Hello, everyone. Welcome to FAFSA tips and tricks with the Juno. My name is Lydia Holland. I'm going to be your moderator for tonight. I'm a senior adviser here at CollegeAdvisor and have been on the team for about four years now.

And in addition to being a co captain of the essay review team, I'm also a proud graduate of New York University and a education consultant.

I'm so happy to have you here tonight, and I'm gonna orient everyone with the webinar timing. So we're gonna start off with a presentation and then answer your questions in the live q and a. And if you wanna download our slides, you can click on that handouts tab, and you'll be able to keep them. We'll also be recording this session. So if you're needing to watch it back later, you need to get up at any point and you miss something, you will be able to go back to our website and watch it back again as many times as you'd like. So without further ado, I will go ahead and introduce you to our presenter.

Hello, everyone. It's a pleasure to be here with you. Thanks for having me here. And I wanted to share just some helpful tips and tricks on the FAFSA. Just by way of quick introduction, introduction, I'll get more into my story a little bit as well as we go along here. But I started in this work through the college college process. I was a former admissions officer at Williams College at Yale University.

I then worked as a college counselor supporting students as they navigate this process. So I know November deadlines very well. I was a counselor at a a private boarding school, Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts.

So I'm sure for many students here, this is a very timely topic to care about various parts of the application process, both the admission side, certainly the financial aid side as they go hand in hand.

Great. Great. So we're gonna go ahead and do a quick poll before we jump into the webinar. I'm gonna open it up now.

And as you all have an opportunity to fill that out, I also want to remind you that, there is a q and a, like I said, that we'll be doing at the end, but you can submit any questions that come to mind throughout tonight's webinar. We'll be going through it as you submit questions and prioritizing them so we can get through as many different topics as possible that you all may be thinking about. And I have a quick question for you, Eddie, which is just what was the biggest answer that you found regarding FAFSA maybe that surprised you when you first got into this line of work? Most surprising thing or helpful thing that you learned.

Yeah. So I think we'll we'll talk actually a bit about this as well, but sometimes families might discount whether or not they should even apply.

And I always encourage families to apply to the FAFSA.

Schools will use it for a variety of different reasons, which we'll talk about. In some cases, for both need based financial aid, even if families may not think they qualify for financial aid, It's free. It doesn't hurt to to submit an application. It's a lot easier now to complete than it was a few years ago because it's been simplified.

So for there really is no harm in trying it, but there are actually some benefits. So don't discount yourself. Because actually having worked on the admission side and having worked closely with financial aid colleagues, I've seen families certainly that qualify for aid that wouldn't necessarily be considered low or middle income by national standards. But in the context of college admissions, there are opportunities for students, to still receive some level of aid.

And that could be need based aid, and it can also venture into merit scholarships.

That's right, Bill. Few more points. I'll get into that a little bit later, but definitely don't discount yourself in in FAFSA financial aid application process.

Very helpful.

I know I've worked with so many students who thought that they shouldn't fill out the FAFSA because Their family was middle class, and they thought they weren't gonna get that much financial aid anyway. But like you said, there are so many benefits to doing it, even if you think that you may not get.

And just looking at the poll, we have a majority of singers, eighty four percent are in twelfth grade, five percent in eleventh, one percent in tenth, and then we have about ten percent in that other category, which is usually parents. So makes sense. We've got about ninety five percent of the audience that are either parents or seniors, and you guys are definitely the group that making it the most right now. Alright. I will go ahead and pass it over to you, Eddie, to take us into the presentation.

Great. Well, let's let's jump in, and I will just say for the seniors and the parents, this is an exciting time. I know it may be a bit of a stressful time, but you got this, especially if you have early deadlines. So I'll go through just some of the agenda that we have today. We'll spend a few minutes just talking about the timeline. You may be familiar with this as it pertains to the admissions process, but I wanted to talk a little bit about the paid, timeline as well as you understand where FAFSA fits into this year long process.

I'll share just a brief overview as well on how Juno fits into that. We'll spend most of our time tonight talking about what the FAFSA is. You may or may not have some familiarity about it already, what you need to do to complete it, who needs to be involved, and then, certainly do what, what documents, you may need for the FAFSA to be considered valid.

Now we'll go through an example as well, of the different sections of the FAFSA so that you can see parts of the form, what may be expected of you if you haven't yet filled it out.

In each of those sections, we'll also show some of the key things to look out for, to consider, that might not be immediately apparent as, as you actually fill out the form. It's the way that the questions are asking you to fill out the form. So we'll spend some time on that and then certainly leave time for quest, q and a. You'll have access to the presentation. So there are some links that are included some hyperlinks that are included in the presentation slides. I wanna make sure you all receive that. And then if there are any questions that we're not able to get to, we will try to compile them.

And then I'll I'll collect the responses to those. I'll compile responses so that if we do run out of time, we'll make sure that your questions do get addressed with any kind of follow-up email. So let's jump into the timeline here.

So we are at the beginning stages of this. Now it's very relevant for all the seniors and parents of seniors in the room. So if you are planning to apply to college in the fall of twenty twenty six, then you'll be using the FAFSA twenty twenty six, twenty twenty seven academic year form.

This is available already. It's available starting October first every year. This year, it actually opened a few days early, which was a record for the FAFSA. If you had been in I don't if you if there are any parents here with older children from a few years ago, there was a bit of a significant delay, not even a bit. There's significant delays with the FAFSA as a result of, the chain the changes that they made to it.

So it's open. It's available. This is great news for everyone involved. Now after you complete the FAFSA, you'll get a number called the student aid index, SAI, for short. We have a different presentation on the student aid index. I won't talk too too much about that, but I hope you'll be able to join us for that.

We'll then we'll then focus our time as you think about apply you know, the the next stage is applying to college, and then what happens after that point. When you get your financial aid package, your that award, typically, it will come either at the same time as your admissions decision, sometimes a little bit afterwards as well.

It is possible to appeal a financial aid award. This is something that we will talk about again in in the future as well. We have another entire webinar focused on appealing financial aid. Again, hope you can join us there.

But then you'll decide which schools to attend in May. And at that point, it'll be important to realize for any gaps that you may have, how might you be able to fill those gaps? So based on the information that you filled out in the FAFSA, that that determines how much money you'll qualify for. Usually, in June or July summertime, families will then begin thinking about how to finance the rest of college. Now tuition will be due at the beginning end of summer, beginning of the school year.

We have a lot of a lot of information to cover, so we're gonna hope you can join us, be engaged this this time, and then certainly for any any future future presentations that we have.

Now I wanted to share just really quickly a little bit about some of the changes to federal loan policy. I'll get more into this towards the end. I wanted to share just very quick snapshot because I know some folks may not always be able to stay stay around the whole time, but this is really important.

I don't know if there may be some folks in that other category who might might be current college students. So if that's the case or a parent of a current college student, if that's the case, then you may actually qualify for the parent plus loan under the old terms of the loan, which is the cost of borrowing up to the total cost of attendance.

For any high school senior and younger and parents of high school seniors and younger, you will be considered for the new parent plus loan policy if you need to take out parent plus loans, I'll say. It's not a requirement by any means, but just so that you're aware, there are there were changes in the federal policy such that us a parent can borrow on behalf of a of their child twenty thousand dollars per year with a lifetime cap of sixty five thousand dollars.

Again, we'll talk more at the end.

Now I just wanted to share really quickly here with how Juno fits into this timeline. So Juno started back in twenty eighteen to Harvard Business School students as they were actually going to before the summer of their enrollment who needed loans to pay off for school. So there's there's been many families that have been part of this process, students and families as a result.

I'll just share really quickly as well. You saw it in my intro slide. I'm actually a Juno member. That's how I heard about Juno in the first place. I'm currently a student at the Kellogg School of Management.

And through learning about how to pay for my own degree, that's how I came across Juno. Actually went through the federal process to borrow, through the federal government and then came across Juno, was able to secure a lower rate through Juno than even the federal government. And I've started as a user, so I'm a I'm a happy customer, first and foremost, to use that terminology. I save money in the process. I'm I come from a a low income background. I was the first in my family to go to college.

So, you know, thinking about the grads undergrads certainly can be expensive and and grad school as well.

When I heard about Juno and the amount that I was gonna be saving in interest rates and how that calculates into literally tens of thousands of dollars over the life of my loans, that's something that I'm passionate about supporting other families as they navigate through this process.

Because our hope is that families do qualify for lower rates to save money in the long term. Yeah. I'll talk a little bit more about this. I'll come to it at the end.

But today's topic is focused on the FAFSA. Let's jump in because I wanna make sure we make the most of our time together. So what is the FAFSA? You, again, may have already heard about it.

It's a free application for federal student pay.

So you need to fill this form out every single year that a student is in school.

Sometimes people assume that if they fill it out one year, then it's good for all four years, which is not the case. You do have to fill it out every single year. And this is important because it accounts for changes in family circumstances on an annual basis. The form helps you qualify for or get access to certain types of aid, both federal aid, state based aid, even institutional aid, which is money that the school has budgeted to give to students. We'll go through a few examples of those. So it is generally helpful to fill out the FAFSA on the earlier side. Similar to what I was actually just sharing, earlier, don't assume that you won't get financial aid just because your income or savings might be high.

The FAFSA might still be required by some schools. So when you may actually you may end up qualifying for at least some level of aid, you may qualify for, other federal, federal options like like federal loans, even if it's not granted.

But even then from there as well, the some opportunities through universities still require the FAFSA for merit scholarships. So even if you are not expecting to take out loans, or receive funding through the state or through, through the federal government or, institutions may still require the FAFSA in order to distribute their own funds.

So it's an important part of the process as you apply to college, and, we wanna take some time to to help you understand exactly how to go through it.

So what do you get then when you fill up the FAFSA?

Here, you'll just see some of the different buckets of aid that is available and that families may have access to.

The first three here are options that you can get through the federal government that don't have to be paid back. So federal Pell Grant is a grant that's given typically to the lowest income streams, but it the ranges can vary, whereas student and family can qualify for up to seven thousand three hundred and seventy five dollars.

You may not get the maximum amount of that. You may get a portion of it, so depending on your financial need, but, there's a range of anywhere between zero to seventy three ninety five, which is set as the maximum.

You can also potentially qualify for another federal grant, the federal supplemental education opportunity grant, which is up to four thousand dollars from not all schools offer this grant, but many of them do.

Now lastly, you can also qualify for federal work study, which is usually a campus job that is subsidized through, the Department of Education. So they will pay the, for the student's work hours.

That is set to be usually a reasonable work expectation, and you're around one to five thousand dollars, so around five to, five to ten hours a week. Some schools have a cap of work study set at twenty hours a week, depending on, depending on if you're in school during school, and they may have different expectations during break times as well. So just be mindful of that. But this is a a federal option for students. Now about everyone, they get access to those first three. It does depend on the results of the FAFSA. It's possible that your income might be too high or your your assets may be too great to qualify for some of that.

However, there's also these two options at the bottom, the direct loans and the parent plus loans. So I referenced the parent plus loans earlier as we talked about the changes just a few slides ago to the parent plus program this coming year.

For the direct loans, these are available these are loans that are available to the student.

For the freshman year, it's up to five thousand five hundred dollars. It increases slightly sixty five hundred dollars for sophomore year, seventy five hundred dollars for junior and senior year. So students do have access to this funding if necessary. Submit to bar.

Additionally, parents also have access to the parent plus loan. Now this is a loan entirely in the parent's name, not in the student's name. As I mentioned earlier, there is a borrowing limit to the parent plus loan now of twenty thousand dollars annually with a lifetime cap of sixty five thousand dollars per child or per student.

So it may be the case that you need the maximum amount. So it would be twenty thousand first year, twenty thousand second year, twenty thousand the third year, and then the remaining amount would be five thousand for the fourth year of college. Just keep in mind, these limits if you do decide to consider the parent plus loan option. It's no longer the case that you can borrow up to the cost of attendance unless you have previously borrowed a parent plus loan and you're you're currently you're you are current to college student now. I'll mention that a little bit later later on when we when we come back to that.

So, again, all of these programs, states these are these are federal programs, but the FAFSA also grants access to state financial aid programs and institutional aid programs. Now the various levels of support here can vary state by state and school by school.

We'll I'll share a little bit more in in a few slides just on how you can increase your odds of getting considered and being considered for especially for state based aid programs.

We don't need to focus on that now, but just something that you know to keep in mind so that you maximize your chances.

For the school specific options as well, FIM schools will allocate their bud certain line items of their budget in order to support students through their own funding sources. They'll require the FAFSA in most cases. It is possible that they may also require another financial aid form called the TSS profile. We won't cover that today.

But that typically, the FAFSA is usually required. And the school will run their own calculations in order to determine how much aid they can provide to to each family.

K. So I wanna spend just a really quick moment here talking about deadlines. If you do complete FAFSA early, this can increase your chances for the maximum amount of aid that you can be eligible for. So there's three levels of deadlines, to be thinking about as you're especially for the seniors who are here.

I want you to be thinking about this early rather than way late.

Now the federal government allows you to fill out the FAFSA, and it's actually required to allow students to fill out the FAFSA at any point during their their twenty twenty six, twenty twenty seven academic year. So I'm speaking directly to the high school seniors right now. So if you're a high school senior or the parent of a high school senior, the reason the deadline is set for June thirtieth twenty twenty seven is because you will enroll in college in the twenty twenty six, twenty twenty seven academic school year, and it is required by law that aid be available to you at any point in the academic year.

So the FAFSA will close on the last day, June thirtieth, before the next fiscal cycle begins on July first twenty twenty seven. Now what's more important to pay attention to is state deadlines and school deadlines. So for the seniors in the room, if you're applying to college now, you know that colleges that you're applying to will require the FAFSA well before the federal deadline. And this is on purpose because they need to calculate how much aid they can expect.

So if you're applying early, maybe a school an early school does require the FAFSA on November first or early November. If you're applying regular decision, they may require your FAFSA to be completed by January first or sometime by mid January. Then it could be a couple days after the admissions deadline.

Please keep those deadlines in mind because you don't wanna miss your opportunities for funding just because you you weren't keeping track of of those deadlines.

On the state side, again, you'll see that you'll get the the the slides here. So you'll be able to click this hyperlink on the various different state deadlines.

And, usually, this aid does run out. So just be mindful. That's why we always say encourage families to apply on the earlier side. Don't wait late into the year to apply for FAFSA and to potentially disqualify yourself from any state based aid or school based aid. Because once the money runs out, the money runs out, and there's not additional sources near that. Schools schools may not have additional sources of funding to pull from.

Just be, again, be very on top of these deadlines so that you know when when you're expected to fill out all the appropriate information.

Okay. So let's move on what you need. Let's move on to identify what you need to complete the FAFSA.

One of the most important things is figuring out who needs to submit the FAFSA.

So as we think about a contributor, what this means is that anyone who is required to provide their information for the student's FAFSA application, each contributor has to fill it out in order for it to be considered complete.

So, you'll every contributor will get an what's called an FSA ID, and they'll have to submit certain amounts of information based on who they are.

As we think about the steps to go through and figure out who needs to submit, the first part of what a student will see is what the FAFSA asks for and what a student will see is is actually meant to determine if the student is considered independent.

And now a student being considered independent has a very specific definition.

Being an independent student of FAFSA and being a dependent in a household is is very different. So if you claim a dependent on your taxes, that is not what we're referring to here. There's a very strict definition to what is considered an independent student for the purpose of the FAFSA.

So this is important because if a student is appropriately determined to be an independent student, they are the only one that is required to fill out the FAFSA. So parent information may not be required.

Then if if they are, if they are, not considered to be an independent student, then one or both parent information, is required. So in the narrow definition of what the independent and what determines an independent student, you'll see some you'll see those definitions on the right here. So whether a student was married, for example, at time of application, if they're active duty or military, if they are homeless or at risk of being homeless. These will require supporting documentation. So I I mentioned that to say then as a as a former counselor.

There are complicated home situations. I'm fully aware of that.

It's this isn't this isn't meant for this isn't a process meant for parents to try to find a way around paying for college. That's why there are very specific and strict definitions of what is considered an independent student for the purpose of the FAFSA.

Next.

In many cases, if a student is is determined to then be a dependent, then usually one or more parents has to get involved in the process.

There is a helpful tool on the Department of Education website that's linked here that shares more information about who is a depend who is a contributor, excuse me, and what who will then need to submit information for the FAFSA. This will help families understand exactly who is needed in in the process.

Now the FAFSA counts a parent as a counts legal parent as a biological or adoptive parent.

If a student lives with a grandparent, with a relative, you know, any of the examples that you see, even a legal guardian, they are not considered the legal parent.

The exception to that is if any of these individuals has legally adopted the student, then that person is considered the legal parent.

Otherwise, in every other circumstance, they will be considered the biologic the legal parent will be, again, considered the biological or adopted parent unless there was a a formal adoption process that the family went through and not the student went through. So now once you've determined who the contributors are, then you'll get you'll create your login you'll create your login FSA ID.

Each person who is a contributor will need to have their own login.

And there's here, we'll talk about, actually, some of the steps on this on these coming slides here. So if you need to to come back to this presentation, you'll be able to do so.

If both parents have a Social Security number, then the FAFSA now has an automatic Social Security match for immediate verification.

This is an update from this this year from last year. So if you either tuned into past presentations or you had a child go through the process in previous years, you may have to wait one to three days in order to get your FSA ID. Now if if a parent student both have Social Security numbers and list them, there will be an immediate verification happens, and you'll then be able to continue with the FAFSA.

Now this happens because the the Department of Education needs to verify that the person creating the FSA ID is is a sort of a legitimate user of it.

And so they're authenticating those Social Security numbers. A student needs only an email address now to invite a someone to be the contributor. So to invite usually a parent, a legal parent to be cons to be considered as a contributor. And at that point, the parent will get an email that they can click to to connect to the student's FAFSA form.

You can create your your FSA ID there, and then you'll be connected to the student's FAFSA form. Typically, I encourage students to start the process first, begin creating their FSA ID, then invite their contributor, and then for the parents to accept that invitation through email link. In that link in that email confirmation, you'll also get a code. So if you don't have to click the link, you can just copy and paste the code into stuni dot gov and as you're creating your account so that you can then be matched up with with your child.

Now here, I just want wanted to go through this really quickly again so that some of the most important things to know out of this piece of it is if a parent doesn't have a Social Security number, that's okay. You can still go through the process.

A student does need a Social Security number or they need to be considered what's called an eligible noncitizen, which again has a very specific definition. More information on his on the student aid website for that for the status of what is considered an eligible noncitizen.

But a parent can still go through the process. A parent can still complete the FAFSA without a Social Security number. There's just a box that that they'll check to indicate so and then continue moving forward through the application.

Now you also need your federal income tax returns.

For most people, that will automatically get pulled in to the FAFSA as a result of of the data exchange. So the assets are here a little bit more complicated. We'll we'll spend some time actually talking about this, more detail in terms of what to include, what doesn't need to what doesn't need to be included.

So we'll go into detail on that.

Now you can list up to twenty schools. I'll mention quickly on your FAFSA as well.

If you do end up applying to more than twenty schools, then you there is a way to submit it. You'd have to list your twenty, submit the form, and then essentially remove all the schools and then include any remaining schools that you have. Have that list of your college list available and handy so you can add them to your FAFSA form as you're going through.

Okay. So I wanted to just give an example next of going through the FAFSA, each of the different steps.

And then through this, I'll share again some of the tips and tricks that are important to be thinking about as you fill it out. So this is the first thing that you'll see as you complete the form. I mentioned again if the student is encourage the student to start the process and then ultimately invite the parent into it.

This is once once you create your FSA ID, you'll be invited to identify who you are. The process it determines the questions that you'll be asked.

So you families will have to consent to the, the data transfer. I've mentioned this earlier where a lot of the information will get pulled automatically. It's the reason why the FAFSA is faster to complete now as a result of the transferring of your tax data.

So you won't, your FAFSA won't be considered valid until, unless you, consent to this. You have to fill this out.

It's sort of required it's required in order to go through the to for your FAFSA to be considered complete.

If you don't consent, you can still fill out the FAFSA, but it won't be able to be sent out to institutions.

So we'll just go through some of the different components that you'll see on the, on the actual application.

Now the first section is the personal circumstances section that we talked about earlier.

This is meant to determine if, if a student is considered an independent student or a dependent student. So as we mentioned, you know, if a student is in the military, they'll be considered a independent student if they're married or any of these criteria that you see on the right.

Now it is really it's most for most students, this this is usually just a quick quest a quick section.

And then as they move on to the next section, which is demographics, similarly, this shouldn't take too much time to complete either. It just asks a couple basic questions. This will not impact a student's financial aid at all. It's just data that's collected, on the FAFSA.

The the way that the FAFSA was written, every question has to be, every question is written, by law. And so just a result as a result of that, there are questions that exist that are that they have to ask. So, again, this isn't gonna take too much time to fill out. It doesn't have any bearing on the financial aid that are stupid proceeds.

What will have bearing on the financial aid are the is the third section here. So this is what we'll spend more most of our time discussing.

The first part of this is income. So we'll we'll spend part of our a part of this conversation on income and then part of it on assets.

Income information is always considered by what's called prior prior year.

So it uses tax data from two years ago.

So for students who are applying to so for the seniors, I'll specify who are applying in the twenty twenty six, twenty twenty seven academic year, your family will use twenty twenty four tax data.

So that's data from, again, two years from the time that you will be a student.

Now if you do file taxes in the US, which is, which will be most of, most students, I think, on this call, then those questions will get transferred automatically, so it should be easy.

There are some cases in which your family might need to manually fill out the information.

But if that's the case, it might just take you a little bit longer to fill out the form. Now here's one of the first big pieces of, one of the most import one of the early important tips that that I can share. So because the because the financial aid data that's used is from the prior prior year, that may not always be representative of a family's current situation.

So if it's not for any reason, then it's important to communicate that with the financial aid office.

Some families have extremely stable situations, and so it's no no may not be any issue to use information from two years ago. There are other fluctuations, potentially, if a parent is, let's say, in a a commissions based job and, you know, one year they have a really great year, another it's not so great.

Or if a parent is unemployed, maybe there's a loss of income. Right? So your income may not always be your current situation may not always be representative of prior prior year income information.

So after the FAFSA gets submitted, then it's really, really important to submit a needs based appeal.

For that, you're telling the financial office that there's additional context, additional information that is important and relevant to your family situation that is not collected by the FAFSA, and that is dramatically important to consider in the financial calculation.

So that's how financial officers can use professional judgment to reallocate the financial aid package that is representative of the student's family situ the students and family's situation.

So that's one of the most important things I wanna emphasize because, you we have an entire webinar focused on appeals.

So we have a sorry. I saw a little pop up come in.

If the audio is coming in okay, hope that's alright.

But the financial aid appeals process, is gonna be really important if you have fluctuations in any income information.

So next, we'll let's talk a little bit about assets. So the FAFSA uses this to determine how much money you'll also be able to contribute towards college.

Now the first part will ask about cash savings and any checking accounts.

This will the next part will ask about any current current net worth of investments, which will include real estate, and then the third will be the current net worth of businesses or any investment, farms. So we'll go through each of these and what should be included and what shouldn't be included actually in our next slide.

But what's important to know here is that you report the information here based on the time that you complete the FAFSA.

And so if you're submitting it to let's just say you submit it today, all of the relevant information that you include is based on today's point in time. Now this is really different than the income, which is from two years ago. You're reporting current assets and the value of your current assets as of today. So it's a snapshot in time.

Now you usually wanna include most thing you'll be asked to include most things except your primary residence, except any retirement accounts, and your other possessions as well, like jewelry, like a vehicle, if you hold any high value art, for example. Those types of things are not usually included in the FAFSA asset allocation.

Additionally to that, any five twenty nine plans that are not in that are not owned by the parent, so potentially a grandparent, another family member are not included on the FAFSA asset questions.

Five twenty nine plans are so one one important note here in a in a important distinction. So if a family has multiple children and they have multiple, let's say, five twenty nine plans for each child, then when you submit the FAFSA for your first child, let's say, you know, the oldest child who's going to college next year, you'll only report the value of the five twenty nine plan with that student as the beneficiary.

So if you had ten thousand dollars in a five twenty nine plan, then you would only report ten thousand dollars for that, for that student. If you had ten thousand dollars in three different accounts for three different children, you don't aggregate those and report the total. You only report the amount that is, relevant to the student who is the beneficiary on that account.

Now other factors, other assets, excuse me, that you'll need to include, any mutual funds, trust funds, money market funds, any stocks, and then, again, the the investment any type of investment assets, real estate, any businesses that might be owned. Those will all be part of the asset calculations. You don't include retirement that we mentioned. You don't include the the value of your primary home.

Now if you'll notice, some of these are asking for their net worth, their net worth of investment real estate and net worth of business owned.

Make sure you report these accurately.

So you'll wanna subtract any debt on those assets from the total value of the assets. So this is a this is a way that families sometimes misreport or or overvalue their assets is by not subtracting the the amount of debt that's on those assets.

So maybe the case where your your asset allocation is considered particularly high if you if you don't consider them that and you only include the total. So another another tip to remember is the the overall net worth of some of these assets.

Another important part of the financial component of the FAFSA is the family size. So family size is pulled in from the tax returns. If for any reason the family size has changed, then that is important to note and to update on on the form. So you'll get a question asking to verify if the family size is the same.

If the family has grown in at all in in the last two years, this will be a huge consideration in the financial calculations because FAFSA does consider the overall family size. It's an important part in the calculations, and it's why that why they asked this information.

So a lot of the the calculations are based on the number of, people in the household that the parent is caring for, and the and sort of a certain level of income that's expected based on the size of the family to cover basic living expenses. So the larger family is, then usually the more income that's that's that's protected or considered protected for the family such that they can provide basic basic living expenses and and necessities for the family. Now the another important part of the phrenergic consideration is this question.

Now it's not necessarily, considered in the direct financial aid calculation. So previous to the FAFSA changes, the number of children in college did heavily impact the way that the financial aid final calculation was considered. So if a if a family had two children in college, then their available their available funds essentially to pay for college would get split in half. You know, three children, three ways. That's not the case anymore. So this is a result of the the change in a FAFSA form.

It is still asked as sort of a legacy question from before, but what's important to know here is if you do have a if if for the parents in the room, if you have another child, for the students in the room, if you have another sibling also enrolled in college at the same time that you are, this is a huge factor in the appeals process. So understandably, if a parent does have to pay for more than one child in college, that's gonna take a a higher proportion of their overall resources.

Now it's not considered in the form in the final calculations. However, this is an opportunity for the professional judgment where financial officers can make, accommodations and considerations to the form such that it does consider the human element of this where a family is then expected to pay for multiple children in college. Now you'll have to do you may have to request this individually. You will have to request this individually for each school, each college, but it's one of the most important parts. It's really common for this to be to be missed. You wanna make sure you give the school the chance to consider you based on accurate circumstances that your family is facing. So reporting the number of children at college is a big factor in the appeals process if that's relevant to your family.

Now, the second and last questions, that we'll get to here, are talking about the, the list of, colleges.

So a student has to include a college on the FAFSA so that it can be sent to schools. I mentioned this earlier. You can list up to twenty if you need to include more. You'll submit the FAFSA. You'll go back and put the form, remove all your schools, and then add the next ones and then send it in another way.

What's really important and for families to to maximize their consideration for any state based aid, there are some states that have specific requirements in terms of the ordering of schools on the FAFSA.

So you'll you'll when you get the slides, you'll you'll be able to click the link here to find the the breakdown. I included just an example of Massachusetts where a school has to be in the first eligible spot on the form.

And this is for first state based aid. So you would include a, you know, let's say u a UMass college on in the first spot.

For Vermont, as another example, you'd have to include a school in your top three.

Not every school has this requirement, many don't, But there are some schools that do have this type of ordering that does factor into whether a student is considered for any state based aid. So you wanna include a state institution in those spots if it's relevant for the student.

This is really easy to miss. It's really easy to forget about and ultimately disqualify yourself from any aid consideration.

So one of the most important things here is check your state, check if they have, you know, any type of funding sources that are available. Typically, the funding is meant for residents of that state, any type of state based scholarships or state based need based state state based aid.

They're usually relevant for students within that state.

But make sure to not miss miss this step. Just do a quick search. It may not be relevant for you, but if it is, then it's gonna be really important.

And then finally, this might be easy to to overlook, but make sure that all contributors have signed the FAFSA.

And that way, sometimes there are three contributors for whom it's for who for who have to have to fill fill out their information, and only two of them have signed. In order for it to be complete, every contributor has to sign. So make sure to double and triple check that.

Now really quickly after you submit, you'll see the FAFSA submission summary. You'll see your eligibility for aid, for any any loans, any scholarship or grant money that doesn't have to be paid back, as well as the student aid index.

Now just a quick note here on the student aid index. I won't go too much into it because we have a full presentation on this. But the aid the student aid index is a number that you'll see, which is not your financial aid package. So what it is is it's a number from negative fifteen hundred to a really large number. The lower the number is, the higher your financial aid is determined to be. So, yeah, the SAI is used to calculate federal aid and state aid and institutional aid. So it's a starting point for, financial offices, to determine how much aid they'll be able to provide.

Again, I just wanna emphasize here, it's not the financial aid package. So the number that you see will not be the number that you're expected to pay for college. It's an index number that then helps, determine what your final aid package would be. So I just wanna summarize really quickly, and think through summarize some of the key tips, so that we can still leave some time for questions.

But, a few quick a few quick tips here is if you if you are planning to make some kind of larger purchase, maybe you do need a new car, maybe you need a new roof, whatever the case may be, on your home, think about when it might make the most sense to do that. Now I'm not encouraging I wanna be really clear. I'm not encouraging irresponsible spending and for the sake of reducing, you know, available assets to the thing. But if you know you have a leaky roof and at some point, you you're maybe this year, for example, who let's use high school seniors in the room, you report your the the amount you may report in savings is determined by that point in time.

So if you spent a couple, you know, let's say, twenty thousand dollars on a brand new roof, then those assets are those those cash savings are no longer available to report. So be mindful about the timing of of certain things, like car, roof, whatever the case may be.

Make sure you report from that assets as we talked about.

If there are any five twenty nine planes that are not owned by a parent, so for example, a grand if it is owned by a grandparent, these are not reported on the FAFSA. They're not gonna be included in the student aid index either.

Ensure that your family size is up to date, and then, again, make sure you appeal if your financial aid has if, excuse me, if your income has gone down because that will be a huge factor calculations. Income is very can be variable for families. Prior prior year, income information is not always relevant, to where a student is at that current point in time.

So I will go through this again just really quickly. As we as we mentioned earlier, we there's the new income limits to the parent plus program. This is the federal loan. It's a sixty five thousand dollar lifetime cap at twenty thousand dollar annually. So twenty thousand the first three years, five thousand the last year if you need it. Now if there are any if there are any college students in the room, if you've taken out a parent plus loan in the past, you can be grandfathered into the old terms of the parent plus program. So that's a borrowing borrowing limit up to the cost of attendance.

If you if you have taken out a parent plus loan before June thirtieth of twenty twenty six, then you'll be grandfathered into the to the the limits of up to the cost of attendance.

And I mentioned a little bit about Joomla as well already.

So if you are interested, I'll just share really quickly. Essentially, what we do is we invite families to come together to leverage group group negotiating power. And that's what that's how Juno started, just bringing together business school students from around the country, going shopping around to various different lenders, and asking for better rates as a collective. That's what we do every single spring.

So before April thirtieth, we pull together the interest from families and see who may need to take out a loan. Now this doesn't obligate joining doesn't obligate you in any way. There's no cost. There's no credit check when if you wanna check out rates through Juno.

Ultimately, what we're what a family is agreeing to is a mailing list and agreeing to be contacted once we there's a couple quick questions that we ask, and we essentially go to various different lenders and say, this is the size of the the families within Juno. And I I include myself in that because I'm actually, I'm a Juno member. So this is the size, the group that we have together. What better rates are we able to offer us?

And the more families we have, the more negotiating power we hold. So it's similar to a union for student loans. Now if you do have any questions, we are happy to meet. I'm happy to meet with families one on one.

If you if you have particular niche questions or circumstances that are relevant to that we either we may not have covered, we just wanna make sure that we can answer any questions that families have, and we also wanna present an option to families. So, again, you don't have to use Juno at all, if you sign up.

If you do sign up and we're able to get lower rates, then we wanna at least present that as an option to you as you consider many other options.

So let's look into the q and a piece here.

Yes. So thank you so much, Eddie, for that presentation. I know that answered a lot of the questions that families had. It was very thorough. And as a reminder for those of you at home, you will be able to download these slides. They're in the in and outs tab, so feel free to download them, and you'll be able to see all of the links and things that Eddie was talking about earlier in the presentation. And as I also said, at the beginning of the presentation as well as in the q and a tab when I was writing some of the answers to questions that people had, This is being recorded, so you will be able to go to our website and watch this back later.

So, we're gonna go into a brief q and a now to answer some of your questions. And as I was looking through, I saw a number of questions about appeals, the timeline, and whether or not that needs to be like, if you have two students or two children that are applying to colleges, do you need to write those separately? Yeah. Just all the information about appeals and when they should happen, what should be included in them.

Yeah. So with the appeals process, that typically will happen after the student has applied and once the the documentation has been submitted.

Now what's gonna be important is having any kind of, updates that may not have been included in the FAFSA. So if you have, for example, any medical expenses, if you are paying for a student's, you know, another a another child's private school tuition, there are certain considerations that are allowed there.

The so the the earlier you do engage in the process and engage the financial aid office, then the more time you you allow the financial office to understand your situation, they may require, you to collect certain forms and then, be able to process those in a timely manner. So earlier is better, financial officers love, when you, start the process on an earlier time frame rather than waiting till the last minute.

But it'll be it'll come after you received your aid your financial aid package.

So we also had some questions about family size, but it's considered household size on the FAFSA. So if you have other family members, let's say an aunt, a cousin, or a grandparent living with you, are they included in household size, or are they not if they're an adult besides your parent?

Yeah. So great question. So the the family size is a really important part as we mentioned. If fans are caring for or providing over fifty percent of the care for any any member, so, know, child, it can be a grandparent that's living in the home, then that does increase the family size.

Okay.

So we were also getting some questions about location. So if you're applying to a school that is out of state, you were talking a bit about the state funds that are available when you apply for FAFSA. Is that based on the state that you or your parents live in, or is that based on the school the location of the school that you're applying to?

Great question. So the aid is going to be determined based on where a family holds residence. So it is possible. So, again, state funding is typically reserved for students who usually have grown up in the state or have have met the eligibility criteria to qualify for in state tuition.

There are some states that will allow you to to gain residency after a year after your after a year of of school. So that not every school has that, has that ability or allow students to do that. So it's important to check with the the university that you ultimately end up enrolling in. Or even in the admissions process, this could be a really important question to ask so that you can identify what might be your cost over the span of four years.

So the state aid is typically reserved for students who are res have their primary residence within that state.

But then other than that, there could be opportunities to qualify as a resident depending on the policies. It's usually the state policies of that school, and a lot of financial officers will be able to help students through that process.

So also some questions about assets. So are HSAs considered assets or real estate owned under an LLC that a parent may have?

Yes. Great. Good question. So, yes, they they will be considered assets.

So and especially, you you wanna make sure that you are presenting the the whole financial picture, so that financial officers get a good sense of what is available to you and what is protected income. So, again, the protected income, which isn't factored in to, to your financial aid calculations, will be prime residence, will be, will be retirement accounts. You'll you'll see the you you can see the full list as well.

But beyond beyond that, other assets will be expected to be reported.

We also have a question. What should you do if you don't file taxes for whatever reason? You've been unemployed or you you know, whatever circumstance.

Yeah. So if there are if there are not taxes available, then one, you will you will have to go through the FAFSA process you may have to go through the FAFSA process manually and just report you report that as report the appropriate numbers as as potentially zero depending on the situation and depending on what, whether there may be some level of income or not. But if you don't file taxes, then it would then the the data won't get transferred automatically. So you will still need to consider there there may still there are still questions that will be expected to be answered, but the the form may have to actually be filled out manually in that case.

Okay. And are you able to subtract loans from your past tense? Like, you have a mortgage or a car loan. Do those get factored in the amount of debt you still have towards those assets?

In terms of additional additional sort of either student parent even parent loan parent student loans or other debt. Consumer debt typically isn't considered.

However, this could be part of the appeals process where if there's a particularly high like, if there's a reason for particularly high levels of consumer debt, or especially this is true if the if the parent themselves are still paying their own student loans, which is becoming more and more common now, actually, then those are important contextual factors to the overall financial picture of the family that should be included.

Now the extent to which the extent to which, specifically, consumer debt is considered varies because, again, we call it the the financial process is not looking it's it's not a cash flow statement. Right? So they're they're not, if if there's a if families end up spending more than they're earning, the expectation is that that that colleges will have is that families, depending on their adjusted gross income, will still be able to contribute a certain amount to their child's education.

So be particularly mindful and careful about, any levels of consumer debt. Student debt is factored a little separately because that's it's very common, nowadays for parents to have children in college while still potentially paying off their own student debts. Make sure you communicate that. There could be considerations in the financial aid office, judgment, for what the overall health of the the family's financial aid situation looks like.

Got it.

I know we're well on time, so I'll just ask a general question, and I'll make sure to save all the remaining questions that we have so that we could get to them later. But do you have any general advice on or final that you would share with our our listeners today regarding FAFSA or things that they should keep in mind.

Yeah. Absolutely. So, again, just make sure that you still apply and don't discount yourself from that.

Take a look at one of the that final summary slide just in terms of some of the key pieces to think about, like, the the specific asset timing, five twenty nine plans. If you wanna be really mindful and strategic about how you can leverage, these accounts in a way that is, that is is allowed and still able to maximize the students', ability to be considered for financial aid resources.

Those those are gonna be really important as you think through the next few months, especially for your current seniors, and and next few years for anyone younger.

Alright.

Well, thank you so much, Eddie, for this helpful information. I know that I learned a lot, and I'm sure that the people at home did as well.

Again, if you did not get a chance to watch the full webinar or if you still have some questions, definitely download those handouts and go look back at the recording once it's posted on our website, and that will definitely give you some helpful answers.

And we look forward to hopefully having you join us again for another webinar soon. Have a great night. Bye.