Jonathan Hughes: [00:00:00] Hi everyone, and welcome to the MEFA Podcast. I’m Jonathan Hughes, and I want to tell you that if you are about to go to college, we’re about to send a student to college and you have questions, then you’re in the exact right place and also. That you’re not alone. I can assure you of that. In fact, recently we visited Blue Hills Regional Technical High School in Canton, Massachusetts, and met with actual students in that same exact position.

They’re ready to go to college. They have their acceptance letters, and they probably have a lot of the same questions that you do. So let’s find out if I’m right and let’s take this question. From one senior

Student: For community college, is it necessary to file a FAFSA?

Jonathan Hughes: All right, so this is a great question [00:01:00] and it’s one that we hear a lot, given that there’s been a really big recent change to how community college works in Massachusetts.

But before we actually dive in on that, on the off chance that you don’t know what the FAFSA is. It stands for the free application for Federal Student Aid, and basically it’s the financial aid form that families use to get aid from the federal government, from the state governments and from the colleges themselves.

In most cases, that is most colleges based, their financial aid offer on just the information that’s listed on the FAFSA. So it’s a really big deal. And yes, to go to community college or to get aid to go to community college, you do need to file it. But I want to break down the question a little bit more.

So the why makes sense. So first off, historically speaking, before any of this stuff, community colleges are designed to be affordable. So filing for aid gives you the [00:02:00] opportunity to lower the cost even more. So if you qualify for something like a grant, it could bring the price down even further from what it already is, sometimes practically to zero or to zero.

Now I think the student asked this question because there’s something folks call free community college, and that’s the big change that I was talking about a minute ago. As of 2024, Massachusetts residents can attend a Massachusetts community college for free through a program called Mass Educate. So I think that when people hear free community college.

That they assume that it works like a free public K through 12 education where you just enroll and then you’re good to go. You can show up and go to class, but that’s not exactly how it works. So let me explain first, while most people, including myself, call it free community college, it’s technically tuition and fee free community college.

There still may be other costs like [00:03:00] transportation, living expenses, books, and other everyday costs that are not. Bill directly from the college, so they don’t show up on a bill, but they are things that you will have to pay throughout the year. Second, the coverage for your tuition doesn’t kick in until after your financial aid is applied.

That’s why the FAFSA is so important. So any federal. Pell Grants that you might be eligible for, or state aid, like the mass grant, all of that is applied to your tuition first. Then if there’s still a balance left over, the Mass Educate program covers that, and it’s worth noting here that this does not count federal student loans as aid.

That means you won’t be expected to borrow anything before the remaining tuition is covered. Oh, and one more benefit to the Mass Educate program is this, you may even qualify for six to $1,200 to help. Pay for your textbooks too. It is a really great change to community college that I love talking about and another great change.

The FAFSA is [00:04:00] really easy now It takes on average less than 30 minutes. That’s it. So just a quarter of an hour can get you access to free community college and that can open the door not only to an associate degree, but also may grant access to a four year college degree through the mass transfer program.

So if you want to learn more about that program, check out episode number 10 of the Mifa Podcast that we’ll link to in the show notes. Now, I’ll be back with another one of these questions shortly if you want to hear it, follow the show wherever you’re hearing or seeing this now. And as always, thanks to Shaun Connolly, our producer, Lauren Danz, Lisa Rooney, Christina Davidson, AJ Yee, and Meredith Clement for posting.

My name is Jonathan Hughes, and this has been the MEFA Podcast.