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Stephanie Wells: [00:00:00] Okay. Good afternoon. Thank you for coming to the MEFA Institute webinar today. Counseling families with unique circumstances in the financial aid process. My name is Stephanie Wells. I work here at MEFA. I’ve been at MEFA for over 23 years, helping families through the. Education, enrollment process, doing presentations on financial aid and all sorts of other topics.

And I’m gonna be your moderator today with our esteemed panel of colleagues from local Massachusetts colleges and I am going to let them introduce themselves before we get started. So start with you Kevin.

Kevin DeRuosi: Hi. Welcome. My name is Kevin. I’m the Associate director of Financial Aid here at Sale State University.

I’ve been at Salem State for 20 years. I’ve been in aid for 25. And prior to getting into financial aid, I was actually one of you guys. I was a, um, guidance counselor at an alternative high school in

Stephanie Wells: excellent, Samantha.

Samantha Moran: Hi, my name is [00:01:00] Samantha. I’m an assistant director at Bridgewater State in the financial aid office.

I’ve been at Bridgewater for a little over two years, but I’ve been in financial aid for about eight. I started off as a federal work study student. Nice. Great. And Rebecca.

Rebecca Cassely: Hi everybody, I’m Rebecca Castley. I’m the director of Financial Assistance at Boston University. Um, I’ve, I’m mirroring step, be mirroring Stephanie and Kevin about 20, over 20 years working at BU in the financial aid office.

And I did start my career in admissions. Um, so I thought I’d come to financial aid, get a little taste and go back to admissions, but I love financial aid, so I’ve never left. Um, so thanks for joining us and excited for the presentation today. Thank you.

Stephanie Wells: All right, so a little bit about MEFA. I think most folks that are on this webinar know about MEFA, uh, but we are a quasi state authority and we were created in 1982 by some colleges in Massachusetts just to create a loan program back in the day.

But since then, we’ve gone [00:02:00] on to create savings programs and loan. Loan programs, uh, guidance initiatives for students, families, school counselors, college administrators. And so that’s really one of the biggest things we do at MEFA is help with guidance. So here’s what we’re gonna talk about today. We want you to understand how special circumstances work.

What is considered a special circumstance in the financial aid process that families might come across. And if they do have one of those circumstances, how do they appeal their financial aid offer? How does that process work? What can they expect? We’ll focus on three distinct, um, groupings of students and families that tend to hit more road bumps than, than your average, um, student throughout the process because of their unique circumstances, independent students, undocumented students, and non-traditional parent families.

So to lay the, the landscape just before we, uh, hand it over to the panel, it’s been a crazy [00:03:00] year. This past year was, uh, crazy with the FAFSA rollout in 23, 24, and I’m sure all of you heard about it was all over in the news and the FAFSA delays. I’m sure you were working with students and had just as rough a year as my friends on the panel.

Um, but since then, knock on wood, um mm-hmm. The rollout has been much smoother. This year the FAFSA was released and it seems to be working well for most families. We’re not hearing a lot of complaints. We hear folks finishing it in 10 minutes or less. Um, and it was released ahead of schedule in November, so that late November.

So that’s really great. Um, but just know that. If there are issues with FAFSA families and students and school counselors work with us, we are here to help you at the college level at nefa. There’s other community-based organizations that can help through the process as well. So we’ll share some resources in this presentation, but you know, don’t be afraid to ask questions, [00:04:00] um, as we go.

All right, so I’m gonna turn it over to Kevin to kick us off and just help us understand what is professional judgment, what is a financial aid appeal, and then we’ll get more into the nitty gritty about the types of appeals and circumstances.

Kevin DeRuosi: Sure. So professional judgment, because the fasts is basically a snapshot in time of the family’s finances and their information and circumstances.

Sometimes it doesn’t fully illustrate their current circumstances, especially since using 2-year-old tax data. So because of this, the Department of Education allows financial aid administrators to take into consideration that aren’t reflected on the fafsa. And we’ll be going over, you know, the consideration throughout this presentation.

Um, but basically it lets us go in, look at. Change some data elements based on your, you know, situation as of the date [00:05:00] that we’re working on it. Um, that’s typically called a special circumstances appeal. Every school does have their own processes for appeals, and again, we’ll be going over those as well.

We can also use professional judgment to, um, make adjustments to a student’s cost of attendance, which would allow for additional financial aid or private loans to be applied. We see that mainly for grad students because, you know, we do a standard housing cost of attendance and if they have a mortgage, it’s likely higher so we can adjust a student’s cost attendance.

Um, another thing we do, which we will be covering is a professional judgment. For dependency status, for making a dependent student, an independent student, and you know, professional judgment, all financial aid administrative have that capability. But what must be remembered is it usually involves some sort of an appeal process, [00:06:00] and 99% of the time requires some sort of documentation from the student or the family.

Stephanie Wells: Excellent. Great. So here’s some of, we’re gonna go into all of these circumstances, one by one and throughout the presentation, but income assets, unreimbursed medical expenses, changes to household expenses and size. Those are some of the most common, um, changes that might warrant, um. Appeal. All right, so let’s first get into the actual process, and I’m actually just gonna turn it over to each of our panelists one by one, just to talk about the process at their school.

You know, what kind of documentation they typically require, how you as a school counselor can help in this process. ’cause sometimes you might be the one who can provide some documentation. Um, so I’ll start with Rebecca.

Rebecca Cassely: Sure. Um, great. So we have epi, we do have a form that’s an appeal form that can [00:07:00] be searched on our website that we ask students to submit when they’re submitting an appeal.

And I understand it, it can be stressful and not understanding what do they need, what, um, so I think the best place to start is. To read the appeal form and just start with a form or emailing the the financial aid office at the school. We can read the circumstances as the financial aid counselors in the office, and then we can be back in touch with the student or the the family, or via the school counselor and explain what kind of documentation could support.

Court that appeal. So instead of the student and the parent worrying, oh, do they need this? Do they need that? And spending all of their time circling and trying to collect the correct documentation. I think just starting with if the school has the appeal form, that’s a great way and sometimes that will guide or just submitting an email or reaching out to the school first.

So I think worrying about the documentation, don’t worry because we’ll review the appeal and then we might say, this is what we [00:08:00] need. Um. I also think sometimes it’s if like I saw, um, if it’s the unreimbursed medical expenses, totally understand that if something happens today. That’s very worrisome that I expect I’ll have bills and I expect this will happen.

It’s really difficult for us to approve appeals because unreimbursed medical expenses are what we’re licking. So you have to actually incur those expenses and then show that they’re not reimbursed. So I think. Just making sure we understand. And I’m totally empathetic with something that happens that feels really stressful for the family, but taking a step back and saying, okay, what does this really mean?

How, how can I document and what does this, how does this impact my ability to finance college? So, um, starting with a P form is, uh, is what I suggest families do.

Stephanie Wells: Great. Thank you. And before I turn on over to Samantha, quick question. When in the process would be you [00:09:00] specifically wanna hear from a family, ’cause some schools say, wait till we know, you know, if you’re accepted.

Some schools want the information earlier. Really that, that I found can vary.

Rebecca Cassely: That’s a good question. So we, um, are reviewing the application. So right now where we are in the admission cycle, we’re reviewing applications that students are submitting via. Right now we’re looking at early decision and then we’ll move to regular decision.

So we’re looking at, we require the CSS profile and there’s a box for special circumstances. So if something’s in there, I will look at that information, but. I always say, you can’t appeal an award if you don’t have an award yet. So the right thing to do is to submit the financial aid applications required by the school, by the deadline, wait for the first award, and then that’s the opportunity to appeal.

At bu we’re really trying to stress planning and so we would love appeals before the enrollment deposit deadline. So whether that’s, um, January 9th [00:10:00] for early decision or May 1st. We want the family to have the plan and we wanna help with that plan, but we don’t want the decision to be like, okay, we’ll de we’ll send our enrollment deposit.

And then the bill is sent out in early July and that’s when, oh gosh, you know, the. That wasn’t enough. Um, that’s not the way we want the families to come into, um, financing education. We want an appeal before you submit an enrollment deposit so that the student and family and everyone is comfortable with their financial aid award.

Stephanie Wells: That’s great. Thank you.

Rebecca Cassely: Okay, Samantha, how,

Stephanie Wells: how do things work at Bridgewater?

Samantha Moran: Sure. So it’s very similar to bu I would have to say. Um. S typically it’s either the student or an advocate of the student will reach out to our financial aid office. We do set up an appointment and sort of discuss what’s going on with the student to sort of tailored to their situation.

Um, I’ve had situations where there is no. Let’s say legally binding documents [00:11:00] that I can submit. Um, I’ve had a situation where a student had a sort of like a domestic dispute, but they could not report it to authorities because of cultural beliefs. Um, it’s just really about, uh, trying to help the students out, um, while also being able to understand that we need some sort of documentation to be able to pass audit.

Um. But yeah, it’s definitely sort of guiding the students with, um, each different situation. Um, and then as far as timeline for appealing, uh, again, as Rebecca said, we typically wait until the student has their first initial award. I know sometimes it kind of brings in like a, like a light, like, okay, well I was not expecting to get.

You know, this limited financial aid, my income, my family’s income has really changed. Um, and then they sort of are more initiative about reaching out to try to see what they can do about, um, [00:12:00] the first award letter that they received and that type of aid, um, that they were offered. Excellent. Great. Kevin?

Kevin DeRuosi: I’m gonna mirror what my colleague has said. Um, basically we do want students, especially incoming freshmen, we want them to have their initial award letter. Main reason for that is so that pads don’t cross so that they don’t get their initial award letter while we’re still working on their appeal and go, oh my God, stays out, reach.

So would like their first award letter out before they. Not a financial appeal. If it’s more of a dependency appeal or special circumstance like homelessness, then appeal immediately even, you know, even if you just filed your class and you just got accepted to film state, we will look at you and we’ll stop that process.

But typically we ask students to wait for the their first award letter.

Stephanie Wells: Right. Okay. That’s good to know.[00:13:00]

All right, so we’re gonna kind of go through some of the different types of changes here. So first, let’s talk about. We don’t have to talk about every single bullet here. I think it’s pretty clear what increases in income and decreases are. Um, typically, I think I can probably speak for the panel that most of the appeals they get are related to decreases in income because when folks have an increase, they might not, you know, let you know until they have to fill the FAFSA again.

So I’ll just go around to each of you, um, and we can start with you, Samantha, since you’re the first box off the top of my screen, just the type of. Income type changes that you usually consider?

Samantha Moran: Sure. So, um, it depends on sometimes if the parents were married and there’s been a divorce, um, custody. It could also be child support paid.

Um, we also have, [00:14:00] um, let me see. Whether a parent has lost a job, student has lost a job, um, those are typically the decreases in income. If they sold a home, that would be probably an increase in income. But um, yeah, that’s typically what I would see at Bridgewater. Excellent. And Rebecca.

Rebecca Cassely: So financial aid, we establish your eligibility like your first year.

This is how we do it at, at bu and we set your award for four years. So, um, I think it was Kevin that said the students that are applying now will fill out the 25 26 fafsa, and on that it will require the 2023. Tax return. So that’s the tax 2023. And right now we’re hard to believe ending 2024, going into 2025.

So we know things can have, might have changed. Um, so that’s kind of what we’re looking for. Also, if 2023 was [00:15:00] an outlier, and Stephanie, this is where we might. See that higher income, so if you got a one time a capital gain or you hit the lottery and that’s only on your 2023 tax return and luck habit, that’s what we’re basing the award on.

That’s what we wanna know about unusual income that won’t reoccur, that we can consider taking out. And we really just wanna get, okay. What is a typical year look like for your, your parent income? I was reviewing a student today who is applying early decision and the. Student actually, um, when, when they were in high school, was able to have a job and they had a salary of about $15,000.

And so the student contribution was about $7,000 for, and, and they had written that she was no longer working at this job and she wouldn’t be able to. So I was able to use that information and kind of use her, her 2024 income and make the student contribution much lower. So that’s where we look for increases in income.

What we might see now, the decrease is right, it’s a job loss or if something has happened [00:16:00] and. I think it’s important to know, we know it feels stressful. If you, if I lost a job today and my child was applying, I would, I would be stressed and, and wanna reach out. But we always need the documentation. So right now we would, I would wanna see the decrease.

It, it’s too early. It, it wouldn’t really impact my 2024 tax return. It’s too early, obviously, to use the 2025. Tax return, I could get reemployed tomorrow. So I think we understand how the, how the families feel, but we might not be able to react right away to a job loss. So just set, um, level setting that.

And also sometimes we’ll see, oh, early retirement is something, and we really look about non-discussion. Why the, the parent is taking, you know, is, is considering retiring early. But that’s something that we have come across. Um, but we wanna know about. Anything that’s different in that base year we’re using this year will be 2023 [00:17:00] income.

Stephanie Wells: That’s great. That’s great. Thank you. And Kevin,

Kevin DeRuosi: um, same thing. I was actually gonna comment, you know, the items on the left often lead to the items on the right because again, we are using 2-year-old data. So if, you know, student family had any of.

They’re fast forward. Their income for 20 24, 25 is gonna look significantly different. Um, at still state if a parent or, or a wage earner in the family has lost their job. We do request that they wait four to six weeks before filing a appeal, just so that we know that the dust has settled. We’ll know if they’re eligible for unemployment benefits.

Maybe they got a new position, did they get a severance package? So. And yet to, you know, kind of go along with what Dr said. It’s a very stressful situation and I know the parents really want to get in there and get it done, but we do [00:18:00] need that sort of buffer four to six weeks just for everything to settle down so that we can get a really accurate picture of what’s going on.

Stephanie Wells: Excellent. Thank you.

Alright, so Samantha’s gonna lead our discussion just. Just start with talking about independent students and what, what makes a student technically independent for FAFSA purposes. We get these questions all the time at MEFA, um, and we always have to clarify, so if you wanna lead us off here, that’d be great.

Samantha Moran: So on the Fsfa application, there’ll be questions that will determine whether a student is automatically placed as an independent student. Um, typically it’s the criteria, which is why a student would need to appeal if they fall in another special circumstance, um, to do that dependency override. Um, sometimes depending on what their selection is, there’ll be, uh, additional documents [00:19:00] required to satisfy it.

Um. But it might not be all of the criteria. So, um, just for example, in legal guardianship, there might be a document required that the student has to submit to the financial aid office in order to satisfy the requirement and have their award processed. Um, same with the unaccompanied youth, um, for, at risk of homelessness.

Stephanie Wells: Great. Um, Kevin, do you have anything to add here?

Kevin DeRuosi: Um, so it is, you know, federal guideline. I, I always have to. Tell students, because we get this a lot, emancipated minor status is not a valid status in the state of Massachusetts, so we cannot do a dependency override based on an emancipated minor status from that.

Yeah.

Stephanie Wells: Right. And then sometimes I know. You know, students might get in a fight with mom and dad or something like that, and that’s always a tricky situation unless there’s like abuse or something like that, or, you know, [00:20:00] um, Rebecca, can you talk real quick? I got this question the other day from a, a legal guardian.

For bu for, for federal purposes. If a student is in a legal guardianship and they don’t have parents or can’t get in touch with the parents, they’ll be an independent student for fafsa. But what about for, um, institutional aid? It. For the profile. How does that work? Do you want legal guardian info or how would that work?

Rebecca Cassely: Right? Yes. So on the CSS profile, it um, does ask, you are required, you should report, um, court appointed legal guardians are, should be reported on the CSS profile. Um, and Ty. We would use that person’s income and assets in our evaluation if the parent wasn’t, um, if the student didn’t have a parent that they could put on the financial aid application.

So we wouldn’t use both the parent and a legal guardian if that, um, we would only [00:21:00] consider using the legal guardian and each school might have a different way that they evaluate students with legal guardians and decide case by case if we do use that person’s. Um. Information when we assess the student’s eligibility, but the dis the instructions on the CSS profile CSS profile are coin court appointed legal guardians should be reported.

Okay, great. Good to know. And I, yeah, and I think it’s hard just to stress these are federal requirements and so that’s definitely not, um, the same, the same standard that the CSS profile uses and what we use for BU financial aid. Um, if the student is married. That they should still put their parent information on the Cs s profile.

Um, most it is a different standard that we would use to waive any parent information for our own BU money, and that’s what we use the Cs s profile for. I’m sure that Samantha and Kevin and we all hear [00:22:00] like, oh, well I just wanna let you know my parents aren’t, um, claiming me on their tax return anymore.

Like, great news. And I just say like. No, that, that’s a decision that’s not at all impactful for filing for financial aid. Good, good. That’s a really good point. Awesome. Kevin, one

Kevin DeRuosi: quick thing and then I’ll let you take

Stephanie Wells: off on this one too.

Kevin DeRuosi: Um, if you have any risk of homeless, homeless, unaccompanied youth in your school right now.

The best thing to do is draft up or have your school liaison draft up the letter, make a bunch of copies for those students for when they’re applying to colleges. Because if a FAFSA comes through and the student states that they were, you know, they’re unaccompanied or documented homeless, we are gonna need a copy of that letter.

So it kind of cuts down on the process time. So if you are aware of any students. In your high school that are graduating, that are in that situation, I [00:23:00] would prep a letter for them now, make them a bunch of copies. Tell them to keep them somewhere safe just so that when the time comes and they’re asked for it, it’s a quick turnaround time.

Stephanie Wells: Hmm. So that is, um, and that’s something you would usually hear from guidance counselors about these independent students? Yeah. And we will. I’ll put in a plug for a webinar we’ll have in January. We don’t have the date finalized yet, but we will have a webinar for school counselors with DCF to get much more in the weeds on how to help, um, foster students and students who are at risk of being homeless and, and you know, those students.

So, so keep an eye out for that one. Anything else about regional independent student status that, um, Rebecca or Samantha that you guys wanted to add here?

Samantha Moran: Sure. So sometimes um, a student might be, uh, at risk of homelessness and don’t [00:24:00] have a document from their high school or from a shelter. Sometimes I do meet with those students one-on-one and a financial aid advisor is able to, um, confirm that the student is at risk of homelessness. Um, so that would definitely be a professional judgment based on that.

Great,

Stephanie Wells: awesome. All right. Do, do you have anything else, Rebecca, on this one or,

Rebecca Cassely: uh, no. I think we definitely, um, are open to reviewing the student’s unique circumstances and so I, yeah, I think, like Samantha said, a great place to start as a conversation with the financial aid counselor so that we can hear the situation and then we might be able to say, oh, can you provide this?

Or how, this is how we, we can help. Yeah. Yeah,

Stephanie Wells: definitely start with the school. You can always call MEFA, you know, especially if it’s a Massachusetts college. We have contacts at every school. So for students who are in these type of very much more difficult circumstances, you know, the whole community wants to help them out.

[00:25:00] So get in touch with whoever you need to. We’ll, we’ll, we’ll all work together to help these students. Okay. Undocumented students. Um. So, um, who, who wants to go first? Just kind of explaining, you know, where we are legally for FAFSA per purposes, and, and then I’ll talk maybe Kevin or Samantha, and then we’ll get into the institutional aid, um, how that works on the private side too.

Kevin DeRuosi: Samantha, do you wanna take this one or do you want me to?

Samantha Moran: Sure. So

Stephanie Wells: Samantha,

Samantha Moran: I don’t mind, um, previously students, um, that have like an undocumented status or would FAFSA would consider, um, non-eligible for FAFSA purposes. Um. They really couldn’t complete the application for financial aid. Um, but now the mafa app has been out and it’s an opportunity for undocumented students to try to receive financial aid.[00:26:00]

Um, I do believe it was done in two phases. So the first one was to have in-state tuition rates, um, and be eligible for non need based aid. And then the second phase is to that master application to be eligible for need-based aid.

Stephanie Wells: Yeah, that’s gonna be a really good resource for students this year. Um. So just to, well let, let’s talk first, Rebecca, before I go onto the Mass Aid, ’cause we can get into that with, um, Kevin and Samantha, but on the private college side, ’cause it is treated a little bit different when you’re looking at institutionally.

Can you just talk about that from the, the private, um, independent school side?

Rebecca Cassely: Sure. So there, um. We’re unfortunately, BU is not among the list yet, um, that we don’t give our own BU funding to undocumented students to get me based aid at bu you have to be an eligible FAFSA filer. But there are, um, a number of schools, private schools that are able, that [00:27:00] do offer, um, funding to students that, um, aren’t eligible to file the fafsa.

So I think it’s. Um, there’s searches that are available. I know there’s lists that, um, that I’ve seen, but it’s school by school, um, specific. So I think the student should research, but Right. Yeah. Because bu we’re not, we’re not one of the schools that does offer Yeah. Need.

Stephanie Wells: Yeah. There’s a very, there’s a small handful of schools nationwide that can afford to do that.

Um, right.

Rebecca Cassely: Yeah. Yeah.

Stephanie Wells: So it can be, it can be tricky. I think the other good piece of guidance on the admissions side, especially if the student is, you know, a successful academic student, is look at schools that have merit aid. ’cause that typically, um, isn’t related to, you know, any document, any. Status here.

Let’s talk a little bit more about Massachusetts, uh, and our new program. Um, Kevin, do you wanna, do you wanna just kind of [00:28:00] go through and just talk about the new program in Massachusetts to get in state rates and Sure.

Kevin DeRuosi: Um, filling out that

Stephanie Wells: mass form,

Kevin DeRuosi: the Massachusetts Department of Higher Ed, um, released their own version of the.

They call it the mafa, which is very creative of them. I’m not gonna be confused with Mafa, which is our state financial aid association. Um, but basically call it mafa

Stephanie Wells: with one A at the end.

Kevin DeRuosi: Exactly. So, um, undocumented students are eligible to log into, um, mass Aid and complete the flow, which is.

Legitimately set up exactly like a faf. The questions are all the same, the details, the only thing missing from that is you can’t do the automatic transfer of data. Um, once that’s completed, it gets processed. The individual schools have access to the Mafa website and Osfa, which is the governing board, [00:29:00] I should call them the governing board.

Um. They’re the ones that are doing all the verification and confirmation of the MASA application. Whereas, you know, colleges we’re all doing the FAFSA verification and documentation for that. The state is actually verifying those files. Once they’ve gone through that process. The student has, you know, done, done sounds like a, a sentence has completed three, at least three years.

Of Massachusetts High School, they’ve earned their diploma. Um, they’ve complete, completed the eligibility form an affidavit. The affidavit is basically a, the student stating that at some point they, they do intend to apply for citizenship, um, and they’ve provided any requested documentation. At that point, we are able then to award them state need-based financial aid.

Stephanie Wells: Which is really fantastic. It’s huge.

Kevin DeRuosi: It’s definitely huge.

Stephanie Wells: It’s [00:30:00] gonna make a difference. Excellent. Mm-hmm. Um, Samantha, do you wanna kind of keep going on with this slide and just some guidance for school counselors when, you know, helping students under documented students through the process?

Samantha Moran: Sure. So definitely important for them to, um, do their research on the school, see what merit aid is available first.

Um. There’s definitely offices in, I’m pretty sure at every college and university that can help out these students. Um, because I know it can’t be a scary process. Um, especially if they’re first gen. Um, they don’t really have much knowledge about what the Mafa is because it is fairly new. Um, so definitely the financial aid office and other departments are there to help the students.

Um. And it’s, again, it’s very, very important for them to consider themselves even for those merit scholarships.

Stephanie Wells: Yeah, definitely. That can be a good resource. And then we do have a list of resources [00:31:00] here that you’ll all get when you get the slides. Just some resources that we put together, some blogs, helpful tips to help these students through the process.

Kevin DeRuosi: Stephanie, can I throw one other piece information into that so I’m not plugging Salem State. So I am, maybe you can’t.

Stephanie Wells: That’s okay.

Kevin DeRuosi: Um, Salem State is partnered with the Dream us, which is a national agency, um, that is partnered with 80 colleges across 20 states. Salem State and UMass Boston are the only two schools in Massachusetts that are partnered with the Dream Us.

What the Dream US is, is an agency for undocumented students that will or can, and will provide. Um, tuition fees up to $33,000 for a bachelor’s degree. Um, students that belong to or have that go through the dream us also have the opportunity to apply for [00:32:00] stipends, for internship, for fellowship, and they also get stipends for books.

So that is a program that Down State just started, um, partnering with a year ago. We have 20 students that are in it now. And one of the other benefits of students belonging to the Dream us is they have a designated liaison at the school who kind of like walks into the whole per uh, process, keeps an eye on them throughout the semester, makes sure they’re meeting deadlines and stuff like that.

Great. And the website is the Dream Us Do org.

Stephanie Wells: The Dream us Do org. Okay. I. Before I send out the slides, uh, I’ll add that to this. I think that would be a good resource to add to our website and maybe we will ask you to write a blog about it too. All right. We’ll follow up, but we’ll make sure we get that website on the slides before we send them to everybody ’cause that’s a good resource.

Okay, so let’s [00:33:00] pivot a little bit and just talk a little bit about non-traditional parent families and I’m gonna let Rebecca kick us off with this, um, topic.

Rebecca Cassely: Sure. So the FAFSA asks for a student’s biological or adoptive parents, and, um, that includes any, their, their parents. So that’s who you put on the fafsa.

Also, if those biological or adoptive parents are not married, but they live in the same household, both of those parents are reported on the fafsa. Um, so that’s who goes on the fafsa. If the students. Biological or adoptive parents are not married if they’re divorced, separated, or never married. Um, for the fafsa, the student asks themself a question and it’s changed.

Last year it changed. Um, who supports them the most financially? Who support provides the most support? That’s the parent that goes on the FAFSA [00:34:00] application. If that parent is, um, remarried or has another, um, spouse that. Parent, that other spouse is also reported on the FAFSA for the CSS profile. Um, the parent.

The same parent that provides the most support on the fafsa. That is the parent that is on the CSS profile, but there is also a non-custodial CSS profile. So the other parent would have their own application and provide the information so that that way we’re getting information from both sets of parents.

Um, but if a school is not requiring a CSS profile only fafsa, it’s just, it can be completed by just one parent.

Stephanie Wells: Okay, awesome. And we also have, um, a really good graphic that we created last year when it was getting a little, little crazy with the new fafsa and we were trying to get at least folks to fill, get their FSA id, even though if they couldn’t complete the [00:35:00] fafsa.

So we have this whole, um, information on our website and as a school counselor, you can download these. Scenarios in English, Spanish to Portuguese and Chinese. And I’ll just open up the English one real quick. So we have three scenarios about who needs an FSA id. So they’re dependent living with biological or adoptive parents.

That’s the most simple one. And then we get into, you know, if the parents are divorced or separated. Each scenario, how you answer each question goes to the next, um, answer. And then we have independent students. So if you download these three PDFs, it’s all one document. Very easy to just have on your website to refer to.

It can help, uh, help the information flow with the student.

Samantha Moran: That’s great.

Stephanie Wells: Alright. Um, anything else? Uh, sorry, Kevin and Samantha about non-traditional families that [00:36:00] you, you know, typical, you know, things that where you see folks get stumped or tripped up.

Kevin DeRuosi: We sometimes see if the parent remarried. Um, we get a lot of questions, well, you know, my new spouse didn’t adopt.

My son or daughter, why do you need their, their information? Um, bottom line is it’s a federal regulation. We need that documentation and we get it. You know, you didn’t adopt an 18-year-old when you remarried, but you are still part of that household. So we are still require better.

Stephanie Wells: Great. Anything else, Samantha, that you want?

I

Rebecca Cassely: think we should be, if parents are considering getting married, they should have to consult with financially officers.

Samantha Moran: I think it’s also important to note the residency of the parent. I know some students live in Massachusetts, but their parents are outta state and that can affect state aid for them.

Stephanie Wells: Oh, that’s a good point. That’s a point we get questions. [00:37:00] Regularly all the time at MEFA about recently separated parents. And, and what that means, and it doesn’t have to be a legal separation. If the parents are separated, you can put separated on the FAFSA form for FAFSA purposes. So, um, just keep that in mind.

It doesn’t have to be a legal divorce or a legal separation to list that status. Alright, so let’s talk a little bit, um, about a few different scenarios and these are all kind of quick little, little topics here about changes in assets. Um, I know, Rebecca, do you wanna just start us off with ones that you typically see where you’re able to approve or,

Rebecca Cassely: sure.

So. The family files, the FAFSA and if needed, the CSS profile once, and we award them for the year that we award them for fall and for spring. Um, that’s how we do it at bu. And so we really don’t need to hear every time. Um. You know, uh, money [00:38:00] gets spent from a savings account. That’s not how, um, that we, that we wanna be involved in, in hearing about financial updates from the family.

So really, we wanna hear about unexpected things that are happening that are impacting the plan to pay for college. So I think I, we’ve, it’s been happening, um, unfortunately more and more like the natural hurricanes and tornadoes and things that. Absolutely we’re not on your, um, your bingo card when you, when you started planning for college.

And that is truly something that is impacting, potentially using the assets that were, um, earmarked for the student’s education. So big things are what we want to hear about and definitely non-discretionary. So things that, um, the, the, the family doesn’t have control of. Um, you know, we. I sometimes say like life happens, and so every time life happens, we can’t react in the financial aid office.

It has to be something that’s [00:39:00] large and I really impacts the family’s ability to, to pay for college and use the plan that they have. That’s what I always like to ask the family. Sometimes they’re expanding their circumstances and I say like, okay, what was your plan to pay and. If there wasn’t a plan and then something happens, well, we have to kind of step back and say like, how, how can I help in financial aid?

Um, you know, really how does that impact what your, what your plan was? So sometimes starting with there, and especially if they say, I was using this account, and then, okay, let’s start from there and how can we consider that? Um, but those are, those are the big, big topics that we, we do want to hear from families, but, uh, to be realistic, what we can, um.

What we can do in the, in the short

Stephanie Wells: term. Right. And that’s the whole purpose of this, right? Is to figure out what, what’s big and what’s, what’s small, what will work and what won’t. Um, Kevin, Samantha, any, any additions about, you know, other things that you may have seen here? [00:40:00]

Kevin DeRuosi: Um, we had a situation, I think it was last year, where a family appealed because there was a death in the family and.

Person that died needed to be sent back to their home country, which was Haiti. And the family wanted to travel with them. And that wasn’t more of a let’s increase your financial aid, but more that was a cost of attendance increase where we were able to, you know, increase their cost of attendance, which allowed the student, uh, the families to borrow a little additional plus loan so they could kind of offset the cost that, you know, the direct cost that it.

To provide the funeral and the air transportation for the whole family too.

Stephanie Wells: Great. Samantha, anything to add here?

Samantha Moran: Yeah, I actually had a situation where a student’s family home, um, had like a natural disaster where their roof just [00:41:00] collapsed completely destroying their home and they were temporarily displaced.

Um, so there was a part of a, like a professional judgment done for that and an income appeal because they use some of their, most of the. Not all their savings to try to assist with, um, their finances at that time.

Stephanie Wells: Yep, that’s, yep. And that happens. Um, I do have one question that came in. I’ll put this Kevin, if you wanna answer it, or, or Samantha in re just kind of going back one slide, but I wanna answer it before we get too far off, um, regards to the mass residency from Mass State Aid, if a dependent student is an in-state resident and but parents are not, which residency is the one that matters for in-state tuition and aid?

Is it the residency of the student?

Kevin DeRuosi: It, it’s initially the resident of the parents, um, especially for in-state tuition and in state financial aid after two [00:42:00] years of the students. So we have a lot of juniors whose parents who weren’t receiving state aid their freshman, sophomore year, but now based on the state’s laws, they’re eligible for state financial aid.

They’re still being charged out of state. Tuition and fees because their parents are not Massachusetts residents, but because they’ve been in the state for two years, the students, they’re now eligible to receive state financial aid.

Stephanie Wells: Okay. That’s clarifies. Thank you. All

Kevin DeRuosi: right,

Stephanie Wells: great. So we’re kind of getting towards the end where a lot of these are, it, it gets, you know, more smaller and smaller what, what can be considered.

But, um, I, I know I’ve heard from some. Occasionally you might see a private Catholic college take into account, um, you know, funds for private high school, Catholic high school. I have heard of that, but not every Catholic college is gonna do that. Um, but um, Samantha, do you wanna just go through any household expenses [00:43:00] that families suddenly have to take on that really can, um, impact their aid that you can consider under professional judgment?

Or what you can’t,

Samantha Moran: I think at Bridgewater zoning in definitely the medical, um, expenses has been something I think since Covid that has increased. Um, but what we usually do is take in all the information that they have and try to do a simulation. So we kind of give them heads up of, you know, this is actually gonna make an impact on your financial aid or whether it’s not.

Stephanie Wells: That’s,

Samantha Moran: that’s

Stephanie Wells: good to know.

Samantha Moran: As far as others like, um, just for example, like the childcare, um, expenses, we can make a professional judgment for the cost of attendance in case a student needs, um, additional private loan funding to try to help with those expenses.

Stephanie Wells: Great. Rebecca, do you have any? You wanna highlight,

Rebecca Cassely: right?

I kind of think it’s the same as the asset, non-discretionary. So if [00:44:00] they’re in the setting, in eligibility, if there is a reason, um, I think you, Stephanie, you had mentioned the School of the Blind. If a student needs to attend a private high, a sibling of the student needs to attend a private high school, um, for a, for a reason, um, then we can consider that in increasing the student’s eligibility.

So. I guess the standard is just let us know and then we can decide if, um, we can include that.

Stephanie Wells: Great, great. Thank you.

Rebecca Cassely: Okay.

Stephanie Wells: If you and, and Kevin, do you wanna, you can talk about that, you can talk about household expenses as well, but do you wanna also kick us off about changes in family size?

Kevin DeRuosi: Sure. So changes in family size, which is interesting because that’s, no, they don’t ask family size.

On the faster anymore. Um, but basically, you know, if the family grows, that’s more expensive for the family students, the, [00:45:00] the family can appeal based on the birth of a new child. Um, grandparents have moved in, even, you know, my son who used to live on their own is now moved back into the household and, and we’re providing for them.

The flip side of that would be, you know, decrease in family size, which we wouldn’t adjust based on the family size, but you know, a wage earner or a parent or passes away, that’s definitely an available, um, decision like that. But changes in family size. It used to be very prominent on the FAFSA where it would really impact the, what was then the EFD, which is now the.

I don’t really, I don’t think we’ve actually come across any that we would process because we’re not really sure how to process that on the fafsa that doesn’t ask that question. Does that make any sense?

Stephanie Wells: Yep.

Kevin DeRuosi: But it’s always good to ask, like, I mean, bottom [00:46:00] line, if students or parents or you guys have questions, just, just reach out to the financial aid office and if we don’t know the answer, we’ll find it.

Stephanie Wells: What about, um, Rebecca, the fafsa? It still asks the question, but the formula doesn’t take into account additional students in college at the same time. Yeah. And that, that policy’s been different. It’s a little bit, it’s not really a unique circumstance, but how has b how would BU handle that?

Rebecca Cassely: So the great news is

Stephanie Wells: consider,

Rebecca Cassely: yeah, it’s still on the CSS profile, so we do still allow.

The two in college to impact a student’s, um, eligibility. I think the good, like for new students, so the school counselors are working with new students that, right. The FAFSA has changed and that’s no longer a question. I think we had to deal with it with students that were current students at our school.

So one year their eligibility for federal aid was based on to in college and then the next year it [00:47:00] wasn’t. Um, but thankfully that won’t be an issue for new filers. Um. Right. That is not impactful for federal methodology. Right. Great. Anything to add here,

Stephanie Wells: Samantha?

Samantha Moran: So although, uh, at Bridgewater we just use the fafsa, um, we actually had students appealing, especially if they were upperclassmen and, um, any mean, I mean, they really felt the difference from the financial aid formula.

Um, so if. There was any difference. For example, um, like another student, a family member or rather sibling in college, we were able to use, um, sort of like an institutional formula to grant institutional aid. Um, but it was based on an appeal process indicating that from the student.

Stephanie Wells: Great. So there is a process that can be considered, um.

All right. So with that, uh, let’s just talk about co I think we’ve talked about a lot of [00:48:00] these already, but Kevin, any here that we haven’t talked about with cost of attendance adjustments, that would obviously increase their ability for more financial aid, or at some schools they might not get more a, but they might have increased capacity to borrow.

Kevin DeRuosi: Those are pretty much the, the top six that we typically receive. Um, the other one that I had mentioned earlier is the housing adjustment, but again, that’s typically more so for grad students because they do have a mortgage or their rent is a lot higher. But those pretty much the. Great.

Stephanie Wells: Any, anything to add here, Rebecca or Samantha that we haven’t covered As far as cost of attendance adjustments?

Rebecca Cassely: I think this covers it. I, I, I, it’s not, IM as impactful for new students, so students [00:49:00] applying, but rate the high cost of living. We’re in Boston and so though we, we are not, we ask a student to live like a student. So that’s, um, you know, we’ve seen. There are very expensive apartments in Boston, and I know I’d love to live in one of them, but that’s not, so, I, we sometimes, you know, just because a student is appealing and can even show that the amount they’re, they’re spending, that’s not necessarily what we will increase their cost of attendance to include.

Um, but for incoming first year students at B, we require them all to live on campus. So it’s not an issue for, it’s for our returning students.

Stephanie Wells: Great.

Rebecca Cassely: Excellent.

Stephanie Wells: Alright. Uh, so Samantha, if you had anything add on on that, but also if you wanna just kinda also talk about what you get requests for but typically cannot consider.

Samantha Moran: I was just gonna give an example of when it’s not considered.

Stephanie Wells: So we’ll [00:50:00] start, you start.

Samantha Moran: Sure. So I, I basically, um. Help students with study abroad and financial aid. So I know that study abroad can, uh, be adjusted in the cost of attendance, but some students want to ask for an appeal for $20,000 of spending money for one semester abroad, and that cannot be considered.

Um, although they by use private loan funding, the purpose of a private loan is for educational purposes. So, um, although they’re going to study abroad, um, through Bridgewater, it’s. It would not be considered as an adjustment to the cost of attendance at all.

Stephanie Wells: And then, um, Kevin, sometimes I’ve heard, I get this question a lot, do they consider the parent loan debt? That’s a good one. That comes up a lot.

Kevin DeRuosi: That does come up a lot. Unfortunately, we cannot consider parents loan debt as a, an appealable fee. [00:51:00] And again, weddings, definitely not funerals. We have made some adjustments based on funerals because funeral isn’t a personal choice.

Like it’s something that just occurs. It happens. You have no choice over it. Uh, weddings we do not allow. Right. Awesome.

Stephanie Wells: Okay, so the gap. Between need-based aid and what, you know, what the family can come up with. Even after all of these appeals and conversations with financial aid have been exhausted and maybe the aid has gone up, but it doesn’t mean that a hundred percent is gonna be met or that there isn’t gonna be some sort of gap or you know, amount that the family still has to come up with.

Um. We, we still recommend talking to the financial aid office, talking to student accounts if families are having trouble making the numbers work. But I like to go back to Rebecca’s comment about having a plan before they pick a [00:52:00] school before they commit. That’s really important, um, for families to think about their current circumstance, you know, go through the appeals process as needed.

But to be realistic, you know, is the plan, um, gonna gonna work to cover that gap, uh, whether it be through loans or payment plans or or whatnot. Um, sometimes, you know, we always recommend talk to the financial aid office if, if the numbers are just so far out of their reach just to make sure that everything has been considered.

Um, but you know, there are plenty of schools in Massachusetts that. The public colleges, community colleges that can help students start off at a, a little bit less expensive, um, place, gather some credits, things like that, and then transfer, not just transfer to a public college like Bridgewater where I, my alma mater or Salem State, but.

There are private colleges all over the state that work, you know, with their [00:53:00] local community colleges and they might have programs. So it’s always worth it to just look at all the options, um, because sometimes the, the school student’s dream school might not be, it just might not be affordable for that family.

And we have to be realistic when helping them. So just, you know, we do have one question in there, excuse me, that we can, uh, answer as well, but. We’ll give you these slides if you wanna register for other Mefa Institute webinars that are coming up. And then you can also scan this other QR code that takes you all the resources for families that you can list on your website.

You’ll have our social channels of course, and then as school counselors, feel free to call mefa, email us if you have questions. We get questions from school counselors all the time who have students in their office that they’re trying to help. Um, and if we can’t give you the answer right, then we will, you know, email Rebecca, Kevin and Samantha and say, how do you guys handle this situation?

You know, what would you do? [00:54:00] So we can help you get to the answers and, and point you in the right direction if you’re not sure. Um, so with that, I just, I, I think somebody answered the question for me. Thank you, Kevin. Um, I don’t see any other questions, so while I’m. If you have one, just type it in real quick before we end the webinar.

But I do wanna thank our panelists, Samantha, Kevin, Rebecca, taking your time out of, you know, early decision deadlines that you’re trying to process and financial aid applications are now coming in the door. Um. And it’s also holiday season, which tends to be a little bit busier than usual. So we appreciate you taking the time.

Um, so thank you so much. And then remember folks, I’ll email you a copy of the slides and the recording to everybody who registered. So thank you everybody for joining us today. Thanks again to our panel and have a wonderful day. Thank you. Thank you.

Kevin DeRuosi: Thank you. Thank you all.

Stephanie Wells: Thank you.