Jonathan Hughes: [00:00:00] Okay.

Okay. Oh, I should also say, and I’ll introduce myself. My name is Jonathan Hughes. I’m the Associate Director of college planning at MEFA, and I’m joined today by my colleague Sean Marcey, who is, uh, kind of our resident in-house FAFSA expert. He’s on our college relations team. So I can’t think of anybody better to be here with me answering questions as we go.

So if you have questions, um, type them in through the q and a and he will answer them. Uh, and if there are any that would benefit from, you know, everybody hearing it, he’ll probably just break in and ask me a question and ask to address it. So, um, we are going to spend the next hour or so talking about financial aid.

Before we do that, I just wanted to let you know that you can connect with MEFA. Through this QR code here, it will take you to the page for our email [00:01:00] signups and you see a, a copy of one of those emails right there. We are going to be alerting you to upcoming webinars that we’re holding, give you financial aid tips, let you know of important deadlines that are coming up, let you know of some scholarship opportunities that you can apply for, uh, and much more.

So everything that we’re going to be offering you through these emails is going to be tailored to you and to, based on the age of your student or student. So it will have information that will be relevant to you, uh, at that time. And we’ll send you one or two emails a week. You’re not gonna get spammed with emails from MEFA.

Um, but if you want to do that, uh, and if you want to sign up for our curriculum. Scan the QR code and it will take you to that page. You can also connect with us on social media, and here’s all our social media information on Facebook. Um, Instagram X, LinkedIn, our YouTube channel where we post all our video content, uh, like this.

Presentation here tonight and our podcast. So, um, and I’ll, I’ll throw [00:02:00] a special plugin for the podcast ’cause that’s my, I host the podcast. So, um, but those are all the different ways that you can connect with MVA on social media and hope that you do that. Uh, I mentioned earlier the q and a function, so this is just a, a brief description of how you can participate in this webinar.

If you do have questions, use the q and a function and not the chat. The chat is disabled. Sean, as I mentioned, will be answering questions through the q and a and I do hope that you have, if you do have questions that you do submit them through the q and a, either questions of something I’ve said or something that you hope that I’m going to address or, or that we haven’t addressed that you came in with.

Um. We’ll be able to answer those questions and if we are not the right people to answer those questions, we can, um, work to get you an answer after the, the presentation is over. So we’ll be taking questions throughout. This is a lot of information, though. We have an hour to do it, so I want to get through, uh, as quickly as possible.

Uh, but I will be hanging out afterwards if you do have any questions that you don’t want, you know, sort of, that you want to [00:03:00] address with me, uh, later on. So. I wanna tell you a little bit about MEFA. MEFA is the Massachusetts Educational Financing Authority. We’re a state authority created by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts back in 1982.

And we have a public service mission to help families to plan, save, and pay for college, uh, and career readiness. And we do that in a number of ways. Um, we were created to offer a loan, which is something that we still do, a fixed interest rate loan since 1982. As the cost of college has continued to rise, just offering that loan is nice, but it wasn’t, you know, everything that we could do to meet that mission.

So we added two savings programs, the U Fund 5 29 Plan, and the U Plan prepaid tuition program. So that takes care of how we help families to pay for college through our loans, how to save for college through those programs, and then to plan for college. We do a lot of free guidance and free outreach, kinda like we’re doing tonight.

But, um, one thing that I wanna make sure that you leave with is that if you have any questions at [00:04:00] all from now to. The time your child goes to college or graduates from college, that you think of MEFA as what we are, which is a free resource for you to use. So any questions, please call us, email us. You can set up a one-on-one appointment.

Um, all of that guidance is free. So, um, please do that. You will have questions and we are here to answer them. So for tonight, what we’ll talk about are the types and sources of financial aid. So when we are talking about financial aid, what is it that we’re talking about? How you go about applying for that financial aid.

So what is the application process like? What are the applications? Uh, and then how do you fill out those forms? Once those forms are filed? How are financial aid decisions made? So if college is looking at those forms and the data that that comes with them, the governments as well, how do they determine how much financial aid you’re eligible to receive and how much that you’ll get once you do have a.

Fi, uh, financial aid offer from a college and a balance due. [00:05:00] What are some of the options that you can, uh, utilize to pay for college? And, you know, I’ve been working for MEFA for a long time, and I always say that the most common question that I receive is, how do people do this, right? When I get calls from parents all the time.

So how do, how do people pay for college? Uh, so we’ll talk about how they do, and then finally, what you can do now to prepare. So. Let’s get going. Types and sources of financial aid. Well, what is financial aid? Very simply put, it is money to help students pay for college. And, and that sounds simple enough, but there comes in three main varieties.

The first being grants and scholarships. That’s gift aid, right? So that is the best kind of financial aid that there is because it doesn’t have to be repaid, it’s just taken off the bill. So hopefully, if any of you have financial aid offers, um, you know, you have grants and scholarships there. When you do get them, you’ll see, uh, a good mix of grants and scholarships or one of the other.

So gift aid, that’s the best that there is. Um, the second type is federal work study. This is money set aside for a student to be able to [00:06:00] earn by working a job on campus. And so, um, you know, you might see a federal work study offer with, um, 1000, 2000, maybe $3,000 to it. Um, if this, if you see that, that is the amount that the student can earn.

Throughout the year in a work study job. And so the way that that works is the student would have to go out, find the work, study job on campus, uh, get the job, work the hours and get paid, and they get paid just like any other job in a paycheck. Um, so if they don’t do those things, you know, if you have a federal work study offer in your, in your offer and, um.

And you want that, you have to make sure that you reach out to the financial aid office, find out, you know, how you can find one of those jobs. Some colleges might send a listing of all the work study jobs to their work study students. Some might not do that. Uh, because if you don’t work the hours, if you don’t find a job and earn that money, you just don’t get it.

[00:07:00] It’s kinda left on the table. So that’s important to know. The other important thing to know is that if you don’t see federal work study on your offer, it doesn’t mean that you can’t get a job on campus. ’cause there are still jobs available a lot of times on campus that you can get that aren’t work necessarily work study jobs.

So, uh, that is work study. And finally the last type of financial aid that there is is federal student loans. And so people are confused of why student loans are considered financial aid when you have to pay them back often with interest. And certainly, I don’t mean that any type of loan that you might get to pay for college is financial aid.

This is only this one program, which is financial aid, and that is the Federal Direct Student Loan Program. And the reason that that is considered financial aid is because there are benefits associated with that loan that are just not there with other types of loans. And we’ll talk about that in just a minute.

Um, and why that is so, but those are the three main types of financial aid that’s granted. Scholarships, the best kind that [00:08:00] there is. Gift aid doesn’t have to be repaid. The second is federal work study money to earn by working a job on campus. And then the third is federal student loans. So I mentioned that we were gonna talk about those things in a minute, and here they are.

Um, you know, a lot of people think that because we talk about student loans and we talk, you hear news stories about student loans. You know, students graduating with all this money in student loans and like a hundred thousand dollars or whatever it might be. You’ve seen those articles. Well, people think that because of those things, the students can borrow whatever amount of money they need to pay for college as long as they promise to pay it back on their own.

But that’s not typically the case. Most, uh, educational loans students can’t borrow on their own because they need to be credit approved. They, they’re based on a credit approval, and most students can’t do that, uh, can’t meet those credit requirements without a co-applicant. So the first reason why these loans are considered financial aid is because the student is the sole borrower on these [00:09:00] loans.

There’s no credit check, check to be approved. The student essentially has to file their fafsa, which we’ll talk about in detail in a few minutes. Um, and essentially by filing their fafsa, they’re, they’re, they’re essentially, um, gonna be granted, they’re gonna be approved for these loans. So, um, you see on the right here, this is the loan limit.

Per year. So freshman students can borrow $5,500 through the Federal Direct Student loan program. Sophomore year goes up to 6,500. Junior year. 7,500 in senior year stays at 7,500. So that is the limit that, again, students can borrow in their own name through the Federal Direct Student Loan Program. And that is part of the financial aid offer.

So, um, you know, there are loan limits associated with that, although we are careful to say that since these loans are financial aid, if you are going to be borrowing anything at all, we recommend that you start by taking these loans first before looking at other types of [00:10:00] loans. Um, it comes in subsidized and unsubsidized variety.

So, um, what this means is that, you know, when you’re a student and you have these federal direct student loans, let’s say if you’re in college, you. Taking classes enrolled, you’re not expected to be making payments on these loans. These loans are said to be in deferment. So, uh, on a subsidized loan, there is no interest that’s being added to the amount that you borrowed.

So the government is essentially paying the interest while you are in school, which is a big benefit of these programs. So you don’t really see that with other types of loans. Um, so you might qualify for a subsidy on these loans depending on your financial need. Um, but a portion of them will always be unsubsidized, meaning there is interest accruing on that amount that you borrowed while the student is in college.

So, um, but the fact that there’s a subsidy at all is another benefit, uh, with these loans that, again, is just not typically present in other types of loans. [00:11:00] It’s a fixed interest rate loan. It’s, uh, for this current year, it’s at 6.39% for next year. Those rates will be set, uh, in the summer. So we don’t know what those are yet, but right now they’re at 6.39%.

That means if you have a loan, it’s always gonna stay at that 6.39%. Now, next year, if you need a, if that’s your freshman year, and you know that’s, that’s the rate that you got it at, that freshman year loan will always be at 6.39% next year, sophomore, maybe a different rate. And that rate will always stay at its fixed rate as well.

So if you take a look at these loan limits here, and you total these up, if the student borrows everything that they’re eligible to borrow for each year, for the four years, they will leave college with about $27,000 of debt in their own name. So, uh, repayment begins six months after the student graduates or leaves the program and to repay these loans.

The standard repayment term is 10 years. [00:12:00] So you start six months after you graduate or leave. And the standard repayment term is 10 years. They have 10 years to repay that back at $27,000 or so at around these interest rates of 6.39%. Um, to pay those off in 10 years would be about a $300 a month monthly payment.

The. So if that is manageable for you, then great. If you would like it to be lower, there are options that you can get on to lower that monthly payment, which is another benefit of this program. So you can tie the, the repayment to, uh, a percentage of your discretionary income every month. You could stretch the repayment out from 10 years to 20 or 25 years or so, um, and, and make that payment.

Again, based on a percentage of your, uh, monthly in discretionary income, which, uh, again, is a, is a benefit that most other loans do not offer. There are also, uh, deferment options and forbearance options if you’re having a difficulty repaying for certain circumstances. Um, if you go to [00:13:00] graduate school and you wanna put these loans back into deferment, you can do that as well.

And there are forgiveness opportunities as well. So, public service loan forgiveness is an option. Teacher loan forgiveness, certain forgiveness programs that are offered through the federal government that again, you just don’t see with other types of loans. So, um, this is again, why we, why these loans are considered financial aid when others are not, and why we recommend that you exhaust these loans before moving on to other types of loans.

Now, uh, the sources of financial aid, where it comes from. I’ve talked a lot already about the federal government. So, uh, examples of federal student aid include things like grants, like the Pell Grant. It’s a program you may have heard of work studies, a federal program as, as the government gives colleges work study money and they allocate it among their students.

Uh, these federal student loans that I just got finished speaking about, and there are tax incentives to pay tuition as well. So you tax credits that you can claim by paying tuition. The website for all of the federal [00:14:00] student loan program student aid programs is student aid.gov. So the state that you live in.

Also for us it’s Massachusetts, of course, uh, gives out financial aid. So examples of. Financial aid from the state of Massachusetts include grants like the, the mass grant scholarships, like the Copak scholarship, tuition waivers, like the John and Abigail Adams tuition waiver, and the, um, website for the, the agency that does that is called osfa, the Office of Student Financial Assistance, and that’s their website there.

And you qualify for federal and state aid by filing your fafsa. And we’re gonna talk about that. As I said in a few minutes, uh, a lot of financial aid actually comes from the college and university, so, uh, a lot of in the grants and scholarship. And so a lot of the gift aid comes from, um, colleges and universities.

Some colleges also give out their own loans and have their own loan programs. And then of course there are, um. Outside scholarships that you can apply for, right? So, uh, if you think about scholarships, think about them in a two track [00:15:00] way. So one track being, uh, local scholarships. So scholarships from local organizations or local businesses.

We generally recommend that the student talk to their high school counselor for the most up-to-date information on what local scholarships are available for them to apply to. And local scholarships are great because they have, you know, typically a smaller applicant pool than, than Nat National Scholarships.

And so for national scholarships from organizations like, you know, uh, corporations or, or, um, you know, larger sort of national organizations, you can do a scholarship search. Um, and you can go to a search engine, set up a profile, and have, based on your profile, have these scholarship opportunities filtered to you that you can apply for.

Never pay to have a scholarship search done. So there are plenty of free, reputable scholarship, um, search engines that, that we recommend. So a couple listed here, MEFA pathway.org, that’s our college and career [00:16:00] portal. fastweb.com is one, it’s not listed here, but bold.org is another. So, um. A lot of free, reputable scholarship searches are done that way.

And just to give you an idea, because I know it’s sort of understood that colleges or can be very expensive, what isn’t as understood, it’s just the sheer amount of financial aid dollars that are granted every year. So if you see down there, the bottom $205 billion is the total amount of aid undergraduate students received in the most recent year that we have data for.

So that’s a lot of money. Right. And that’s generally kind of where, where things are. So, um, there is a lot of aid that is available and it is granted every year and most families will be eligible for some level of financial aid. So that’s, that’s good news. And what we’re gonna be talking about is, is how you go ahead and get that.

So financial aid can be granted in one of two ways. The first way that we’ll talk about is merit-based aid. [00:17:00] Merit-based aid is awarded in recognition of student achievement. So if you think about, uh, that, think about scholarships. So academic scholarships, athletic scholarships, artistic scholarships.

Granted not on the family’s finances, but on student achievement, right? And so the thing to understand about merit-based aid, or the first thing anyway is that, um, a lot of it comes from the colleges and universities and colleges and universities will have really different practices and capabilities on how they award merit aid.

That is, some colleges give out a lot of merit scholarships and some don’t. Some don’t give out any, it really depends. It varies from college to college. So that is a question that you can ask colleges, you know, do they offer merit-based aid? And what merit-based aid do they offer? So, uh, you’re, the other thing to understand is that.

You file financial aid forms every year you will get a financial aid offer that pertains to the year that you’re filing for. So, uh, you have to, you, your, your offer [00:18:00] could change from year to year. Uh, so if you see a, a merit scholarship now, it probably won’t change too much from year to year, but, um, if you see a merit scholarship on your award, you can ask the college, is this renewable from year to year?

If it is renewable, what does the student need to do in order to maintain the, the eligibility for that? Like, do they need to meet a certain GPA? Uh, are there any other requirements that the student needs to meet in order to qualify to renew that scholarship? I will say just anecdotally, that, um, as I mentioned, unless family finances really change from year to year, your financial aid offer should be about the same from year to year.

Uh, the, the few times, the very few times that I have talked to a family that they have received substantially less aid. From one year to the next, it’s because the student hasn’t qualified to renew their scholarship. So you just don’t want that to happen. So make sure the student knows what they need to [00:19:00] do and, and that they do it.

Uh, to, to qualify. Uh, one final point about this is that we’re gonna be talking about financial aid applications and, you know, sort of the general finance, financial aid applications that the student or families need to file. Um, and typically that’s what you need to do to be qualified to, well, to be eligible for merit scholarships, but merit scholarships may also have their own specific applications.

So one of the main themes of this presentation that we’re gonna be talking about is make sure you know what forms. Uh, the colleges that you’re applying to are looking for. So, um, and make sure that you don’t miss any deadlines when you’re applying. So check what financial aid forms that the stu that the college requires.

And then also are there any specific merit scholarship applications that you need to file for that college that’s merit-based aid. So scholarships, essentially, most financial aid though, is not merit-based aid. It’s awarded based on need. [00:20:00] So, and that is determined by the standardized formula on the financial aid forms that you’re going to be filing.

Right? So they’ll determine your family’s financial need by those forms. Um, so yes, most financial aid is need-based. Examples of need-based aid include things like grants, so that’s sort of the need-based version of scholarships, uh, loans. So, you know, you’re, you’re. Eligibility for a subsidy on those federal loans are gonna be determined based on financial need and work study as well.

So, uh, even though most financial aid is need-based, the student has to be making satisfactory academic progress. In order to continue to qualify for need-based financial aid, the college has to certify that the student is making progress through their degree and thus, you know, maintaining their eligibility to receive need-based financial aid.

Okay. [00:21:00] How we doing, Sean? Good.

Shawn Morrissey: We’re good, Jonathan.

Jonathan Hughes: Okay, good. Thanks. Just stopping at the, at the, uh, the break here. Okay. So that’s what financial aid, that’s where it comes from. Um, now we’re gonna be talking about the application process. So how do you go about getting financial aid, um, sort of awkward time in the year to be talking about this, but generally speaking.

The timeline is this. So, uh, just wanna give you a, a, a sort of high level view of when you should be filing for financial aid, uh, and app and admissions as well. So, uh, as I mentioned before, one of the main themes of this talk here is to check di deadlines on required applications at each college’s website.

So that’s really, really important. Make sure you know at every college that your student wants to apply to, um, what financial aid forms do they need and when do they need it. So every college that you’re applying to, if you want financial aid, they’re going to get a fafsa, which is free application for federal Student aid.

You need to file that [00:22:00] in order to be eligible for federal aid, for state aid, and oftentimes for a through the college. So every college is going to get a fafsa, so make sure you go and look at what the FAFSA deadline is. You know, for, for incoming freshmen or returning students, whatever it is that the situation is for your family.

Now, in addition to that, uh, FAFSA colleges may want additional forms. So the most common of which is the CSS profile. Um, that is for, you know, we’ll we be talking about that in, in some detail. But, um, that’s typically private colleges, uh, are the ones that want the CSS profile, though not every college, uh, not every private college does.

Um, so see if they want a CSS profile, if they do. What’s that? Um, deadline deadlines are really important in this process. Um, you know, there’s a federal deadline. There are state deadlines to be eligible for federal estate aid, but the college deadline usually comes before those, and that’s the one that you really [00:23:00] wanna be concerned with because if you miss a college deadline, um, you probably won’t get financial aid from that college, and you don’t want that to happen.

So deadlines are actually really important in this process. So just make sure you know what the college wants and when they want it, and make sure you don’t miss those deadlines. You can even sort of follow up and correct things after the fact. Just make sure to file by the deadline. Um, and the deadlines typically are around the same time as the admissions deadlines are.

So every year I talk to one family who’s made the, the mistake of, uh, applying for admission, waiting to hear whether or not they’ve been admitted to school and then applying for financial aid. But, uh, if you’ve done that, you’ve probably missed the school deadline for financial aid. So you don’t wanna do that.

Your application for financial aid and for admissions should be going on at roughly the same time. Now, there’s a couple of different tracks in terms of timelines, uh, for applications, for admissions and for financial aid. So there’s regular decision. [00:24:00] Uh, typically, you know, you can start applying for colleges.

The, uh. Fall of your senior year or the fall of the year before you were, you were going to college and the financial aid applications become available October 1st. Um, and so if you’re applying regular deci decision, again, each college may be different. So make sure you know, but uh, typically you’re looking at February or March is when their, their financial aid deadlines are for regular decision.

But there’s also early action and early decision. And so these are different admissions timelines. And I’ll tell you the difference between them. Early action is simply that you’re applying early and you want to know early whether or not you’ll be admitted. And so, uh, if you have an early action deadline.

You have to apply earlier and you may have to apply for financial aid earlier as well. So could be in October or November that you need to file. Early decision is a little bit different. It’s what they call a binding [00:25:00] decision, which means that you’re applying early. You want to know early whether or not you’ve been admitted and you’re making a commitment to that college that you applied early decision to that if they do admit you, you’re committing to attend that college and they’ll ask you to sort of, you know, um, withdraw your other applications sometimes.

And so one thing you just wanna be careful that you know which one you’re applying for. So sometimes people apply early decision when they don’t necessarily wanna make that binding commitment ’cause they don’t really understand what they’re doing. So you just wanna make sure you understand and if there is a college that you want to apply to early decision, it should only be one college because that’s really only a commitment you can make to one college that you know, I’m coming to this college if you admit me.

Um. And you wanna make sure, of course, that that’s your top choice. College definitely wanna go there at the expense of being even considered for other colleges. And then also you’re committing to attend that college without seeing a final financial aid offer. So, um, again, [00:26:00] there are ways that you can kind of estimate how much financial aid you may be receiving.

Um, but you really don’t know until you get that offer. So you just wanna make sure that you are very careful when you are applying early decision that you’re confident that you can, you can make that happen. Um, as I mentioned, standard deadlines are typically in February or March, meet application deadlines, and we do offer a college application manager to stay organized.

You can click on that link there, it goes to an actual document, and we have sort of things you can print, uh, uh, a form you can print out, write on college, A, B, C, et cetera. What’s the date of admission? How are you applying, what’s their FAFSA deadline? Do they want a CSS profile? What’s their CSSS? What’s their CSS profile?

Um, just to keep yourself on track, so that’s a tool that you can use. Or, you know, there’s always somebody in the family who likes spreadsheets and likes data and stuff like that, so maybe, maybe that person can, can manage the process that way, [00:27:00] but whatever way you do it, it’s just really important that you don’t miss deadlines.

I think I’ve hit that enough. Okay. So now we get to the fafsa. Finally, the FAFSA is the free application for Federal Student aid. As I mentioned before, it is required by all colleges. So it’s the form you need to file in order to be eligible for federal student aid, for state-based student aid. And so oftentimes colleges will just base whatever need based financial aid they offer simply on the fafsa.

That’s all they’re looking for is the fafsa. So the FAFSA’s really important. It’s like the big financial aid application. And so you have to file it every year if you want financial aid for that upcoming year. Uh, it’s not a one thing for four years, it’s every year. It is available October 1st every year.

And in order to complete the fafsa, the first thing that you wanna do, uh, well go to fafsa dot uh, dot gov, select the 20 27, 20 28 FAFSA starting October 1st, 2026. So [00:28:00] that’s gonna be this upcoming year. Um, so if you’re attending, uh, if you’re starting your senior year. In September, that’s the year that, that’s the date, October 1st, 2026, that you can start to file your fafsa.

So it’s highly recommended since students need to file a fafsa, and oftentimes parents need to have their information included on the FAFSA as well. Um, for the, the flow of the fafsa, it’s recommended that the student starts the fafsa. So the student would be the one to start it, and then they would fill out their section of the fafsa.

Once they’re finished with it, they would invite the parents to contribute or whoever’s going to be contributing to the fafsa. So, um, and then they would get the, the link to continue and to add their information into the fafsa, and then the last person to contribute. Signs and, and, and submits the fafsa and it, it goes off.

Um, it doesn’t have to be done all in one [00:29:00] sitting, but once a FAFSA has started, you have 45 days to complete it. After 45 days, it’s deleted. You can start again. Um, but that’s how long you have to take once you start it to, to finish it as 45 days. So we have an understanding of the FAFSA webinar. You can scan that right there and, and get to that.

Um, the first step to doing this is to get your F-S-A-I-D. The F-S-A-I-D is a username and password that each contributor needs on the fafsa. So students definitely need an F-S-A-I-D. It’s going to be based on their sort of information and it is going to follow them every year. So their F-S-A-I-D that they create will be the same one that they use.

Every year they’re filing a fafsa. And actually when they graduate, if they’re looking up their federal student loans, they, they access those with their federal, with their FSA ID as well. So to set up your FSA id, you go to student aid.gov. You click on create an account, it should take you about five minutes [00:30:00] to do this.

Again, you set up a username and password, put in information, um, you have to have an email address. That’s the piece of information that you absolutely need. Um, but as I said before, every contributor needs an F-S-A-I-D if they’re going to file a FAFSA online. So the student needs one, every parent listed on the fafsa.

So this is the first kind of, um, tricky thing in this process is to determine which parents need to file a fafsa, um, and which, how many parents need an F-S-A-I-D that is, so if it’s the case where. Two parents are filing the fafsa, but they’re married and they file their taxes jointly. Then there only needs to be one F-S-A-I-D.

So the, so one parent needs an F-S-A-I-D, that’s it. So there’s one for the student and one for the parent. If it’s a situation where the parents filed, uh, separately, uh, or, um, didn’t file at all, then each [00:31:00] parent needs an FSA id. So in that case, there’s three FSA IDs, one for the student and one for each parent.

Um, and then if the student is married, then the student’s spouse also needs to file if they filed taxes separately or didn’t file. So, um. You know, if the parents do not have a social security number, it used to be that they needed a social security number to get an F-S-A-I-D, they don’t anymore. So you can have an F-S-A-I-D without a social security number.

Um, they’ll just have to answer knowledge based questions pulled from their credit history. Um, but having that F-S-A-I-D means that you can actually file a FAFSA online, which is the, um, much preferred way to do it. So that’s the first thing that needs to happen is student needs an F-S-A-I-D and at least one parent typically needs an F-S-A-I-D.

And again, this is gonna be, or so every year have it, don’t lose it. Keep track of your F-S-A-I-D and it’s a username and password, so. That’s what you [00:32:00] need to start it. What actually goes on the fafsa? So general information for the student, like, uh, name, social security number, date of birth address, et cetera.

The students, uh, and, and for the parents as well, they need to put that the student citizenship status is important. So because if you’re going to receive aid from the federal government, uh, or oftentimes from the state government, uh, you need to be a US citizen or eligible non-citizen to receive.

Federal financial aid. And so eligible non-citizen, uh, is a sort of narrow ca category. Um, so parents don’t necessarily need to be US citizens, but students in order to receive, uh, federal aid need to be. Uh, and now if there, if students are not citizens, um, if they’re immigrants or perhaps even undocumented students, um, it kind of depends from state to state what, uh, aid is.

Open to them. Uh, in Massachusetts, uh, student, [00:33:00] undocumented students and immigrant students may be eligible for Massachusetts in state tuition and state aid by filing a form called the mafa. Um, and so under certain circumstances can be eligible for state aid that way, but that needs to go on the fafsa.

So citizenship status is important. What also needs to go on the FAFSA is are the colleges that the student is applying to, and there’s space for 20 colleges to be listed on the fafsa. So, uh, I don’t think I’ve run into a, a student who’s applying to more than 20 colleges yet. Um, but it used to be that there were 10 and we also had some people maybe applying to 12 or so.

But so they, they, they increased it to 20. So each college that you’re going to or going to be applying to gets a fafsa. Um. Which parents need to add their information to the fafsa. So all married parents, including same sex parents, they list their income and assets on the fafsa. All parents who live together, whether they’re married or not, could be a [00:34:00] situation where, you know, everyone in the family is not in the household, has always been a family there.

It’s just that parents never got married. If that’s the case again, both parents put their information on the fafsa. Uh, really common question. In the cases of divorced or separated parents, what happens? So in that case, the FAFSA is looking for the parent who provided more financial support to the student in the last 12 months.

They are the parent who lists their income and their assets on the fafsa. And if they have remarried, uh, then their current spouse, their income and asset information also goes on the FAFSA ’cause they’re looking at household income now. This can be a tricky thing. We always get questions about people who say, well, how do I know who provided more, uh, financial support for the student in the past 12 months?

It can be tricky to tell, especially in a lot of divorced or separated cases. People try to keep things as equal as possible. This is something that, um, they really want families and students to figure out [00:35:00] on their own. So, um, the, the, the guidance that we received is that it could be something as small and frankly as arbitrary as I paid for this extra cup of coffee last year.

So then I am the person who provided more than, uh, half of the students financial of support for the last 12 months. Um, it, they really want you to, to figure that out. If you can’t figure it out, then the guidance is that, uh, you’re supposed to use the parent with greater income and assets. So, uh, you know, it, it, it’s worth it to figure out who that, uh, parent is.

Legal guardians are not considered parents. So if a student is in a legal guardianship, they do not list that person as a parent. And the student then files as an independent student, meaning that they are not listing parent information, they’re just listing their own information. So that’s important to note.

The FAFSA will always, uh, will also look at the [00:36:00] number of people who live in the household and the number of children in college. They’ll ask that question, and it used to be used in the calculation, but it is not anymore. So they are looking at, um, essentially the number of people in the household. They, again, they will ask about the number in college, but they won’t use that in the calculation.

Now when I keep saying information or putting your information in, what information? Well, as far as financial information is concerned, they’re going to be looking at both parent and student income for the 2025 income, for the 27 28 fafsa. So they’re looking at two years prior, um, because you’ve probably already filed your taxes for that year.

And the reason that income doesn’t really fluctuate very much from year to year. Right. So, um. That way they can sort of automatically take the taxes that you filed and import that directly in from the IRS. So you don’t have to go and chase down your taxes and, you know, go line by line and [00:37:00] kind of file your fafsa.

Actually, that’s one of the first questions on the FAFSA is your consent to, to do that. And if you want financial aid, you have to answer that. Yes, you do consent to the FAFSA to pull that information in from the IRS. So they’re gonna pull that federal tax data in from the IRS and they’re gonna look at both your taxed and untaxed income that appears on that tax return.

And they’re gonna do that both for the student and for the parent. So that’s pretty simple, uh, stuff there as far as income is concerned. They’ll also look at parent and student assets. So, um, I think it probably makes sense to talk first about what they’re not going to look at. So on the fafsa, they do not expect you to include the value of your primary home, uh, as an asset to pay for college.

They don’t expect you to list the value of your retirement as an asset to pay for college. The value of life insurance, any family farms or small businesses that you [00:38:00] may own or commercial or phishing business, uh, those things don’t show up as assets to pay for college. What they do, look at, what they will ask you to list are things like what’s in your savings and checkings account, the day you file your fafsa, any other investments that you may have.

The value of those currently, uh, businesses larger than a small family business and, and what they mean by a small family business is, um, anything. It qualifies as a small BA family business if a family owns more than half of it and that they employ fewer than 100 full-time employees. So that’s, that’s pretty big business.

If you have a business that. Employees, over a hundred people, they’re gonna ask you to list that, except for commercial fishing businesses, I don’t quite know why, but that’s, that’s why. And then if you own second property, so not the value of your home that you live in, but if you have other property, that will be listed as an asset as well.

Uh, they’ll also ask you to include any education savings accounts, like five 20 nines, um, that you own for the [00:39:00] student that you are filing for. Not any other student like siblings or anything like that if you have accounts for them. Those aren’t expected to be listed on, uh, on everyone’s fafsa, just the student that you’re applying for.

And child support received is considered an asset as well. Now, it’s important to note that debt is not reported except. As it shows up on assets. So what that means, they’re not gonna be asking you about any debt that you have or medical debt or anything like the credit card debt. They’re not asking you to list that.

The only place debt really gets assessed is if you have, uh, for example, a property and let’s say the the market value of that property is $500,000 and you owe $200,000 on it, then the value of that is $300,000. Because you’re subject, you’re subtracting the debt from the value. That’s really the only way that debt shows up.

So they’re really looking at what you have and what you make for the fafsa. So, um, you know, if there are things that are [00:40:00] not asked about on the fafsa, things may look a certain way when they’re not like that, in reality, reach out to the financial aid office. So that is the other thing. Two things I wanna leave you with.

Don’t miss deadlines. Uh, know what each college is looking for and don’t miss deadlines. The second one is reach out to the financial aid office to let them know special circumstances or if you have questions. So they’re gonna take, uh, all of that information in for the fafsa. Now, I mentioned this other application that you may need to file called the CSS profile.

Um, this is again, a, a college specific form. So some colleges want you to file this on top of the fafsa, some don’t. Um, so the best way to to know is to go to the college financial aid webpage and to see which forms they require and again, what their deadlines are. So, um, the, the CSS profile is really for colleges who give out a lot of their own money.

And they want more information than what they can get on [00:41:00] the fafsa. The FAFSA is a very simple one size fits all form. It’s designed to be easy so that you know the most amount of the, the most people can file it and can file it easily. They want people to file it. Um, the CSS profile is a little bit more exhaustive than the fafsa, so they’re gonna ask more information than the fafsa.

It doesn’t mean you’ll get less aid, but they just want more information so that the colleges who give out a lot of their own money can know best. Who’s the most, uh, in need of it? So the, the biggest difference between the FAFSA and the profile, um, right off the bat is that the profile is not a free form.

So it actually costs $25 to file the profile to the first school, and then $16 for each additional profile school. Now, there are fee waivers that are built into the application so that if your parents are making, uh, less than a hundred thousand dollars or they meet certain other criteria, they won’t be charged that fee.

And again, the, the, the application will [00:42:00] work that out as you’re doing it. That also becomes available October 1st, just like the FAFSA does. The other really big difference between the FAFSA and the profile is though they handle, uh, divorced or separated parents differently. So whereas the FAFSA just wants, uh, the.

The parent that has provided more than half of the financial assistance for the student, really, unless, you know, and if they’re married, that, uh, new spouse, the, the profile, and it depends on the college, but, but 99 times out of a hundred, the, the profile will want a non custodial parent to also file a non-custodial CSS profile.

Now, um, you know, if there’s a situation where there’s no contact or, you know, it’s a, it’s a sort of, um. Safety issue that, that you not contact that parent. There are fee wa there are waivers. Um, for non-custodial parent. There are non-custodial parent waivers that you can apply to the school for. It’s up to the school whether or not they’re grant it.

But, um, but that is a, a possibility. There are waivers [00:43:00] that you can apply for. Uh, the other thing to say too is that the, the profile will look at things that the FAFSA won’t in terms of assets, right? So they’ll ask you probably to list your, the value of your home. They’ll might ask you to list the value of your retirement accounts.

They won’t necessarily use that in the calculations, but they will ask you to, to list it. Um. So that, that’s a possibility as well. So, um, again, the most common additional financial aid application, uh, is the faf, the CSS profile, and we also offer the what’s to know about the CSS profile webinar, and that’s the QR code that you can scan to, to view that and add in addition to that as well.

There might be other financial aid applications that are college specific that you need to file. I mentioned earlier there may be merit scholarship applications that you need to file separately. Um, so just again, make sure to, to know which one, what, what forms your colleges require now after you apply.

Whether [00:44:00] it’s the fafsa, the profile, you know, the, the relevant people will get that information electronically. If the fafsa, it goes to the federal government and then to the colleges. The profile goes to the colleges. Um, the student will receive a FAFSA submission summary and FSS by email, letting them know that their, their FAFSA has been submitted and, uh, received by the colleges.

Colleges may request additional documentation. We’ll see that in just a minute. Um, but essentially, you know, the colleges look at the applications and they determine the financial aid offer. And then the financial aid offer may be sent with the admissions decision. So you get your admissions decision whether or not you’ve been admitted and your financial aid offer at the same time or maybe shortly thereafter.

Um, so I wanna talk about verification for just a minute. Uh. It’s important that after you file your financial aid forms and your admissions forms that you keep in contact. So a lot of times you have to sign up for a portal, through a portal or, you know, create an account and, and sort of, uh, monitor your, your [00:45:00] messages that way.

It’s important that you do that. You check your email, make sure, check your regular mail, however you’re communicating with the colleges. Uh, make sure that you’re still doing it even if you know that they’ve received your financial aid forms. Because sometimes colleges need things cleared up and so you might receive a verification request, meaning that, uh, a college wants you to follow up with more information.

So this could be something like a tax return transcript, it could be a worksheet that you need to file. They might have questions about asset account, um, requiring asset account statements. Uh, it could be that, um, you know, something between the FAFSA and the CSS profile looks contradictory and they need to clear it up.

It could be that, um. You were not able to use the IRS tool that pulls the, the tax returns directly into the fafsa. If you, not, every parent can do that. If you can’t do that, it’s more likely that you’ll be asked to send in a tax return, uh, transcript. [00:46:00] Um, or it could just be random. Sometimes people, the colleges just sort of randomly, uh, request items from families.

They select families for verification. So my only real piece of advice is to to, to keep on top of the communications, to keep checking your messages. Because if you are selected for verification and the college is asking you to submit something, first of all, they’ll be very, uh, uh. Sort of explicit about what it is that they need you to, to give them, and then they won’t be able to finalize their financial aid offer until that is, um, cleared up.

So I just wanna make sure that you are, are, again, paying attention to, uh, to what they’re telling you. And that kind of doves dovetails in again. So I just wanna hit this again about your financial aid office and you want, we want you to consider your financial aid office as a resource for you to use. So a lot of people sort of get a little bit nervous about the [00:47:00] financial aid office, um, and don’t really wanna reach out.

But it’s important if you have questions, if colleges need to know about changes that have occurred, if there’s a job loss after you’ve filed financial aid, if there are, um, you know, marital changes, God forbid if somebody were to, to pass away anything that is going to impact your ability to pay for college that they don’t know.

They need to know, uh, because they can make adjustments to your financial aid offer based on the information that you give them. Uh, but if they don’t know, obviously they can’t do that. Now, they might not, that’s a college decision whether or not they’ll, they’ll make adjustments, but they can, and they do do that.

Um, you know, you can also appeal your financial aid offer if you have your financial aid and, and you want to see if you can get more financial aid, you can reach back out and see if that’s something that they can do. So, uh, you can always do those things. Uh, and finally, if there is something, as I said that is not listed on the financial aid, but [00:48:00] will impact your ability, make sure that they know about those things.

So the financial aid office is a resource to help you. Okay. Now how financial aid decisions are made at this point in the process. You’ve done your financial aid forms. The colleges have their, uh, have the data from the, the FAFSA or the FAFSA and the profile, and they are determining your financial aid.

And so when we’re thinking about this, you wanna think about two numbers and keep these two numbers in mind. The first one being the cost of attendance. The cost of attendance is just what it sounds like. It’s the cost to attend a college for one year, and that that refers to both direct expenses or things that are show up on a bill like tuition and fees if you’re living on campus food and housing.

So these are things that show up on a bill. We have definite costs. We know what they, you know that it’s a definite amount. We know what they cost, but it also extends to things like books and supplies, [00:49:00] transportation to and from college, and personal expenses throughout the year, which don’t show up on a bill.

Obviously, we don’t really know what those things are gonna be. Exactly. Those are indirect expenses or non-bill expenses, but all of that taken together is the cost of attendance. Every college will have a different cost of attendance estimate on their website. You can find it, and so every college will be different and also different types of students will have different cost of attendance.

Figures within. So you can imagine if you are a, um, commuter student and you’re not living on campus, you’re gonna have a different cost of attendance than somebody who is living on campus. So these are estimates that you can find on the college websites, cost of attendance. So that’s one figure. Think about that and put that right on the left side of your, your brain here.

Now, on the right hand side is this student aid index. And the student aid index is the number that represents a family’s financial strength or their financial need. If you wanna think about it that way. That is determined by the FAFSA or the profile [00:50:00] when you’re putting in all of that information, the income, the assets, the family size, et cetera, all those things that’s going through a standardized formula.

And on the, it’s going to come out on the other end with a number that you are expected based on that information to. Pay or to absorb as a family. So, um, the, in the case of the fafsa, it’s the same federal formula. It’s used for every family. Um, for the profile. There’s an institutional formula and it’s generally the same.

You know, it’s pretty similar from college to college. It’s not, um, too different. And so. You can get an estimate of both on MEFA dot org’s, SAI calculator, it should take you about five minutes to do you put in that information, the income, the asset, the sort of family information, and it will give you your SAI or how much you’re expected to be able to pay for a year in college.

Now, it’s important to know, and this is, this is the [00:51:00] confusing thing. If this formula decides that you can afford to pay $5,000 for college, it’s natural to assume that’s what I’ll have to pay. Uh, but unfortunately that’s not necessarily what a family will pay. Um, it, it’s, it’s more of a floor than a ceiling.

So, um, but it’s important to note. So let me explain what I mean by that. The financial aid formula is this, the cost of attendance at a college minus your student aid index. So, and that’s your finance. Whatever is left. Is the amount that you’re eligible to receive financial aid for. So let me put this in here.

So let’s say, uh, a college costs $45,000, okay? And your SAI is 5,000. So you, the FAFSA calculates that based on your income and based on your assets, you can afford as a family to pay $5,000 a year. So, remember, I think $45,000 minus 5,000. That means your financial aid eligibility is [00:52:00] $40,000. Doesn’t mean you’ll get $40,000.

That’s the, that’s the rub, but you are eligible to receive it. So you have our, our, uh, brackets here that need to be filled. College cost of attendance is $45,000. How are we gonna fill it? The first thing that goes in is the family’s contribution of $5,000. Okay? We know that now we have $40,000 of financial aid eligibility.

We got $27,500 in grants and scholarships. So I’m doing pretty well there. We have our federal direct student loan amount of $5,500. Remember that is the fed, the freshman year loan limit. We have a work study of $2,000, so we’re doing pretty well, but we didn’t get all 40,000 that we were eligible for. We got 35,000.

So we have a gap of $5,000. So what the family’s actual final responsibility to pay is the SAI plus whatever aid they did not [00:53:00] receive from the college. So, uh, unfortunately it is more common to not receive everything that you’re eligible for. Um, but it does happen. Sometimes there’s, and there are even colleges that, you know, sort of make it a policy to meet your full need.

But it is more common that, that that’s not done. So what is actually the college, the family’s responsibility here is that 5,000 SAI and their 5,000 unmet need. So they’re looking at $10,000. So SAI is important because it, it sort of. Uh, sets your eligibility, but it’s not the end of the story. If you want to get an idea of what you may be responsible for at a particular college, every nonprofit college is required to have a net price calculator on their website.

And it works in a similar way as the SAI calculator should take you about five minutes to do. Uh, you put in your income, your assets, the student income, the student assets, some other pieces of information, perhaps. It depends on, on each college’s net price calculator, but it [00:54:00] should give you a sample financial aid offer from that college as well as a, a resulting balance.

So, um. Uh, some colleges, uh, really do a lot of work to make sure that the net price calculator is, uh, very attuned to their own college’s prices, pricing. And, you know, some colleges may have you list your GPA or SAT scores or what have you to, to sort of see what merit scholarship you might get. Some don’t.

They use a more bare bones sort of net price calculator, and it’s all only as good as the information that you put into it. So it’s an estimate. It’s not set in stone, but I actually think it’s a really good tool to use. Um, I, we used one for my wife when she went to school, uh, and it ended up being really close to what we ended up paying for college.

So I think they’re, they’re a good tool to use if you want, just to get some sort of ballpark estimate of what you might be looking at, at a particular college or particular types of colleges. You can go now and just do net price calculators. Um, so it, it [00:55:00] really, um, again, is a good, a good tool to get an estimate.

Now, um, a couple of things to note when you start getting your financial aid offers, uh, just because you’re eligible for the same amount, uh, at different colleges doesn’t mean you’ll necessarily get the same amount of aid at at different colleges. So your totals can vary. You see here we have all the same, uh, eligibility here of, uh, $40,000, but college A, we’ve completely met our need.

So we’re fully funded up to our, our need. We’re, we’re looking at $5,000 for our SAI college B, we’ve got $7,000 of unmet need and college C we’ve got $15,000 of unmet need. And you see where that difference is in that grants and scholarships up the top, which is often, um, you know, uh, in the college purview to, to grant.

Now also. Types of aid can vary as well. So, uh, if you look at this and you just scroll down to the bottom here, again, you’re eligible for the [00:56:00] same amount every year. I’m sorry, every at every school. Um, and if you scroll down to the total amount there, it may look like you’ve received the same amount at each college, but it isn’t the case.

If you look at the grants and scholarships at birth. Up at the top there, you got 27,500 at college, a 17,500 at college B and 7,500 at college C. So it’s quite a difference there. And you see where that difference is made up is in a parent loan on the third line there. So it’s worth it to take a look at each sort of line item and see what’s there.

Sometimes colleges list a parent loan on their financial aid offer. Some colleges do that. I would say probably most don’t, but some do. Um, and oftentimes it’s this plus loan, which is stands for parent Loan for undergraduate student, which is a federal program. And there’s nothing wrong with the plus loan necessarily, but the thing to understand is first of all, it’s not financial aid.

Uh, it doesn’t have those benefits necessarily that that federal student loan has with it. And then the other thing is you weren’t [00:57:00] granted that that’s something that you need to apply for as a parent and be credit approved for. Um. So, you know, I, I think colleges might say that this is a suggestion as to how you could fund some of the balance or, or the entire balance depending.

But just be aware that, you know, that’s what that is and it does have those limitations to it. Okay. Paying for college.

Okay, so let’s say you’re at this point where you have a financial aid offer from a college and you have a balance due of $20,000. We know that since we’re lenders, um, you know, you could borrow that $20,000 amount due from Mefa or, or another lender. Um, but it is worth it to pay what you can out. Pocket.

And I wanna illustrate that here. So once you’ve got your financial aid offer, there’s only three ways that you can pay, right? There’s past income, present income, and future income. Past income, meaning any savings. Now, if you’ve saved the entire $20,000, great, but if you haven’t, [00:58:00] that’s okay. Let’s say the parents have $4,000 saved.

And let’s say maybe the student has a thousand dollars, or maybe they’re gonna work over the summer and save a thousand dollars, that’s good. Uh, if you can pay $5,000 against that balance, then that brings you down to 15,000. And now even still, you can use your present income, right? Or your current wages, whatever you have earned from your salary, uh, that you can use to pay for college.

So even if you can’t pay the entire $15,000 remaining balance, it is worth it to pay what you can. Once again, most colleges, and a lot of people don’t know this, but most colleges use a third party, uh, company to offer a. Monthly payment plan, a two, uh, interest free monthly payment plan. And the way those work is, you sign up, uh, and you for a small fee, can sign up for this program and you determine your amount that you can pay every month.

And this example, let’s say it’s $500 over 10 months. So, [00:59:00] uh, if you can pay that out of pocket, great. That’s $5,000 over 10 months, that’s $5,000 right off the top of tuition. $5,000 you’re not borrowing and not paying interest on because what’s left after financial aid, past income and present income is future income or loans.

Now remember, the student has their own loans already that are part of the financial aid, uh, offer or package already. So, uh, they are not gonna be able to borrow most likely on their own without a co-applicant to, to cover the balance. And so, most. As I said, students can’t do that. And so they need a co-applicant.

Most often, that’s a parent, although it doesn’t always have to be. And so, uh, as I’ve said many times, uh, I’ve taken a lot of calls at me from parents who say, I know I’m a co-applicant on the loan, but it’s not really my loan. It’s really the student’s loan. If you’re a co-applicant on the loan, you’re equally responsible to repay with the student.

And so, uh, that amount that you’re [01:00:00] borrowing and that monthly payment is going to be important not just to the student, but to you as well. So, uh, back of the envelope math, if you’re borrowing $20,000, that’s a $200 a month monthly payment, roughly. Okay, maybe that’s not so bad. Maybe you can handle that.

But remember, this is one year and there are four years, right? So that times four is $800, $800 versus $400 is a big difference. Um, so just remember that. And that sort of leads us into family conversations that we should have regarding affordability. So you wanna assess each school’s net price after financial aid.

What is the resulting balance? Who is going to pay for this? Um, you know, if there’s a situation where all parties are borrowing loans together, who’s going to be responsible for that repayment? It’s an important, sometimes a difficult conversation, but really important to have. Um, how many children will you be sending to college as a parent?

Uh, that’s [01:01:00] something that you need to weigh. Make sure you think about this as a four year. Proposition if it is four years, right? If you’re sending a child to a four year college, don’t think it’s just about the year in front of you, but consider the entire education. Would it make sense to send a student, uh, for the student to go to community college cost-wise?

Almost certainly it would. Um, one thing that you really want to keep in mind, especially when it comes to borrowing, is that this year there are new rules regarding plus loans. And I mentioned plus loans a lot already because they’re pretty common loans to get through the federal government. Um, for the first time, uh, at, at least in a long time, that there are caps to how much you can borrow through the federal program.

You can borrow $20,000 per year for undergraduate student if you are a new borrower as of July 1st, 2026. So that’s, you know, starting next year. But the thing to keep in mind there is. Lifetime, you can [01:02:00] borrow only $65,000 for that undergraduate student. So if you’re doing the math there, that doesn’t make four years if you’re borrowing $20,000 per year.

Um, so that means if you are borrowing over $65,000, if you’re, if you do that calculation, you’re gonna be borrowing over 65,000 for four years. Uh, you want to think about, um, whether or not plus loan is gonna, is the best choice for you. So that’s something that is really important to consider. Now wanted to talk briefly about some of the really good news when it comes to Massachusetts State Financial Aid.

There’s a number of programs that are really exciting and, and make college really affordable in Massachusetts. So the first one is Mass Educate, which is free community college. And this is, you know, a reason why it almost always makes sense to consider community college. They’re, uh, making, uh, community college tuition and fee free for most students.

And a potential book stipend as well. Mass Reconnect. If you were a student who went to [01:03:00] college and, and you know, or. Hasn’t gone to college, you’re over 25. You can enroll in free community college that way. There are also expansions of state financial aid programs, so mass grant plus MA and mass grant plus extension, free or reduced tuition and fees for low and middle income students and.

And a potential book allowance as well, like, um, at four year public colleges and universities as well as community colleges. Uh, we mentioned before the programs for undocumented and immigrant students in Massachusetts. Uh, if they can submit the mafa and there are certain requirements they need to meet, uh, to be eligible for those programs.

Mass transfer is a program that has been around for a long time, but we’d like to talk about it at every chance that we can. That is a, a program that you can start at a two year public community college and you can use your free community college in that program as well. And then once you earn your associate degree at that college, you can transfer all those credits into a four year public college or university in Massachusetts [01:04:00] and then only have two years to graduate.

Essentially getting your four year degree at a two year, um, for two year costs in that case. And this is a, a tiered program, so there are different tiers to it. So you can get, uh, you know. Other benefits, like guaranteed admission, a tuition freeze as you’re moving through your college course. Even a tuition rebate if you maintain a 3.0 GPA through the Commonwealth Commitment Program, uh, and get rebated 15% of your tuition as you’re going through.

So it’s a great program. You should, uh, take a look at the mass transfer that’s on the DOE site and also tuition break. And that’s a regional program, not necessarily a state program, but it’s through New England. It’s through the New England Board of Higher Education. And essentially, it, it works it this way.

Let’s say you want to attend a public college or university in Massachusetts, um, to keep your costs low, but you want to study a major that they don’t offer in a public college or university in Massachusetts, but let’s say they do offer it in another New England State [01:05:00] College, like University of Vermont or University of New Hampshire or Maine.

You could go to one of those colleges, study your intended major at a greatly reduced cost through the tuition break program. So that’s a great program too. Alright, finishing up with what you can do now, um, just stay on track. You can sign up for me for emails if you’re a junior right now, um, spring and summer through your junior year.

You can research colleges. Now’s the chance where you now is the time that you wanna start talking to your, uh, teachers about letters of recommendation, just starting the college search, taking your SATs and a SAT acts, et cetera. Uh, you may wanna start researching and writing your college essay as well.

Uh, again, I would recommend that you sign up through mefa.org for emails. We’ll keep you sort of updated as to what you should be thinking about, um, as you go through this process. So you can scan these QR codes and register for some other MEFA webinars that we offer. Reference our timeline for college [01:06:00] admissions and financial aid, and of course sign up for emails.

If you are planning on filing a FAFSA soon, you can get your F-S-A-I-D, um, for students and parents. Always, as I mentioned, I think for the 100th time now, research deadlines and a required applications. And if you have any questions, now’s the time. There’s a lot of talking. So, um, do we have anything, Sean,

Shawn Morrissey: question just came in. If you have, um, an education plan, is it considered a parent or student asset?

Jonathan Hughes: Well, that depends on the type of, uh, uh, plan it is if you’re, and who is listed as the owner of that account? So if the parent is listed as an owner, it’s the, if the parent’s asset, um, if the only programs that would be listed as a student asset are things like UGMA and UPER accounts, so uniform gift to minor uniform, trust to minor, and those would be listed as student accounts, I should say that, um, [01:07:00] parent, parent owned accounts are actually assessed.

More generously than student, uh, owned accounts. So they’ll take anywhere from three to 5.6% of the total in that account as to what you could pay for college. Whereas a student account will take about 20% of that value and that will go against your cost. So, um, but yeah, it depends on who owns it and what type of account it is.

Most often it’s gonna be a parent asset.

Anything else?

Shawn Morrissey: Um, just a question that says, are the student is currently a high school sophomore, what timeline should they be thinking about for taking ps, SATs and SATs?

Jonathan Hughes: Yeah, so PS SATs I think typically are, are, so, begin sophomore year, uh, and then SATs are gonna be the junior year. Uh, you can take SATs.

Multiple times. [01:08:00] And, um, it, it’s typically seen as a good idea to do that because if you studies have shown that the, the more you take SATs up to a certain point, you know, if you’re studying and you’re re and you’re sort of in between tests, um, your score is likely to improve. I think it’s up to the third time, right?

Like they looked at that and they said, yep, the people tend to do better the second time than the first time and tend to do better the third time they take it than the second time. But then it doesn’t continue after that point. But also, you know, how many times are you gonna take the SAT? But, but that’s what I’d say.

Shawn Morrissey: Okay. There are no other open questions, Jonathan. I think we’re good.

Jonathan Hughes: Okay. Well thank you so much Sean. Thank you everybody for, uh, bearing with me. I can never seem to do this in the, uh, in the hour, but, um, hopefully I’ll get there one day, but thank you.

Thanks everyone.