Please note that this transcript was auto-generated. We apologize for any minor errors in spelling or grammar.

[00:00:00] Hello everyone. My name is Julie Shields and I’m the senior director of college planning education and Training at MEFA. And today we’re gonna talk about financial aid.

Before we start, I want to let you know all the ways you can stay connected with MEFA. So the QR code you see on your screen is a great way for you to get connected to MI a’s email curriculum. We will send you two emails a month targeted directly to the age and stage of your student, and you’ll see all kinds of.

Good guidance about upcoming webinars, financial aid tips, important deadlines, scholarship lists, key articles, and much more. And there’s an example of that over to the right. So I would highly encourage you to use the QR code, or you can always [00:01:00] sign up for me. A emails right on the front page of our website, uh, MEFA.org if you scroll down.

And here are other ways you can stay connected, uh, depending on what, what you like, how you like to receive your information. Um, MEFA is on all of these social, all of the social media, and you can see all of the, um, all of the, the ways to connect Here. I’ll mention, for example, uh, MEFA puts a lot of scholarship information out on Instagram.

So when we hear of scholarships, um, they’re posted there and we have a wonderful podcast, a YouTube channel with videos and, uh, recorded webinars. And we’re also on LinkedIn and Facebook and x.

So let me tell you a little bit about MEFA. Uh, MEFA has been around since 1982 and we were created to help [00:02:00] families in Massachusetts plan, save, and pay for college. And we’re doing the same thing today. Uh, MEFA has a, uh, a low cost loan program for families who need that type of financing when paying for college.

MEFA also has the states. Savings plans. The U Fund 5 29 plan and Fidelity Investments is our program manager. We have the U plan prepaid tuition program, and we also have the attainable plan that is an able program, uh, for disabilities to save, uh, with tax benefits and, um, allows them to save and not, uh, uh, change their.

Public benefits such as Social Security and Medicaid. So the topic we’re gonna discuss today, again, is financial aid. I’m going to start by talking about the types and sources [00:03:00] about the application process for financial aid, and then get into how colleges make decisions about financial aid. We’ll end with paying for college and some steps you can take, you know, whatever stage you’re at.

So the types and sources of financial aid, what is financial aid? So, in my mind, the definition of financial aid is any money that is going to help your student pay for college and financial aid is usually characterized into three types. The first is grants and scholarships, and that is really the best type of financial aid.

That is money that is awarded to your student. Does not need to be repaid. Uh, sometimes grants and scholarships have specific definitions, but actually they’re pretty interchangeable. And, uh, grants and scholarships are, are, are both great types of aid, but then there are two others. Uh, there’s federal work study and that is a [00:04:00] program where a college awards your student.

A work study allotment and that allows your student to work on campus, sometimes off campus as well, but mostly on campus when they’re attending college and work. A number of hours weekly, say 10 hours weekly, and then receive a paycheck. And that’s usually used to pay for sort of personal and miscellaneous expenses.

Maybe that means shampoo, that means bus fare, that means, um, late night pizza, those kinds of things. So, um, that is another type of financial aid that helps students with those college expenses. Just maybe not the build expenses. Then a third is federal student loans. And while you may not think that loans is really financial aid, um, I’ll explain on the next slide why federal student loans specifically [00:05:00] are a type of aid for students.

So here is a little bit more about federal direct student loans, and they have properties that most other loans don’t have. So the first is the student is the sole borrower on this loan. So this could be an 18-year-old, uh, with no credit, um, and no job, for example, even. And the student can, can get a federal direct student loan just by virtue of being a student in the hopes that they will then graduate, get a job, and be able to repay.

So that makes it unique. Student is sole borrower and there is no credit check done for these loans. Um, these loans also have two types. Part of the loan can be subsidized, meaning the federal government will pay the interest on these loans while the student in is in college. And another portion of these loans could be unsubsidized, meaning.

The federal government is not paying the interest while the student is in college, [00:06:00] but the student does not need to repay these loans until six months after graduation. It’s just that right before graduation on an unsubsidized loan, any interest that accrued would be added in to the loan balance. These federal direct student loans also have low fixed interest rates.

Um, currently the interest rate is 6.39. Not super low at the moment, but that’s because these interest rates are generally, uh, tied to general interest rates. Uh, but that will change every year. But once your student borrows a certain loan at a certain interest rate, it is fixed for the life of the loan.

And the, let’s look at the right of your screen, and you’ll see the loan limits on these specific federal direct student loans. As a freshman, a student can borrow 5,500. As a sophomore, a student can borrow 6,500. As a junior and a senior, they can borrow [00:07:00] 7,500 each year. So there are some limits. And then the last reason that these loans are unique and why they’re considered financial aid is there are options for how the student will repay these loans.

So let’s say a student takes the full amount of federal direct student loans, um, using those limits on the right, they would end up borrowing over four years, about $27,000. And what that would translate into is about a $300 loan payment per month for 10 years. That’s under the regular repayment plan, but let’s say a student finds that they graduate and you know, their salary at their job doesn’t allow them to.

Pay the loans on top of what they might be paying in rent, or maybe they need to buy a car. And so if they find they can’t make that regular payment, they have a choice of other types of repayments. And one type is [00:08:00] called income-based repayment, meaning that their actual monthly PA payment is tied to their monthly income.

So if a student’s income doesn’t allow them to make the regular payment, they can pay a lower amount. Um. They will pay that longer for a longer period of time. However, they can also, as they go on in their career and start to earn more, they can pay more at a later time, but it really allows students to be able to manage these loans.

And lastly, there are also deferment, forbearance, and forgiveness options under these loans. And so where does all this financial aid come from? Really it comes from three main sources, the federal government. Massachusetts State has financial aid, and the colleges and universities themselves have their own money to award to students.

And so those three sources are what you are applying for when you [00:09:00] apply for financial aid. And we’re gonna talk about how to do that. And you’re applying for federal, state. And college and university aid. The one process that is separate is in the lower right quadrant. Other agencies, um, outside private financial aid application, scholarship applications.

And that would be like maybe the Lion’s Club in your town. Maybe a parent employer, or it could be a large national scholarship like the Coca-Cola Foundation. So there are ways that students can look for these outside scholarships, and this is a little bit of a separate process. So the two ways students can look for these are stay in touch with, with.

Local scholarships through their school. Listen, if their guidance, if office, you know, offers any scholarships, your employer, again, looking around for those or by using some scholarship, [00:10:00] um, uh. Websites and finding, we’ve given you two here, MEFA pathway.org and fastweb.org so students can look for scholarships online, put in some information about themselves, and receive a list of possible scholarships to apply to.

And I’ll end with the good news On this slide. We hear so much about the high cost of college and it is high. Mm-hmm. Um, but there is a lot of financial aid that is awarded to students each year. So you can see the $190 billion figure is the amount of aid that went to undergraduate students in the 2324 academic year.

So let’s talk about how and why students receive this financial aid. One way students can receive financial aid is based on merit and merit aid. Is awarded in recognition of a student’s achievements, mostly academic, but could be athletic [00:11:00] or artistic. And so I will say, go on the record as saying that students who, uh, get really good grades in high school have a better chance of receiving.

Um. Higher amounts of merit aid from colleges. Each year, colleges wanna bring in a class of strong students and, um, they want students to fill all kinds of parts of their campus, right? They, they want the athletes, they want the scientists, they want the English majors. Um, and so to do that, they use merit aid, um, for.

Strongest students. And it doesn’t mean it has to be the strongest student, the valedictorian, it just means students who are gonna be high in their admissions pool, sometimes at some colleges and universities, the whole top half of the class could receive some, some merit aid. So pay attention. And that’s a, that’s, it’s a great way to encourage a student to work hard in high school, um, so that they can receive [00:12:00] some merit aid.

And then the other way. Financial aid is awarded, is need-based, and that’s based on your family’s eligibility or need, as is determined by the financial aid formula from the information that you put on the financial aid forms when you’re completing them. And that’s what we’ll talk about now. Alright, so the application process.

Um, here’s the financial aid timeline. One thing that’s really important for students and families to know is that the admissions process and the financial aid process go hand in hand, and they happen in the same timeframe. I sometimes get questions of, well, shouldn’t I apply for admissions first then I apply for financial aid?

No, you should. Try to think about doing the two around the same time. So one step you can take is to when students are looking at colleges that, that they want to apply to, of course they’re gonna look at admissions [00:13:00] deadlines and what’s required for college admission. They should also look at financial aid deadlines and, um, know that they don’t wanna miss a deadline for financial aid.

So, um, and they’re usually tied very closely with the admissions decision. So let’s say a student is applying regular admission to a college, and the regular financial aid deadline is February 1st. Well, they know that’s, that’s. They wanna meet that deadline, but let’s say the student is applying early admission to another college, and that deadline might be November 1st.

They wanna make sure that that financial aid application is in for that early deadline. So just know that those two go hand in hand and you can download this college application manager to stay organized or just make your own, make a spreadsheet. However you do it on your phone on a big whiteboard to keep track of all of the details of both your admissions and financial aid applications.[00:14:00]

Now applying. The first form you need to know about when applying for financial aid is the fafsa. It’s the free application for federal student aid, and that is the form that all colleges require. For you to apply for financial aid. So you have to do that. And the good news is that it this year, it will be available on October 1st.

So as soon as October 1st rolls around, you can complete the fafsa. And the reason you can do that is you have everything you need right now. Um, the FAFSA is going to go back and look at, um, the last completed tax year. Um, so there’s nothing you’re, you’re waiting for financially. And, um, for students right now who are high school seniors, you will be completing the, uh, 26 27 FAFSA because that’s when you’ll be enrolling in college.

And the way this works is [00:15:00] you go to this website, student aid.gov, and the student should start the form first, go in, start to complete the fafsa, and then invite. The other people who need to be on the form with you, and that usually is one parent or in some cases two, and you invite the parent and then the parent goes in, completes their part, and you can submit the the fafsa.

MEFA does have another webinar called Understanding the fafsa. You can find that on our website if you want to walk through the form line by line. I will also mention that this is a form that you do every year. Uh, before you complete the fafsa, you need a username and password. Everyone who’s gonna put information on the form needs a username and password, and that’s called an F-S-A-I-D.

So student, you will need an F-S-A-I-D. You can go and set that up right now. Uh, you must have an email address to [00:16:00] get that. And, um, the student. Your parent will need an F-S-A-I-D. Um, if your parents are married and filed jointly, then only one parent will need an F-S-A-I-D. But if they filed separately, both may need, um, an F-S-A-I-D.

Um, you usually put your social security number in, but if you don’t have one, you can answer some knowledge based questions pulled from a credit history and you can still get an F-S-A-I-D. So what’s reported on the fafsa, there’s some general information. Your name, your citizenship status, the colleges that you’re applying to, because again, this is this form, you’re gonna send it to all the colleges you’re applying to.

And for parents, it’s gonna ask you about your marital status. And if you’re married, including same sex parents, you’re bo, all of that information will be on the fafsa. All parents who live together, married or not, will be on [00:17:00] the fafsa, parents who were divorced or separated. There’s just one parent that will be on the FAFSA with the student.

It is the parent who provided more financial. Support in the last 12 months. Now, if that parent happens to be remarried, um, married to a current spouse, that person’s information is on the form as well, and legal guardians are not a parent. So in that case, the student would file as an independent student.

There were also questions like the number in your household, uh, that pulls from the IRS, but you can update that. The number of children in college and your financial information, most of it will be pulled right from your 2024 tax return. You will give consent to just have the IRS send your tax information right into the form and, um, then, then that’s completed.

It makes the form a lot easier to complete. [00:18:00] And then for assets, you’re going to include both parents and students are going to include the value of savings, checkings, investments, um, some businesses, larger businesses, not businesses that have under a hundred employees, commercial fishing. Um, all of that, and you will report.

Any education savings accounts like a A 5 29, and that’s reported as a parent asset for the student whose FAFSA you are completing and things you won’t include on the FAFSA are the value of your primary home or what’s owed on it, the value of your qualified retirement accounts life insurance. Family farms, small businesses or commercial fishing businesses.

So good to know that those things are not on the fafsa. And just also to know that child support received is considered an asset. [00:19:00] Debt is not reported on the form in general except, uh, debt. If you have some investments and debt on the investments, it’s uh, you know, it would be the net investments. So that’s how it’s included.

But other than that, you’re not, there’s not a place for you to report debt. Now, I said again, everyone does the fafsa. Some colleges require an additional form, and it’s usually colleges that have a lot of grant and scholarship money to award. And the other form that many colleges require is the CSS profile from the college board.

So just know that. That form can cost a have a fee of $25 for the first college that you’re sending it to, and 16 for each additional college unless your parent income is under a hundred thousand dollars. In that case, it will be free, and when you get to the end of the form, you won’t have to pay. That is also available October 1st.

So when you’re [00:20:00] looking at your colleges to see what forms they require, if they say the CSS profile, you need to do this form. As well, and the CSS profile collects a little more information. So they, they will probably, most schools that use the CSS profile, if your parents are divorced or separated, they, they may ask both parents to do, they may have the regular CSS profile and the non-custodial parent profile.

Um, they will ask information about your primary residence, what it’s worth, what’s owed on it, and use that equity. Amount as an asset. Um, so it’s a little bit different, takes a little longer to complete. But again, the colleges that require it have financial aid resources. That’s why they’re making you do it.

So do this form and do it on time. And again, it’s available October 1st. We also have a webinar that gets into more detail about the CSS profile. So then after you [00:21:00] apply you again on these forms, you. Write down the colleges that you are applying to and all of your information gets sent electronically.

And then you’ll receive from both an, an acknowledgement by, by mail, uh, for both the, the FAFSA and the the, um. The CSS profile acknowledgement. So just know that. And then the colleges will review these applications and take some time to then present you with a financial aid offer. Um, the financial aid offer could be sent, right with your admissions application, or it could be sent a few weeks later, could be delayed a little bit more, but know that colleges know that you need that information, um, before you can commit.

And this is another process that just goes along with that. So there is a process that colleges need to follow called verification, and they need to verify a certain [00:22:00] number of applications they receive. So just know once you submit a financial aid application to a college, you may receive. Either an email or colleges may have a portal and say, this information is missing, and they may ask you for a tax return transcript or some kind of a verification worksheet that says, oh, you said you didn’t file taxes last year.

Can you just verify that? So just make sure that even after you’ve filed your financial aid forms, that you pay attention to any emails received and follow up quickly with the colleges to help them get that financial aid award to you as soon as possible. So again, the email that you put on these forms is really important.

Make sure it’s an email that you look at and that you read often. And after, after you’ve applied for admission and financial aid to a specific college, please know that the financial aid office at that college is also a great resource. [00:23:00] So if you have questions, um, let’s say you receive a financial aid offer, but you wanna know, is that gonna be good for four years?

Are all of your awards gonna carry over? That’s a great question to ask specifically of one certain school. If you have an outside scholarship that, um, your student has, has earned, um, maybe asking how is that going to affect financial aid? If you have a change in circumstances, let’s say you file this form on October 10th and um, someone in the family loses a job a couple of months later, um, by all means contact the financial aid office to share that update so that the financial aid office can re-look at your financial aid.

And the financial aid office will let you know the best way to get in touch with them. Sometimes a phone call, sometimes an email, sometimes a chat on their website. So now let’s talk about how the college is making decisions on financial aid. [00:24:00] So the first task the college has to do is. The college financial aid administrators need to figure out what is the cost of attendance for a student to attend for the academic year.

So they have to figure out what that is, and that includes build costs, like tuition fees, uh, for an on-campus student housing, food. But it also includes other expenses. Students have expenses that aren’t billed, like books and supplies, transportation, personal expenses. So it’s very important for the college to have an understanding of what it’s gonna cost a student to be there for the year.

And then from the information that you put on these financial aid forms, they run your information through a formula that the, the end result of that formula. With the FAFSA is something called the Student Aid Index, and that’s a number that determines your financial aid eligibility. So [00:25:00] it’s a number that represent your family’s financial strength as compared to other families’ financial strength, but every family is using the same formula in this formula.

Income weighs much more heavily than assets. We always get the question of, well, if I save for college, is that gonna hurt me? And it is a myth out there that that’s true. And it’s a myth, it’s not true. You promise. I promise you, if you have saved anything for your students’ education, you’re gonna be very happy to have those savings when it comes to paying the college bill.

Um, so know in that formula, your income weighs heavily and, um. The FAFSA spits out this SAI Student Aid Index. The CSS profile also gives a number because we, we talked about there are a few different elements in the calculation for the CSS profile, so there could be an institutional formula that takes into consideration.

Your primary residence, for example, at a [00:26:00] CSS profile college. Um, so it’s not, not necessarily exactly what you’ll pay, um, because it is just an index, but it will give you a sense of what’s going to be required, um, from you. And one good thing is, um, especially. If you have a younger student, you can use the SAI calculator on MEFA.org.

It’s a good one to give you an estimate of what your student aid index might be and what you might be expected to pay as parent. And then the formula for a specific institution would be what is our cost of attendance, minus the family Student aid index. And the balance is the student’s financial aid eligibility.

Okay. And that’s where the colleges try to give you a financial aid offer that either meets that eligibility or gets as close as possible to it. Um, so for example, let’s say. [00:27:00] The college that your student is applying to costs $80,000 and your student aid index is $20,000. Your student could be eligible for $60,000 of financial aid at that institution.

But let’s say another institution has a cost of attendance of $40,000 and your student aid index is still 20. At that college, you may only be. Eligible for $20,000. So, um, that’s why you shouldn’t necessarily shun higher price colleges because sometimes you’re eligible for more aid and sometimes could receive more aid.

It’s, it’s kind of nice to put out all of your applications, keep an open mind, be patient, and when your financial aid offers come in, that’s a key point of really making, seeing what aid is offered and comparing those offers. So I’m going to, uh, right now pretend I’ll do a little acting and pretend I’m a financial aid [00:28:00] administrator at a college that costs $45,000, and show you how as an administrator, how I would award a student a financial aid package, for example.

Okay, so this example, the college costs $45,000. You as a family have a a student aid index of $5,000. So when I’m going to make an award for this student, your student, I would first say, okay, the family is gonna pay $5,000 because that’s their student aid index. And then I’m going to give this student, um, a grant and a scholarship.

I’m gonna give a grant need-based grant, 17,500, and I’m going to give a scholarship because this student had very good grades, um, was on the honor roll and had a good GPA. And then I’m going to give the student, the federal direct student loan the amount, the maximum amount amount for a freshman 5,500, and I’m going to give a work study allotment of $2,000 so that the student [00:29:00] can earn that over the course of the year and pay for some of those non billed expenses.

And then that’s all I can do in this, in this, uh, imaginary example. My college doesn’t meet the full need of all students, so I’m actually not able to fill in that full 45,000, but I’ve tried to do the best I can. So what does this mean for you, the family? It means that to send your son or daughter to this college.

You as a family will need to come up with 5,000 of your student aid index and 5,000 of unmet need. So you as a family will need to come up with $10,000 for the first year to make sure your student has enough money to be at this college. So that’s how that works. And. I mentioned the SAI calculator, which is general about calculating your SAI Colleges also have something on their websites called Net Price [00:30:00] Calculators, and you can go in and in the search bar of any college type net price calculator.

And put in some information as you will on a financial aid form, and find out an estimate of an award that your student could receive from that specific institution. Now again, it’s an estimate. Uh, estimate is only as good as the information you put in, but it can give you a general sense of. A college’s financial aid program and how affordable a certain college could be from you.

And there could be merit in here as well. So the, if the fi, if the net price calculator asks about GPA or SAT score, a CT score, that means there might be a merit component, um, that’s being factored in there too. So again, can give you a little bit of an idea. Alright, so. That’s the behind the scenes look at financial aid awards.

And now here’s the point where the colleges are going to send you the [00:31:00] financial aid offers and what you’ll find, the first thing you’ll notice. Is that they all will look different. So you really wanna spend some time paying attention to carefully looking at them, the components of them, and comparing them so you have a good understanding about the affordability or non affordability for you as a family.

So in this example. There are three colleges, and to make it simple, all of these colleges cost $45,000. That’s the cost of attendance, including everything. And again, your student aid index in this example is 5,000, so your financial aid eligibility is 40. So let’s see what these colleges awarded. They awarded your student college A awarded your student $40,000 in a financial aid offer.

Now part of that is loan, part of that is work study, but also a very nice grant and scholarship package of 32,500. So in this case, college A is a college that [00:32:00] promises to meet the full need of all students. If colleges do that, they’ll let you know that on their website too. Uh, so that’s a great thing.

They’ve awarded really everything that your student would need, you as a family would have to come up with $5,000, the amount of your student aid index College B. Also awarded a nice grant package, the loan, the work study, but did not meet your full need and awarded 33,000. So that means as a family, you need to come up with an additional seven on top of the five, $12,000 per year and college C again while awarding grant.

Um. Awarded less. And so you as a family would have to come up with 15 plus five, $20,000 if your student chooses to go to college C. So really key to pour over these numbers. And um, you can see we have a calculator that we love on the bottom there you can click on that allows you to put in all of the costs, all of the aid, and really get a [00:33:00] bottom line figure.

Um, to help you decide, and this is where you can have conversations with your student. If your student is saying, but I like college C, you can say, that’s great, but you also liked college. A do you wanna go visit again at an open house, an accepted student’s day? Do you wanna ask some more questions? Um, could college A or B give you everything you need?

And again, I, I keep encouraging both students and parents. Keep that open mind and that flexibility, um, to help make. Universally good decision. Um, I’m gonna quickly go over this slide just to say that we have seen at some colleges that some colleges will put a parent loan in the financial aid offer as college b and C did in this example.

And just to be aware that that really a parent loan isn’t. In the same category as all of the rest of the aid. And a parent loan does need a credit check. And so just be aware of [00:34:00] that if you see that, to know that, sure, that’s something you, you might take a parent loan, but, um, keep that aside when you’re doing that.

Comparing apples to apples. All right, so then the next step. Let’s say your student has decided on a college and you’ve worked it out and you think, okay, I think this is going to be affordable. You’re gonna receive that bill in the summer. And you’ve determined you’re going to have to pay, in this example about $20,000 a year.

How are you gonna come up with that $20,000? So everyone will do that differently. Each person who views this video will do that differently. But, um, here’s how one family might do it. They might look at any past income. They might say, oh, the student had a summer job the last few years has some savings.

We’re gonna ask the student to put some skin in the game, as they say, a thousand dollars. And then let’s say you as a family have a [00:35:00] 5 29 plan for this student, and you’re gonna use some of it. So you’re gonna use $4,000 toward that. And um, also, let’s say that you have some, some. A little leeway in your monthly budget as a family.

Let’s say you’ve just paid off an automobile. You have $500 extra month, you are gonna join the monthly payment plan at this college. All colleges have monthly payment plan options, and they’re not loans. They sometimes charge a small fee, and then you can pay a portion of the bill on a monthly basis, break up the costs to make it a little bit easier.

And so this family is deciding we’re gonna pay $500 for 10 months. And this family is also deciding, and we’re gonna borrow the rest in, um, we’re gonna find the best. Alternative private loan. This is above those student loans and we’re gonna find that loan and decide and, and pay 10,000 a year on a loan.[00:36:00]

So all I’ll say about that is there are many options and you will wanna make sure you kind of shop around and you find the loan with the best interest rate and best terms for you as a family there. Um, there is a federal plus loan. MEFA has loans. Other banks have loans and you really wanna spend some time making sure, uh, because it can make a big difference in the type of loan you take there.

And this is a great time for some family conversations on affordability. So. You know, what is each school’s net price? Um, and who’s paying for college costs? So, you know, you might have to sit with your student and make a decision on, yes, we’ll, we’ll take this loan, um, and we’ll pay for this much. And we will hope when you graduate, you will help us pay it All.

All kinds of conversations happen at this time. Um. [00:37:00] Another thing that’s important to know, especially here in Massachusetts, is that community college, um, in Massachusetts is now free. It’s been free for a couple of years, and that is really wonderful. So it’s probably a good idea for all students to at least look into community college programs to see if that is an option for you.

Um, and then, you know, as a family, you need to consider the number of. Children in the family who will be going to college and you have to think about a four year financing plan. Um, yes, it’s great to, you know, cobble together that first year, as I showed you on the last slide, but that’s gonna happen not just for one year, but for four.

And making sure that’s going to be affordable. Um, and so I think parents need to think about their larger family responsibilities and students really need to think about do they have some sense of what they might do career wise? Maybe not, and that’s fine, but if you do, um, that may weigh into how much debt [00:38:00] you wanna take on.

Um, and then there’s a note here. I mentioned that there are many types of options of, of loans over and above those federal direct student loans. One thing to note is, um, this is new, but there will be federal plus loan caps as of July 1st, 2026, and those will be capped at $20,000 a year, 65,000 in total.

So that’s just important to know for families because if you do need to, for example, borrow. 20,000 per year, 20 40, 60, you’re gonna run out of eligibility to borrow. So you should just know there are other loan programs that will not have that cap and may allow you to borrow more each year. And that might be another reason to look into those loan programs.

Uh, MEFA has, has a loan program and I mentioned others. Um, you may have a banking relationship, um, that would allow you. To [00:39:00] again, plan out for the four years and make sure that you have enough money to support your student for the four years. Um, again, some details about. Financial aid in Massachusetts. I mentioned that community college is free for everyone and that means tuition and fee free and a potential book allowance for some students.

Um, you do need to complete the fafsa, so I just, I like to say that that still needs to be completed. Um, but then no matter what the results of the FAFSA are, community college is free for all students in Massachusetts and additionally. The state has increased its allotment of financial aid over the last year or so, and through this program, mass Grant plus expansion, uh, students whose families earn even middle income, you know, in the 75,000 to $80,000 range could still potentially have free or reduced.[00:40:00]

Tuition and fees at four year colleges and universities as well. So again, there is more aid, um, in the state this year. So it’s, it’s a, it’s a good time to be applying for financial aid, um, in Massachusetts and a good time, um, to. Be attending a, a public college or university as well. A couple of other bullets on this slide.

Um, there is a tuition equity law in Massachusetts currently. Um, and so you should look into that because, um, some undocumented students who aren’t eligible for federal aid can receive mass state aid. So look into that. Mass transfer is the website that, uh, shows students how they can start at a community college.

Transfer to a four year college, making college, the whole college experience more affordable. And lastly, tuition break is a program where students can attend college out of state in neighboring states [00:41:00] to Massachusetts, and if they attend, certain programs can pay in-state Massachusetts costs, which are less expensive.

So a couple of things you can do now. Um, here is a timeline. So you wanna stay on track through senior year. Um, some things can be done spring and summer of junior year, the whole researching colleges, visiting campuses, attending college fairs, asking teachers for letters of recommendation, maybe taking the SAT or a CT, maybe starting to write your college essay.

Then fall of senior year, maybe retaking some of those tests, securing those letters of recommendation, finalizing your essay. Um, I’ll also give a plug right away that MEFA has many webinars that you can attend on all of these related topics. So check out that page, um, on our website. And then you will, beginning in the fall and winter, you’ll be completing your [00:42:00] admissions applications, getting your F-S-A-I-D, completing your financial aid applications, and finishing that up in the spring and then in the spring.

When you receive those financial aid offers and those offers of admission, you want to spend a lot of time with those, as I just mentioned, and for most students May 1st is the date that you’ll choose a college and sort of know where you, what your next steps will be. Um, a few other QR codes. You can register for other MEFA webinars by using this QR code.

You can receive the timeline for college admissions and financial aid by using the middle one, and you can sign up for those MEFA emails, which I highly recommend. Um, in the QR code on the right. So get that F-S-A-I-D parent student. If your student is a, a senior in high school, no, put October 1st on your calendar and get those financial aid forms done.[00:43:00]

And you can always call mefa and email mefa the college planning department, um, with any questions, big or small. We’re so happy to help you through this process. Thank you.