to FAFSA tips and tricks.

My name is Leah Young. I am the student success resource lead here at Juno, and I am also, work a lot with financial aid offices, undergrad students, graduate students.

And I've been in the financial aid sphere for about twenty years, working across lots of different institutions, including Dickinson College, where I worked as the assistant vice president for enrollment and director of financial aid.

All that to say that I I think I can be helpful on this session, and would love to just check-in and hear where our folks are, where they're joining us at in the process. Are you students yourselves? Are you parents of juniors or seniors? Are you working through the process already?

And I would love if you if you just throw that in the chat. You can either send that directly to host and panelists, or you can be more, open in the chat and and send it to everyone, whatever you prefer. Would love to just get a sense for who's on the call, where you are in the process. We're gonna cover all the timelines associated with this process.

We're gonna talk about what is the FAFSA, what's its purpose, what you need to successfully complete it, who needs to complete the FAFSA, a few key things you need to know in each section to make sure you fill it out correctly.

As someone who spent a lot of time in a financial aid office, I have seen many, many mistakes made on that FAFSA form, and we're gonna help you avoid those.

And then what happens after you complete the FAFSA? How that data is used and how Juno can serve to fit into that timeline? And I'm also going to be previewing our newest tool, which is a financial aid, basically, reconsideration request and appeal letter. So if you've completed your FAFSA, gotten your financial aid award, and you're wondering how to negotiate that, one, we do have other webinars that are listed on our site at join juno dot com slash webinars where you can always see the next upcoming one. That's one we do pretty frequently.

And this is a tool that will help you generate your financial aid reconsideration request, appeal request, and tell you, you know, like, what kind of supporting documents you might need to have that considered. They've just launched today. So I'm excited to share that with you, and it's always free for families to use just like all of our resources.

Alright. We've got parents of a high schooler here.

A couple of those, some juniors, some seniors. Great. Thank you for sharing in the chat as I take a look at that.

Fantastic. You can feel free to throw your questions in either the chat or the q and a, and I'll pop in there periodically and make sure they get addressed. Alright. So if yeah. For those of you who are parents of juniors, you have some time to fill out the FAFSA. The earliest you can typically do that is October first.

And then as you go on the timeline, soon after you submit that, you get something called the student aid index. We're gonna talk about that a little bit more. We also have a separate webinar that dives deep into the calculations of that student aid index and what it means. We cover it very lightly towards the end. But if you really want to deep dive into how the FAFSA calculates that student aid index, that number that is associated with your need, definitely check out one of our future webinars.

Typically, students are applying to college throughout the fall.

Typically submitting those forms, you know, around the holidays. Though some schools have rolling admissions, we're still seeing some of students apply now.

Typically, financial aid decisions are awarded sometime in the March and April time frame. You might get merit decisions earlier if you're applying to a school that does rolling admissions and releases them at the time of admission. But, typically, financial aid need awards get released right around now through April, essentially, if that FAFSA is ready.

If you're not able to make that work with your financial aid offer or you've got other offers that are just pulling you stronger from the one that you your student really wants to attend, you may wanna look at appealing that financial aid offer.

Again, we have a whole session on that in our webinars.

And use typically decide which school to attend around early May, and then research and apply for student loans if applicable.

And then tuition is typically due in August.

So we've got a question about, you know, not qualifying based on income, but I have debts. Does it still help to apply for FAFSA?

And so it if you're gonna need, if your or your student is going to need federal student aid in the form of loans, the FAFSA still is an eligibility checker for federal loans, which has some really good protections on them.

And, you know, the rates for students are typically pretty good. We're gonna go through what that qualifies for. So the FAFSA still helps in that way. It also gives parents access to the parent plus loan if that's your preferred method of borrowing.

And those interest rates can be high, but if you're having some credit issues or some high debt to income ratios, that could be a a good strong option for you.

That will you'll be eligible for up to twenty thousand dollars per year per student with a cap of sixty five thousand total per student on that. So again, we'll get into more details, but thank you for submitting that question. Happy to answer them along the way. If they're good for later, I might, you know, just say we're gonna get to that in a bit. Alright. So today's topic is on submitting that FAFSA. Check back for other webinars that pair really well with this timeline.

And let's kick off with what is the FAFSA. So this is the free application for federal student aid.

Some of the things it checks for are grants, which don't have to be paid back, but it is very much sensitive to both income and assets.

To go back to the question asked in the chat, debts, it's not as sensitive to. If those debts are against, like, investment properties or other assets, you wanna calculate net worth. We'll talk about that in a little bit. But if it's things like credit card debt or car payments, etcetera, that's not going to help get you some of those that grant free money aid. Free money is our favorite kind of money that doesn't have to be paid back. You do have to complete that FAFSA each year to be considered for that federal aid.

You wanna do that on the earlier side versus the later side because some aid can run out, particularly with state based grant grants as well as some of the school based grants.

You know, at the beginning of the cycle, schools tend to have the most money and the most concern about filling their class.

Like we said, you know, I do always encourage people to file the FAFSA.

Some people assume their income is too high and don't really understand how the calculations work and find that they they do qualify for some aid.

And sometimes FAFSAs are are required to be considered for the merit based aid that might have a small need component, but it not be the major driver of that consideration.

So this is what the FAFSA can potentially get you access to depending on your results.

So as I grab my my little pointer here, it checks for your eligibility for Pell Grants, is based on that financial need. The maximum you can qualify for is about seven thousand three hundred and ninety five dollars this year versus FSEOG grants up to four thousand. You're not gonna find that out from filling out the FAFSA.

It's FSEOG grants are given to the school to divide out how they see fit, but to those who have the highest need. So that's one of the programs that can run out in campus based programs. So that's one of the reasons to file the FAFSA early.

Federal work study basically gives your student the option to work on campus.

Not that some schools some schools will still allow students who don't qualify for work study to have a campus job, but schools can hire more folks within federal work study because it is subsidized by the Department of Education.

Pay schools pay twenty five percent of the salary out of their budgets, and seventy five percent gets covered by the work study allocation. That's really designed to cover things like books and incidental fees, not to cover a major portion of tuition. And the student does have to work to earn those funds and will receive those funds as they are earned, just like any other job.

Direct loans. These are available to all students up to five thousand five hundred dollars for the freshman year. It does have to be paid back.

There is a subsidized option for that loan that does rely on a need based component of the FAFSA. So that is that allocation, whether the loans are subsidized versus unsubsidized, is determined by the FAFSA.

And the difference between those, just to outline those two words, the subsidized loan does not have you are not responsible for the interest accruing on that loan. The student is not responsible for the interest accruing on the loan rather.

Unsubsidized loans do accrue interest during school.

And the maximum subsidized that a student can qualify for is three thousand five hundred. So two thousand of that fifty five hundred dollars if you qualify via the FAFSA for subsidized will absolutely be the unsubsidized. The other portion, it's a question of what your FAFSA results are.

And then I mentioned the parent PLUS loan, up to sixty five thousand dollars lifetime per student, but that's allocated for a max of twenty ks per year. And again, there's state aid from various schools. I know that this is a lot of information to absorb, and so don't panic if you're having some concerns already following along. It's very detailed.

We will be sending out the presentation after tonight's webinar along with some resources and some links. We record the webinar so you can rewatch it as often as you need to. Or if you don't, you need to fall asleep at night and you wanna listen to me talk about the details of federal aid, happy to do that for you. So, essentially, we want to, again, do that do that early. And so the official deadline, you actually have, you know, quite a while to do the FAFSA for this next upcoming year.

June thirtieth twenty twenty seven is when they close it, but most folks are doing it that October. You know, twenty twenty five for this previous cycle is the earliest you can do it through June twenty twenty seven. So earlier is better than later, particularly for those SEOG and state grants. When you get the copy of this presentation, that'll have that live link there for all the state aid deadlines.

And each individual school is gonna have different deadlines. So I recommend making, you know, a list, a spreadsheet, whatever works for you of each school you or your student is interested in and the deadlines that they have for the FAFSA.

Alright. So who needs to submit?

That depends on who you are and what your situation is. So I will get to this question that just popped in the chat about a student applying on their own without relying on parents.

And will that help their eligibility? There are very strict rules on that that we will cover in the next slide.

So anyone who is required to provide information on your FAFSA is a contributor. Every contributor that's required must complete the FAFSA for it to be considered finished, complete, and on its way to the school.

So every dependent student will need a contributor that is a parent, unless they qualify for something called a dependency override.

And so these are just seven quick tests to figure out if the student is dependent or independent. So it's based on the age of the student. So we have those born before July first twenty twenty three for this year, or two thousand three rather. So that means next year, it'll be July first two thousand four, for the twenty twenty seven, twenty twenty eight FAFSA. If they're married as of the application date, if they're a graduate or professional student, military, anyone who at any time after thirteen was an orphan, foster child, or war dependent of the court, an emancipated minor, or under legal guardianship as determined by your state, and homeless or at risk of homelessness.

So those are the seven essentially tests of as to whether somebody is a dependent student or an independent student. So if a student is does not meet one of these seven criteria, they are considered dependent and will need a parent to complete the FAFSA with them.

Alright.

Yeah.

Let me see.

That's a great question. And the question is, you know, stepdaughter lives fifty fifty with us for versus bio mom. But according to the FAFSA rules, which focus on who is the contributing parent, who contributes more of the financial amount to the the the student is supposed to fill out the FAFSA.

And technically, no, you're not supposed to fill out the FAFSA. You wouldn't be considering the contributing parent.

And so that puts you in a really challenging position.

I would talk to the schools where your stepdaughter is considering and ask if there is a way that you can be considered for institutional aid through the CSS profile. Some schools still require noncustodial parents.

So both parents regardless of of the marital status to fill those out, so you might still have that issue.

But that is a very challenging situation.

Alright. I wish I had a better answer for you there.

To complete the FAFSA, you determine who needs to submit.

So, essentially, there is a tool to figure that out. So, if you are, for instance let's see.

I'm popping in there.

This will help you determine, you know, who should enter that based on the tips. So I'm gonna pop that in the in the chat, and we'll go back to this situation.

And when we're talking about parents, you want to know that the legal parent they they have to either be legal parents or biological so biological or adoptive parents. And that's based on the state. So the parent listed on the birth certificate.

If you have a situation where it's foster parents, legal guardians, grandparents, if it's not a legal adoption, essentially, they are not supposed to be listed on the FAFSA form unless they have legally adopted the student. And so that would likely be a situation where a student would be ruled independent if they were living with other family members or guardians.

Alright. So each contributor does have to complete a FSA, create an FSA ID, an account on student aid dot gov. I'll grab that link as well for you now.

Maybe.

So we'll pop that in there so you can have access to that.

You'll need your name, date of birth, and Social Security number.

If you don't have one there, there is an alternative, but you must have an FSA ID before starting that form.

Essentially, they'll match that. And they used to be a shorter wait. I mean, sorry, a longer wait. But usually, they can immediately verify your identity by doing that.

If you're not a US citizen or permanent resident, this sometimes happens with parents who are not US citizens, but the the children are. Or sometimes there are eligible non residents that can file the FAFSA. Those are typically those who are under certain, you know, basically green card holders. There are certain statuses that advanced parolee status for some some of those who are I'm losing the the word I'm looking for.

There are some some folks, some refugee statuses that are eligible for federal aid, but we'll need to use that alien registration number. And then if you I would have your w twos and your tax returns handy. Although, now they require you to transfer that from the IRS automatically, which we're going to talk about in a slide or so. And that essentially means that for the most part, most of your tax return data, if not all of it, will be imported for you. But there are a couple of cases where this doesn't happen cleanly, and you'll need to potentially let the school know of some changes.

Or if you filed a sometimes it doesn't work appropriately if you filed, a correction to your tax return, an update to your tax return. So having them handy is a good idea. Records of untaxed income.

So things that, again, child support received, veterans non education benefits. You'll want a record of your all of your assets, including savings and checking account balances, the value of any investments, stocks, bonds, real estate, and but that excludes your primary resident. And finally, you'll wanna know which schools you're gonna submit the FAFSA to. You can make changes if the student decides they wanna apply to more schools later.

You can apply to up to twenty. So even if you haven't applied or been accepted yet, if you know where you're applying, it's easier just to add them than to have to go back into the form multiple times to fill updates. But you can you can add them later. You can also remove schools later. Sometimes this happens.

Sometimes I've seen some very ambitious young people want to apply to more than twenty schools.

And so what they'll have to do is send them and then wait for the schools to receive them, take a school off of the list, add another one on so that that gets sent to that school. Just be aware that that school that you took off won't get any updates if you need to correct your FAFSA.

All right. So let's walk through completion.

After you complete your FSA ID, you start the application at studentaid dot gov. That's where you'll find the FAFSA. You indicate whether you are a student or a parent. Either one can start the app, and then the other contributor will get an invite to complete their section of the form.

As I mentioned, you now are required to consent to the IRS transferring tax data to your FAFSA form.

So again, you're you're basically forced to give that information to to the school.

Alright.

Five sections you need to complete. I I just, you know, it it occurred to me with a question earlier about the parent refusing to provide the FAFSA or fill out the FAFSA. I don't know the situation there. But sometimes the concern there has been, you know, they don't want the other parent in a divorced situation to know how much they earn or to know details about their financial situation.

And that FAFSA data is private. The schools are not supposed to share that. And if it makes the other parent feel better to put that on record to the schools that their FAFSA data is not to be shared you know, via phone or or give any indication of what that FAFSA does that could potentially make the give the other parent some assurance there. So just one idea to broach that subject.

Alright. So five sections that we need to complete and we'll cover the key pieces you need to know. So this is the piece that determines that independent status versus dependent status.

So if the student is independent, they do not need a parent contributor. We've gone through these seven pieces. If you click none of these apply, then, the parent information is required. They'll ask some demographics questions. This is not this does not impact your financial aid in any way, shape, or form.

And then it goes on to your twenty twenty four tax information.

So if you filled that out, will be automatically filled for you.

But if not, if you filed a correction, if you didn't weren't required to file taxes, you'll at least need the data that is included in the twenty twenty four tax return.

One of the so big pro to using older tax information is so let's say for our junior parents on the call, next year, it'll be twenty twenty five. Right? And you can do that in October. You will have your twenty twenty most people will have their twenty twenty five tax returns done around April. And so by October, you absolutely have that data. It used to be more recent data.

But that meant that people couldn't file their FAFSA, the final pieces of their FAFSA, until their tax returns were done for that year. So the prior prior year data gives financial aid offices, families the ability to provide data earlier and to get a financial aid award or offer earlier.

But that also means that changes there's more time for changes in family situation. So if your income has gone substantially down since twenty twenty four, you may wanna file one of those appeals that I mentioned earlier in the call and have the financial aid office review and make allocations for that. They have from congress the power to make something called professional judgment where they can make changes to the FAFSA if they have documentation and update that for you that could potentially get you some grant eligibility. It could potentially allow you subsidized versus unsubsidized loans. So it's absolutely worth exploring.

Now here's where most people make mistakes. Right? Because it is not the FAFSA doesn't for most of us, doesn't let us make those changes to the tax data because that's official data.

And so it fills it out for us. So really, the assets are where you have the ability to put in the information and potentially make mistakes. So you wanna include the value of cash savings and checking account, your net worth of investments, including real estate. But there's been a recent change, and you only include that if your if your business or farm has more than or your business has more than a hundred full time employees, so you don't have to count assets from small businesses.

And you don't wanna include primary residence or retirement accounts. You're also not going to include farms where you don't live. And we're gonna cover this in a little more detail here. So do not include the value of things like your possessions, but you should include things in your assets for checking account savings balances. That's in this area.

I do wanna point out probably a lot of people are familiar with when they see these information buttons, but they are incredibly helpful when filling out the the FAFSA. They will give you pop ups telling you what you should include or shouldn't include. I recommend if there's any even a shadow of a even if there's not a shadow of a doubt, hit that information button, read through it just to make sure you're reporting the correct information.

Alright. So that's the that piece. Just keep in mind, as of the day the FAFSA is filed.

So we'll hit this in another slide, but timing is important. So if you've been saving up for something that is not educational expense related, you might want to time that purchase appropriately for it not to count towards your FAFSA because, again, it's as of the day it was filed. If you have that flexibility to time those purchases, that can certainly benefit you.

Alright.

So moving on to the next piece, current net worth of investments.

Let's talk about what not to include.

So you don't wanna include your primary home that you live in. You don't wanna include any retirement accounts and non education IRAs, etcetera, any ABLE accounts, life insurance value, including cash value, and five twenty nine plans from someone who is not a required contributor. So grandparents, five twenty nine plans, aunt uncle, five twenty nine plans, etcetera, do not get reported there. They actually don't get reported anywhere on the FAFSA.

So just a quick tip and trick on that. If you have another family member outside of the parents that's planning to pay for college out of a five twenty nine plan, again, timing becomes key.

Because it is actually included as cash received on the student's FAFSA in two years. So because of the prior prior year data. So, typically, you know, if it's not enough to cover all four years, timing that for, like, the junior and senior year so that it doesn't come into the need based component can help some families as well.

And then five twenty nine plans for the student that's not that's not the student you're filing the FAFSA for on their behalf.

Alright. And then we only wanna include the net worth of businesses more than a hundred, full time or full time equivalent employees, and only of income producing farms that are owned, but not the primary residents of the of the family.

Again, the chat is open for questions, comments, etcetera.

Though I hesitate to say comments because I have no control over what's on this FAFSA.

We'll make this very important note. If your family size has changed since your taxes were filed, you wanna update this family size. Family size has a pretty substantial impact on how that student aid index is calculated.

So if you have if your family size has gotten larger, your your calculated need will likely go up, which means you might qualify for additional aid versus if you left it alone.

Alright.

Numbering college used to be, back when I was doing undergraduate financial aid, that the numbering college did impact your need. Yours used to be called it didn't used to be called the student aid index. It used to be called the estimated family contribution.

And the impact, it was felt by students and families. But this no longer utilizes number in college to calculate need. But it is something you can ask the college itself to consider for their institutional aid. They may or may not look at that.

They may or may not factor that in. If they do, I mentioned earlier the CSS profile, that's a more in-depth form than the FAFSA. And they may account for it in those questions. They may not.

It's going to depend from institution to institution.

All right.

Question here about, will the student be allowed to pay the unsubsidized loan while still attending college? Or do they have to wait to graduate first and then start paying the loan back? It is not required for them to make payments while they're in school. It's going to automatically be in deferment. But there are never any prepayment penalties on any student loans, And a student can always voluntarily make payments towards those loans. They tend to go to interest first.

And then once the interest is paid off, they go to principal. So they do not have to wait if they wanna pay it back.

Though a a little bit of a a tip and trick here, hack, if you will, any payments made either back from the school or from the from the student towards that loan, if it's made within a hundred and twenty days of disbursement, all interest and fees are backed out as if that part of the loan never existed.

So paying it making payments before that hundred and twenty days can, in fact, help. If you have the school return it, if something were to happen and you needed to reborrow the amount that you repaid, you would then still retain that access where you wouldn't if the student made the payments themselves or the family was making payments on that. So it's a little bit safer to be like, okay. Well, I wanna borrow to start, but, you know, three or four months into the semester, I've saved up an extra thousand dollars. I wanna return that part of the loan. You would all that interest in the one percent origination fee on that loan would be backed out as if that never existed. Probably more details than you wanted, but I love that hack personally.

Alright.

Okay. So hopping into the next section, you must list at least one college or trade school on the FAFSA up to twenty schools. I mentioned this before.

Some states have specific requirements for the order in which schools are listed to be considered for state aid programs.

It's impossible to be fully onboard with every every potential state program. So you wanna make sure you're checking out the one for your state. Again, I'll put that in the chat, and you will get a copy of this presentation with all the hyperlinks as well.

So we have in there Massachusetts in particular.

Granite awards will be made for the first eligible college listed on the FAFSA. Notify your state agency if you change that going forward.

Alright. The last step is to sign and submit. Once all sections are complete, you've gotta sign that form and electronically submit. You wanna make sure you receive that confirmation from all contributors.

And then it takes a couple of days to see your full student aid index.

You'll get a an estimate first, but you'll see the full submission summary typically within one to three days.

And you'll log in. You'll get an email when that's ready. You'll log in to that student aid dot gov account with your FSA ID. You view your FAFSA submission summary. There'll be an eligibility overview tab. It'll tell you your estimated eligibility for a Pell Grant if you qualify, for federal student loans, and it'll tell you your student aid index.

That's a number. It can be negative all the way up to nine hundred and ninety nine thousand.

Typically, we're not typically, all the time. The lower your SAI, the higher your financial need. And that's how schools use use the data to allocate their federal aid, student aid, and sometimes their institutional aid if they are a school that offers need based aid.

Merit based aid is typically not driven by the FAFSA. But that is not your financial aid offer. It doesn't tell you how much aid you're going to receive. It doesn't represent what you're going to have to pay out of pocket.

So it's just a starting point, and it's to give the financial aid office the information they need to check your federal eligibility and to run that through their institutional eligibility criteria.

You will receive that aid offer typically around the time you receive an admission to the school.

So as we kind of wrap up this section, some key things to remember, I mentioned if you're considering a large purchase, you have a lot sitting in that cash savings piece, do it before submitting the FAFSA. That will reduce your available assets and drive your SAA, SAI down.

This is especially important for students versus parents. Because if you attend our SAI webinar where we dive deep into this, These student assets are considered at a much higher rate than the parents. They protect more of the parents' assets against being considered because parents have other things to pay for, retirement, other expenses. Where if students have savings, it's typically expected that they put most of that or a large portion of that towards their education experiences.

Keep in mind you're reporting net value of assets. That's the equity. So if you have rental properties, the value of that rental property minus the mortgage of that rental property, not just the the value of the property. So make sure you're putting against whatever debts are against that asset.

Mention the grandparent five twenty nine plans. They're not to be considered.

Look at that family size. And if your income has gone down or there's other substantive changes, you want to talk to the financial aid office, see what information they need to review your FAFSA and make updates there.

So let's say you don't get everything you need in that free grant money and you're going to need to borrow. We do help families navigate that process.

So the students have access to that fifty five hundred dollars. If families need to borrow more than that, there are a couple of options. If your student is already enrolled, you do not need to, there are no changes impacting you. But if your student is newly entering, there will be those new caps I mentioned, twenty thousand dollars a year or sixty five thousand dollars in a lifetime limit.

We offer all of again, all of our assistance is for free, but we do help folks navigate the private loan market. We essentially aggregate volume. We we put groups of people together, undergrad, graduates, various degrees. And then we take those members to a lender and say, hey. What can you give our members that is better than they could get on their own? So we're essentially advocating on your behalf for lower rates and better eligibility requirements than the broader market based on group volume.

So if there's any chance you'll need a loan next year, we're encouraging folks to sign up for our negotiation group now. There is absolutely no commitment. It literally just helps our negotiation power, helps other families get access to better rate loans. So if it you think that it is abs if you think it's there's a chance that you'll need this loan, sign up for our negotiation group at join juno dot com.

We will run a bid in May. We're talking to to lenders now to start those negotiations. We release our deals for the next year in June.

So again, no commitment, no cost, free for families. We do not do a credit check when you sign up.

You're not obligated. We give you free one on one financial aid support over email, phone, or Zoom.

Basically, it's like we've had student people describe it as like Costco, but without the membership fee.

So, again, let me just grab that link.

See, I just there's a question in the chat. Let me take a look at that.

Yeah.

This question is about an insurance settlement and that being in the bank account, they're allocated for rebuilding our home.

Must the insurance proceeds be reported on the FAFSA?

Technically, if they're in those accounts, they are supposed to be if it's on the day of the FAFSA. But that is something that you could likely document and have the financial office do a professional judgment on your behalf.

But if you are filling it out as to the letter of the law, it should be. But I know as a former director of financial aid, that would be something that I would be very comfortable making an adjustment for, given the natural disaster that precipitated the loss of a home and that the rebuilding process is not immediate. So that is I would potentially talk to eight offices even before you submit the FAFSA, just so you're aware of what they are and are not willing to do.

But I know I know a good amount of folks in the profession that would feel very comfortable making those adjustments.

Alright. Did I did promise you I would give you a brand new overview of our tool that we launched today.

I tested this, and again, I was very skeptical when I was told this is what's being developed because I've read a lot of appeal letters over my time, my nearly fifteen to twenty years in financial aid or financial education.

And I I had to admit I was very, very impressed with this tool. Because my initial reaction was the last thing I would want to read when I was a financial aid director is like gobs of of auto generated appeals. And it's not though it certainly helps people write it, it's not it's not a plug and play.

I was really I I popped through some mediocre inputs and was very impressed with the output. So essentially, can use this either as someone who's starting college soon or already enrolled.

As you're going through, you can choose whether it's merit or need based reconsideration, dependency override request to let's say something has changed in your family circumstances. You can click all that apply. It doesn't have to be one or the other.

One time income on tax return is a big one.

A lot of folks, maybe they got a settlement or something that had to be counted as income tax. Or maybe they took a one time withdrawal from a retirement for some unusual circumstances, that could be a good cause for appeal. So you select the pieces that apply for merit appeals.

We'll have you'll put in what your cost and grants and loans are at various institutions.

The tool will take a look at that and see what is the strongest argument. It'll ask for things that have changed since you've submitted that merit appeal, so awards, GPAs, etcetera.

Job loss for the need based appeals, you'll select the reasons and provide a little bit of information. It just makes it a lot easier than starting from scratch.

It'll generate your appeal letter, guide you on which supporting evidence would benefit, you know, bolstering your case. So it'll, you know, in this situation, a termination letter, final pay stub for mother's job because the situation was a loss of income, unemployment documentation. A lot of times if you're saying, hey, there's another offer that's strongly compelling, Schools will wanna see a copy of that other letter. So we'll give you all of that. Again, free tool. Try it out. Let us know what you think.

And we hope that it's helpful for you.

And so I hope that the whole presentation was helpful this evening. Would like to just pause and see if anyone has any questions before I let you go on with your evening.

Anything we didn't answer in this in this session, please feel free to put that in either place.

If a student has a sibling with a disability, does that contribute towards the FAFSA application, or would that be an appeal or not at all? So a lot of times, folks with disabled family members have higher expenses because of those medical costs, bills, support needs.

And that's not typically accounted for in the FAFSA.

But absolutely, you should talk to your financial aid office about that.

Because they can look at making adjustments against income either on the FAFSA or on the institutional need based side. If they're using the CSS profile, they have more flexibility on the institutional need based aid than they do on federal.

But if you can document significant expenses tied into that disability, then a lot of financial aid offices will consider that and make adjustments as needed.

All right. Well, I'm glad that I'm happy that I got to present that. Thank you for your thank yous. I think I see a q and a popping up here.

Yeah.

If a wealthy aunt gifts money towards tuition, but it's a year by year basis, and the ant gives directly to the school to cover a percent of tuition, how do we report that in the FAFSA knowing it might not be recurring every year?

Yeah. It's again that the timing becomes important because it's gonna ask about cash gifts for the student. And so if they do it in the first year, then it's gonna catch up to the need based calculation in the junior year, sophomore year, senior year, etcetera. So it is is more strategic to have those have those be in the later years, particularly if you're getting a large need based award from the school.

So I don't know if the family member is open to having that conversation, but essentially it would only be reported two years after. So it will impact two academic years later. I hope that's that's helpful for answering that question. How do we know if we're eligible for a grant? So for federal grants, particularly, I apologize if you heard my dog barking.

The for for federal grants, essentially, the the FAFSA will determine that. You'll know if you're eligible for a Pell grant when you get that financial aid or that FAFSA submission summary.

And that will say, hey, you're eligible for a Pell Grant up to a certain amount. You're gonna that's gonna be based off a formula of the school's cost of attendance and the FAFSA results, but you'll know if you qualify for that federal grant when you get that submission back from the FAFSA.

SEOG and all institutional grants are gonna come with your financial aid offer from the school, which again is typically around admission, most frequently in the March and April time frame.

And then you get the whole picture of the total cost of attendance and your free money grand age. Merit based aid is given institution by institution, and that is, you know, different accomplishments are weighed. Lot of times GPA, SAT, ACT score, student involvement, etcetera. And then always encourage students to apply for as many external scholarships as possible to reduce their potential loan burden as well.

Alright. I think I've gotten all the questions that have been submitted so far. If you're still working on a question, go ahead and use the raise hand function so that I can know that you're still typing out. Otherwise, I'll let you have a wonderful evening and come back and join us for future webinars.

Alright. Have a great night.