absolutely want you to appeal on these basis because then that's another area where you can qualify for additional funding. Now, again, the merit piece of it absolutely is important.

So if there can be piece of pieces of it that come together, then that's great.

Some so if so similarly, then if if income oh, I see. I'm seeing. Sorry. There's a there's a chain of questions here. Let me read let me read the the third part here. Then it comes you sold investment prop sold an investment property. Do not got it.

Okay. So there's a okay. So you're I'm seeing here, you're facing a lot of these different scenarios that we that we saw. The and this is this will be applicable and helpful for other folks, I think, as well just in terms of the the different scenarios that we address. So the you have the profit, that one time high you know, sale of an asset that resulted in a quite a high income for that year, followed subsequently by a job loss the following year.

Yeah. And then on and then sort of private school tuition on top of that. Will they care?

Yes. So you you absolutely please please appeal. You absolutely they will consider this.

And so with that, you're gonna be make sure you're in in close communication with your financial aid officer because you have a lot of different situations going on here. And so twenty twenty four, things now are dramatically different. And so for for everyone else in the audience here, I think it's it's helpful to know because this is quite an extreme change from one very, very high high asset, maybe income scenario to quite quite the opposite with a job loss on top of, you know, that one time. So there's a dramatically different scenario playing out here. Absolutely communicate with the financial office. This is a huge like, this this would be a potentially dramatic and insignificant adjustment in your case because you have many situations and scenarios going on here.

Feel free to reach out. If you have more specific questions, please reach out to me directly.

Okay. Oh, here's a good question. What about natural disasters?

I'm so sorry to hear that your family lost your home.

Wow.

So just I'm reading through the rest of this question.

FEMA insurance paperwork, a lot of things here.

They would not some schools will not take this into cons So okay. Good questions here. So a couple of things.

If I'm I'm disheartened to hear, unfortunately, that that the financial office was not willing to consider these factors in the appeal. I think these are actually quite dramatic.

Now there I there could be circumstances around insurance policies and sort of the repayment on that in order to in order to have either rebuilt the home or purchased a new home.

However, either way, there are there are still, I think, additional expenses that you've incurred clearly that that are not reflected. And this is outside of any kind of, know, maybe insurance payouts. If there's, you know, incremental things where you didn't have documentation of, you know, all of your your sofas and TVs and all that stuff.

Now I would it's sort of a tough situation if they're not willing to consider.

There if there are other you reach out to me because, again, I wanna give you more of a detailed answer.

It's worth it's worth trying again. If you've done it once, you can still reappear, as we mentioned earlier.

And so you it's still worth considering again if they're if they're able to factor factor your unique family situation into the situate in into the aid aid recalculation. These are things you also asked. You wanna send the send these via email.

I'm sure you could send it via physical mail.

Would just strongly recommend sending it to e via email. I would not send it via mail because it takes many days. It could get lost in the mail. Most universities now will have either dedicated email address or a web portal, a link to upload these materials.

And it's okay if you're not a a Juno family yet. These free resources will still be free. They're free and open to everybody. We certainly hope you join join our our negotiation to benefit kind of the entire entire group.

K.

Can you appeal both merit and need? Yes. Do you have to pick one? You don't have to pick one. Can absolutely do both.

The new rates for the federal direct loan will be announced in May.

They they decreased from from last year to this year, So, hopefully, that will continue.

We will see. I don't wanna make any projections and then be wrong, but but they did decrease from last year to this year. I hope that that continues.

How is Juno supported? Good question. We are all about transparency. So Juno is free for families entirely. So, again, we won't ask you to pay anything. We don't ask for your for any of your financial you know, for any credit cards or bank statements or anything like that.

We get paid through we get paid a small percentage by the lenders. And so I think this is really important because this allows us to make everything free for all of you and to develop all these exciting tools that we have.

So what's important, though, is to mention is we set that percentage, you know, sort of whatever percentage on the amount of loan volume that's originated on behalf of our partner lenders.

We set that in advance of the group negotiations. And so when we're talking to different lenders, they're not able to sway Juno by saying, oh, like, hey. Hey. We'll give you an extra, you know, this amount.

Our interests are to serve the families. We started Juno started in twenty eighteen with two of our business school students who realized that loans are expensive. It's really expensive to borrow money for school, and what can we do about it?

I say this myself. I'm actually a current Juno a Juno member.

I'm currently in grad school. I'm in an MBA program myself.

I came to Juno by being a a user of the of Juno first and foremost, and then I joined the team after. I would not be here if I didn't believe in the mission. I my background is in admissions. I spent the decade in in admissions and high school settings. So I was at Williams College, a small liberal arts school. I was in the admissions office at Yale University, and then I was a college counselor working directly with families at a a school in Massachusetts at Phillips Academy in Andover. And so, again, I think the mission of Juno is to make as much avail information available to families as possible.

Sorry. This is a a little bit of a tangent to your question, but I think it just speaks to kind of why we've why we've structured June on this way to make everything free for families, to give you as much information as possible, to be an informed consumer. The more you know, the more you shop around, that is the best thing that you can do in this process. If it comes to the point where you need to take out loans, which we try to minimize that as much as possible. Right? Appeal, Get as much free money as possible from the institution, from state funding options, from federal funding options, external scholarships. Get as much of the free money as possible.

If and only if that doesn't cover your full your total need and you do need to consider any kind of private loans to meet the meet the difference, then that's where we just hope you consider Juno as an option amongst the many options that you have available to you. We are fairly confident that that you'll get a very strong strong competitive rates through Juno.

Let's see.

Excellent questions. I think we're we're almost near the end of the question, so thank you for bearing with me here. Anyone does need to drop off, feel free. But I think we're almost towards the end, so I'll just go through as many of these as I can.

So why did the current administration limit the Parent PLUS to twenty thousand per year?

This is we can have a one on one discussion on this one.

There's there's, you know, positive ways to view it. There's more pessimistic ways to view it.

Will a school entertain a merit appeal if that institution awarded need based aid and a competing offer has no need based aid?

Consider well, so will one school consider a merit?

So it is pass so one school offered.

Yeah. That that's still a situation which you can you can still be considered for merit aid. Now if there are some schools that that don't offer merit aid at all.

And so if a school does not offer merit aid I'll use one of my former institutions as an example. So Yale does not offer any merit scholarships. It's only need based aid. And so if you come to a school that offers only need based aid with a school that has merit scholarships and say, hey. I got this amount I need from this school from, you know, this school and an extra, you know, ten thousand dollar merit scholarship with them. That's not Yale is not gonna consider that a peer school. They're they will not match that.

And so that's where, you know, schools that have similar financial aid processes will will compete and and be able to to work and sort of try to match other offers from similar types of institutions.

How does cost of cost of living affect? Yeah. Good question. So, yes, this this is this is a factor. Schools that can that do have the CSS profile, this is considered, but it's not considered on the FAFSA. So if if costs are rising, costs have risen a bit across the board on, you know, everyday on everyday expenses. But let's say housing housing has significantly the cost of housing has increased.

Well, I guess I won't use housing because your primary residence is not factored in. But if there's other factors that are increasing at a higher rate above inflation, then that that certainly is different. You know, for example or even if let's say you live in let's say you live in New York City versus living in Vermont, you know, and you make a certain income in New York City compared to a certain income in Vermont. Whatever you make in New York City, you could be considered for that context, like, fairly, you know, middle income or lower income. And if you take that very same salary to Vermont, you might be considered high income. Right? I'm, of course, making generalizations to emphasize the point, but, yeah, absolutely, cost of living is a factor.

Okay. So I'm hearing from from there's one. If you have a special needs child and you had yep. So specific circumstance here.

I would encourage connecting with the financial office at the school.

That is a very significant the amount that you described here is a very significant amount.

And so it these types of circumstances are can be case by case.

I'm more optimistic about a positive consideration here in your case because your your child had had to sort of had a a particular education program that they needed.

And it's, you know, it's that is a little bit different than kind of what maybe the early the earlier example that I was saying with the private Catholic school, for example. Because, again, ultimately, that is not necessarily it's not a requirement for a student to have gone maybe to a private school option compared to a local public school. Again, I'm not making a judgment on which one was selected or not, but I think your case that you're describing here is actually different from from that.

And so that's in order to meet the needs of your child. So I would strongly suggest including that and having a conversation with with your financial officer. I think that is more promising in terms of considerations.

Do you need to so from Lauren, do you need to go back?

Let's let's follow-up directly.

If you don't mind sending me an email, it's just Eddie at Join dot com, e d d y at Join Juno dot com, or you can you can actually respond to the email that we'll send But thank you so much. I think we've gone thank you so much for everyone for sticking around as well. I know it's late, whatever time zone you're in. Please let us know how we can help.

I will follow-up or our team will follow-up with a recording of the webinar with the slide deck, the presentations. You can come back and refer back to them. We will let you know as soon as the appeal letter generator is live and active. So it's gonna be in the very near future.

Like, might literally be tomorrow. So this will be hot off the presses, everyone.

But if not tomorrow, then early next week. We've been working on it for a while now, and it's it's just about ready to go. Please reach out with any other questions that you have. I think we've gone through everyone, but if I missed your question, please, again, send me an email directly. You can respond to the email, and our team will be able to follow-up with you. With that, have a great night, and thanks so much for joining us tonight.