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

Shawn Morrissey: [00:00:00] Okay, good afternoon. Thank you for joining us for today’s webinar, understanding the fafsa.

I am recording the webinar and we will be sending out a copy of the recording and of the slides to everyone who’s registered for that. And you should receive that within the next couple of days. A little bit about how to participate in today’s webinar. Um, the chat function is disabled, but if you do have questions, please enter those in the q and a section at the bottom.

Um, and we have. A couple of people behind the scenes helping to answer questions and they can also interrupt me and ask the questions live if they think that that answer question should be answered live. But they will be typing answers to those as well and use the q and a box to do that. If you would like to have closed captioning, you can use the closed captioning [00:01:00] box to get a live transcript, um, of what is being said.

And you can also, um, click the leave if you want to leave the webinar and the audio settings are there as well for you. So a little bit about MEFA before we start. Um, MEFA is a state authority. We were created in 1982, um, by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and we actually c created by a group of colleges part, um, going to the state legislature and asking for a body that could provide low cost loans to help families pay for college.

Since then, we’ve expanded to help families not only, um, receive low cost loans, but help families plan save Ian pay for college. Um, my name is Sean Morrissey. I am the Director of College relations. I’ve been with MEFA for three years. Before that, I have 30 years of experience [00:02:00] in financial aid, so hopefully, um, I’ll be able to share some of that expertise with you.

Behind the scenes, I have my colleagues, Julie Shields, Meredith Clement, and Stephanie Wells, helping with questions today.

So a little bit about the fafsa. The FAFSA is the free application for federal student aid. Um, one of the most important. Words in that title is free. Um, please make sure that you go to fafsa.gov to fill that out. Um, and you will see that it’s a free form. There are sometimes some scam sites out there that may ask you to pay a fee to fill out the fafsa.

Those are all scams. Please, if you see that, um, there is a fee involved with the fafsa, know that you are not on the correct site, so please go to fafsa.gov in order to fill that out. You can also access that from student aid.gov. Um, but it is [00:03:00] a free form. And the FAFSA is required by all colleges and universities for federal and state aid, and sometimes their institutional aid as well.

Um, some schools may require above the fafsa, um, an additional form in order to award their institutional aid. Some will use the CSS profile or some may have a different form. We do have an upcoming webinar on the CSS profile coming up next week. We have a few of those. So if you have questions about the CSS profile, please join us for that webinar as well.

Um, the FAFSA must be completed each year. One for every child that’s in college. So if you have several children, each will have to file their own FAFSA for each year that they’re in school. So you will have to complete that yearly. Um, and like I said, there may be other financial aid applications required by the school, so please check [00:04:00] their website to see what they would require in addition to the fafsa.

So completing the fafsa, um, there’s a term that’s called contributor, and that’s anyone who needs to provide their information on the fafsa. We will get into, um, which parents need to be on the fafsa, especially in cases of separation or divorce. We’ll talk about that in just a moment. Um, the student is always a contributor on the fafsa, and each contributor has a section to complete.

All income questions will pull your answers directly from the federal tax return with your consent. All contributors must provide consent to pull the data directly from the IRS in order for the student to receive financial aid. If one of the contributors does not provide consent, the student will not be eligible for federal aid.

So it is very important to, for every contributor to [00:05:00] provide their consent. Excuse me. There are online Skip Logic, um, involved in the FAFSA that removes questions that are not applicable, um, to the student that’s applying and. The skip logic really makes the FAFSA much easier than it may have been in the past.

We have heard of families filling this out in 15 minutes, 10 minutes, five minutes. I forget what the newest record is, but I believe it is under a couple of minutes, um, for a student to fill out a fafsa. So it can be really easy now for families to fill that out. Um, because of the skip logic, you must answer all of the questions in order so you can’t skip around and answer different parts.

It’s going to pro, um, present information to you in a certain order and will not let you go on until you’ve answered those questions. If the answer is zero to any of the questions or does not apply, enter a zero in there for, um. [00:06:00] In order to, for it to enable you to go on, um, you would enter a zero for that.

Any incomplete FAFSAs are deleted after 45 days, which means if the student starts, that doesn’t complete their section, or if one of the contributors does not complete their section after 45 days, um, that FAFSA is deleted and the student will have to restart the FAFSA and reenter all the information that they entered.

Um, reminders are sent every seven days to all of the contributors that are listed on the FAFSA in order, um, to remind you to make sure that you complete that within the 45 days. Um, items and info you need to complete the fafsa. You would need for the student and parent, um, social security numbers, date of birth, current bank statements, and current investment records.

And certain families may also need their 2024, um, federal tax return for the student and the parent to answer certain [00:07:00] questions. Although most of the information from the tax return is pulling directly from the IRS. But note that it is using 2024 federal income tax information, which means it’s prior, prior year information that is being reported on the fafsa.

Um, if there are problems while you’re completing out the fafsa. FAFSA does have customer service. All their information is listed here in, and there are links here for, um, their email in a chat. Um. As well note again that we will be sending out copies of all of these slides. So all of the links that you see here will be enabled in those slides, and you can, um, use those once you receive these slides from us.

You’ll see the hours here for the customer service, and there’s also a help center tab at the top of each page that leads to help topics, FAQs, link to contact [00:08:00] information. You’ll also see, um, on each question you can tab in and see more information on each question with, um, FAQs on those as well. In order to access the fafsa, um, the student will need an F-S-A-I-D and each contributor um, will also need an F-S-A-I-D and we’ll talk about how.

That will work if a parent is married, which parent may need an FSA ID on there as well. So you would log in, the student would log in with their username and password to start that. And if you are a contributor and receive the invitation, you log in with your FSA ID and that’s needed to start the fafsa.

And every parent that’s listed on the FAFSA will need an F-S-A-I-D. If the parent that’s listed on the FAFSA filed their taxes jointly, only one [00:09:00] parent needs an F-S-A-I-D. If the parents filed separately or one of the parents did not file taxes, then they will each need an FSA ID on there as well. And we’ll talk about how it works in cases of separation or divorce in just a few minutes.

Um, each person that has an FSA ID has to have a unique email address. Um. So make sure that you have a unique email address when you are sending up your FSA id, and it’s not the same as you’ve used for some other member of your family. You have to provide personal information and set up challenge questions when you create that F-S-A-I-D.

Um, when you do have a social security number, it matches your information with the Social Security Administration in real time and lets you know that that information has matched and that you have a valid FSA ID in order to, um, start working on the FAFSA for parents without a social security [00:10:00] number.

Um, there are some knowledge based questions based on credit history that the family will be presented with. If, um, those questions are answered correctly, then the F-S-A-I-D is validated right away. Um, if you are not able to answer those questions properly, you can still use the F-S-A-I-D in order to complete the fafsa, but there will be a follow-up process with the school that you are applying to, um, to validate your identity, um, that the school will contact you with more information to ask you some more questions To validate your identity, you can set up an FSA ID [email protected], fs a ID create account.

Um, and you would then use the F-S-A-I-D to do the fafsa, and you can use that within the same day that you create that.

So [00:11:00] the FAFSA homepage, you can go to student aid.gov or fafsa.gov and you would choose start a new form. Um, note that you should make sure you pick the 26 27 FAFSA form. For those who are graduating in, um, may of 2026, you wanna make sure you’re filling out the 26 27 fafsa. Um, this becomes live on October 1st.

If you were to go onto um, fafsa.gov right now, you’ll see start a 25, 26 FAFSA form. Um, but above that, there is the opportunity to choose to be part of the beta process. Um, they are. They have opened the FAFSA early through to do beta testing and anyone can choose to, um, fill out the FAFSA now through that beta testing opportunity for the 26 27 year.

If you’d like to, you could just click on that link. They’ll send you, um, [00:12:00] information about joining the beta testing. Anyone that fills out a form during beta testing, that is a valid fafsa. It’s going to be sent to the schools the same way that if you, um, wait till October 1st to fill that out. But on October 1st, if you log in, you’ll see the option there to start a new form.

Um, with the 26 27 fafsa, then you would log in. You must have an F-S-A-I-D in order to log in. If you don’t have an F-S-A-I-D um, set up already, you can use the link to create an account to get an F-S-A-I-D.

Here you would choose, um, if you are filling it out as a student or a parent, it’s really advised strongly to start the process, um, signing in with the student’s F-S-A-I-D and starting the FAFSA through the student. And the reason for that is the way that, um, [00:13:00] a student has to invite the contr contributors.

They’ve really done some improvements in that process this year to make it much easier to match the student and the contributors on that. But all of those upgrades are only available if you start the process as a student. If you start the process as a parent, um, you can’t use any of those improvements.

And it uses the old matching system, which may cause, um, some issues. For some families to match the student and parent together. So it’s much easier to start it, um, as the student. And for this webinar, we’re going to assume that the student is starting the fafsa. So once you log in and say you’re starting as the student, you’ll receive four video onboarding slides.

You can watch those videos. It tells you a little bit about the FAFSA list of documents that you will need, um, and tells you a little [00:14:00] bit about what you will be reporting on the fafsa. It’s also going to define what contributors are and explains the concept of the contributor and how to invite the contributors.

So if the student is married, a contributor could be a spouse. If the student is a dependent student, um, those contributors would be the parents and it’ll talk to you about how to invite those. It’s going to give you information about what to expect and how you have to provide consent and approval. The time estimate that it may take you to fill out, um, the fafsa and usually that will be 30 minutes or less and how to save and return later if you need to.

Um, you, if you’re not able to complete the FAFSA in one setting. So then, um, what happens after the FAFSA is explained to you, um, that the information is sent to the colleges and universities that are listed as well as the student [00:15:00] receiving a summary of that to their email. Um, once you look at all that information, you click on start the FAFSA to begin filling out the fafsa.

Here the student will be presented with information that they filled out from their F-S-A-I-D and they should review all that information to make sure it is correct before going forward. Any of the information, um, listed there. If it is incorrect, they have to go back to, um, their F-S-A-I-D set up to make those changes there.

They can’t make those within the fafsa, but they can click that link to account settings and make those changes there. So if their email addresses changed or their mobile phone number, they can make those changes on the account settings as um, then once they make those, if everything is correct, they can just hit continue and that, um, brings them to the next page Here.

They will list [00:16:00] their, um, state of residence and this is usually, um, the state where the student lives. While not attending college. Um, and then the date that the student became a resident of that state, if they were born in the state, that would be their date of birth. Otherwise, it’s the date that they moved to the state.

Um, and once they’ve completed that, they can click continue. Then they are, um, brought to the slide talking to them about providing consent in order for their information to be pulled directly from the IRS. Now again, all contributors must say that they consent to having their information pulled directly from the IRS.

If they don’t provide consent, then the student is not eligible for federal aid. So you would select, approve, um, to provide consent. If you say you do not approve, uh. Popup box will appear. That tells you [00:17:00] that if you do not provide consent, you will not be eligible for federal aid. Do you really not want to give consent?

So in order to actually go forward and be eligible for aid, um, the student would have to approve and provide consent. Once they do that, a screen will show that their information is being imported from the IRS onto the fafsa. If a student, um, did not file a tax return with the IRS or a contributor did not file with the IRS, um, information will be pulled in from the IRS that they did not file taxes.

So even those that did not file taxes will have to provide consent, um, for those that there. They did file taxes with the IRS, their information will be pulled into the fafsa. It’s important to note that IRS information will not be displayed on, um, the website here or on any, um, summary that the student may receive.

They won’t be able to view [00:18:00] any of the information that’s being pulled directly from the IRS, and that’s for security reasons, so that if anyone were able to, um, hack into the FAFSA system, they wouldn’t be able to view any of your IRS data. That information is sent to schools, um, electronically that you list on here, but that information is sent in a very encrypted manner and schools have very strict rules on how they can view and or share that information.

So it’s kept very secure. Um, the information that is being shared from the IRS. And as I said, if the student did not file, um, their taxes, they’ll get a message that say, said that their, they did not file taxes, but the information was pulled from the IRS and they just hit continue. And then they’ll be asked questions about their personal [00:19:00] circumstances.

And this will determine if a student is considered dependent, which means they need to report parent information on their FAFSA or independent, where they do not need to report parent data.

So first I’ll ask about their marital status. Any student who is married is considered independent, separated students are not considered independent. So if a student was married, but it’s now separated, they are not considered an independent. Based solely on their marital status,

then they’re asked their college plans entering college. Students should select first year freshmen on there. Um, students may should make sure to select no when they’re asked if they have a bachelor’s degree, if they are in, um, their first year of school as well. [00:20:00] Um, and if they do have a bachelor’s degree and are in graduate school, grad students are considered independent.

They’re then asked other personal circumstances to, again, help determine if they are independent or dependent. If a student is older than 23, has dependents who receive, um, support from them if they’re an active duty military or veteran. If since they’ve turned 13, they’re an orphan. In foster care or considered a ward of the court if they’re an emancipated minor or in legal guardianship.

If they meet any of those criteria, they are considered independent and do not need to, um, provide parental information. If none of them apply, they should check none of these apply and they’ll be brought to the next screen. Students who are homeless or self-supporting [00:21:00] and at risk of being homeless are considered independent.

So ask them at any time, um, on or after July 1st, 2025, was the student on accompanied in either homeless or self-supporting? And at the risk of being homeless? If they answer yes to that, they are considered independent. Um, if they answer no to that, then um, they are, they may be considered dependent if they don’t meet any of the other criteria that we just talked about.

Then a student is asked if they have any unusual circumstances that prevent them from contacting their families, I mean their parents. Um, and that would mean if they were left home due to an abusive or threatening environment. Um, they are abandoned or estranged from the parents. They have refugee or asylee status and they’re separated from their parents.

Or their parents are displaced, displaced in a foreign country if they’re a victim of human trafficking. If, [00:22:00] um, they’re incarcerated or their parents are incarcerated and contact with the parents would pose a risk to the student or they’re un otherwise unable to contact or locate their parents. If they meet any of those criteria, they can, um, select yes to that and, um, they may be considered independent Then, um.

They shouldn’t answer yes to that. If the parent is unwilling to give their information, only if they’re unable to, based on one of these criteria, then the colleges will fo follow up with them and require more information or documentation to back up the information that is on here. Sometimes they will ask for information from a third party, like a student counselor, a member of the clergy, or another third party outside of the family to, um, document these circumstances.

Um, once they’ve gone through all of those questions, then the student, [00:23:00] it’s considered a dependent student if they don’t meet any of those criteria. Um, and then they’re given one last question that if the parents are refusing to provide their information on the FAFSA form, but um, they do need to provide their information on the FAFSA form, does the student.

Want to, um, apply for the unsubsidized loan only and say that the parents are unwilling to give their information if they check yes to that they’re able to complete the fafsa, but are only, um, providing their own information, not the parent’s information, and can only receive the unsubsidized, um, loan only.

They are not eligible for any other types of federal, state, or possible institutional aid. So you only want to say yes to that question if the parents are unwilling to provide their information.

[00:24:00] And, um, realize also that anyone who provides their information on the fafsa, that does not mean that they have to provide, um, support. In helping to pay for college, they’re just providing their information on the FAFSA in order to determine the student’s eligibility for financial aid. Then the student is asked them demographic information.

It’s going to ask the student sex. They have to choose either male or female, and they do need to answer this question. This information is not shared with colleges. It’s only kept, um, within the, um, federal processing center, and they use that for research purposes only. So this information is not going to affect their eligibility and it’s not shared with 80 colleges for students’ race in ethnicity.

Again, they do need to share this information. Um. [00:25:00] But it’s not shared with colleges. It does not affect aid eligibility, and it’s kept only for research purposes. The student is then asked their student citizenship status. This is used to determine eligibility for federal aid in a student. To be eligible for federal student aid needs to be a US citizen or what’s considered an eligible non-citizen.

Eligible non-citizens include US Nationals permanent residents, carriers of arrival records, I 94 records that show, um, that they are eligible non-citizens holders of a T visa. If a student has, is in a battered or immigrant qualified alien status, or citizens of the federa federated states of Micronesia, the Republic of Marshall Islands and the Republic of Palau, um, they are considered eligible.

Non-citizens Citizenship [00:26:00] status will be verified by the Social Security Administration for citizens and by the Department of Homeland Security for eligible non-citizens. So if a student, um. Here that they’re neither an US citizen or an eligible non-citizen, then they will not qualify for federal student aid.

The student is also asked about the parent’s education status and here they can say, neither parent attended colleges, one or both attend college, but neither completed one or both completed college, or they don’t know so they can answer those, um, questions again. They’re also, um, asked if a parent was killed in the line of duty.

Um, and that would be either by serving on active duty as a member of the US armed forces on or after the events of nine 11 or performing official duties as a public safety officer. [00:27:00] Public safety officers include law enforcement officers, firefighters, and emergency service workers. Um, if the student would say yes to that, they may qualify for, um, additional types of federal aid and the school may ask for follow-up information about that.

If they answer no, they can just hit continue. So then ask for the student high school completion status. And this will be at the, um, beginning of the 26, 27 year. So if you’re filling this out in October and the student is planning to graduate in May, they would say that they’ve received their high school diploma, um, by the beginning of the 26 27 school year.

Um, if they’ve had, will have completed their GED. Likewise, um, if they’re homeschooled or none of the above, they can answer there as well. The student will who selected a high [00:28:00] school diploma, will need to report their high school. Um, the student will enter the state city, um, high school name. It will bring up some search results based on that, and they can, um, report the high school that they have attended.

They’re then asked if they’ve received any federal benefits, um, for 24 25. If at any time they received any of these benefits, they can check yes to that. If they have received any of those benefits, um, it will may skip certain questions going forward. So it’s important to answer those if they have received any of those.

If they haven’t, they will have to check. None of these apply, um, and go forward. They’re then asked, um, if the family size is different from the number of individuals claimed on the 24 tax return, um, it’s going to pull the family size directly from the parent’s tax return. But you have the [00:29:00] opportunity to override that by saying, um, yes to this, that the size is different, then you can manually enter the family size on there.

Um, if it’s the same as the 2024 tax return, you can just say no and it will pull automatically from the tax return. But there are situations, uh, especially in the cases of divorce, where the parent that claims the student or other members of the family on the tax report, on the tax return may be different than the person that is reporting their information on the fafsa.

So this is how they can override that and put the correct family size in there. Um, then they also would enter the number of college for anyone in the student’s family, including the student, but, um, not parents. And they could put the number of college in there. This is not used in the calculation for federal student aid, but some schools [00:30:00] may take that into consideration when awarding institutional aid.

Um, so the student tax return information. Uh, most of the tax information will be pulling directly from the IRS, but there are a couple of questions that they need more information about. Um, one of them is the IRA rollover to another IRA. Most of the time students don’t already have an IRA, but, um, parents may have this when we get to the parent section.

So for most students this would be zero, um, or in as well as the pension rollover into an IRA or another qualified plan. Um, that would be zero as well if they do not have this information. Um, the reason this question is asked, um, if you do do an IRA rollover, this does show on the tax return, but if it’s a rollover that.[00:31:00]

Can be taken out of your income. Um, so it’s not included in the income that was reported from the, the tax return, and this is how the college knows to pull that information out of there and how that works in the formula. You’ll also enter in the amount of college grants, scholarships, or AmeriCorps benefits that were reported to the IRS as income.

So you’re only putting in information on here that you’ve received from a 10 98 t from the school that says it’s taxable and was on the tax return. That you filed in the 2024 year. So for most students that are going into their first time in school, this will be zero. Um, if they had any foreign earned income, um, and they filled out the foreign earn income exclusion from IRS forms scheduled 10 40 line eight d, they would put that information in there.

Um, [00:32:00] again, for most students that would be zero as well.

Then their student is asked to report their assets. They would put the current balance of cash savings and checking accounts on there. Um, then they would put their net value of investments, including real estate, if they have any. Um, you do not include the home that the student lives in as an investment.

And again, this is about all. Of the information on the student’s assets are any assets in the student’s name? It’s worth reporting. Um, saying that if a student has a 5 29 plan in their name, that is not, that is held by either the student or the parent that’s reported as a parent asset that is not included as a student asset.

And also if the student owns a, a business or a farm, they would put that [00:33:00] information in there, but you don’t include a family business or a farm with less than a hundred employees. Also, if the student owns a commercial fishing business, um, you would not include that as well. Then you will list all the colleges that the student plans to attend.

You can list up to 20 schools on here. If the student needs to report to more than 20 schools, they can do that through, um, the correction process. So here they would list their schools that they want the information sent to, um, and you can do a search based on entering state, city, and or school name. And that will pull up the schools and they can select the schools that they want that information sent to.

Uh, the student is then given the opportunity to reorder the school if the school state requires it to be higher on the list. So there are certain states that [00:34:00] in order to be eligible for a state grant, they need to be listed first on that. If that is the situation, there will be a message. Here you can see, um, the school list guidelines for Texas residents listed here.

That to be eligible for a state grant in Texas, you must list an eligible in State College. Um, and it will tell you the order that you have to list that in for Massachusetts. In order to qualify for Massachusetts State Aid, you do not have to have a Massachusetts State, um, school listed first. However, they will base the Massachusetts State Award.

Based on the first school that you’re listing, but you’re able to change that, um, with the state afterwards. If you end up going to another college, then, um, they’re brought to the sit the section where you [00:35:00] would invite the contributors on the fafsa. So what parents’ information has to be on the fafsa. So biologic or biological or adoptive parents have to be on the fafsa.

Um, both parents. If the parents are married, um, you would include both parents also, if the parents are married. Or are not married, but are living together in the same household. Both of those parents need to be on the fafsa. Uh, married parents do include same sex, sex couples. Um, if the parents are separated, but living together, you must select married as well.

But in the case of divorce or separation, you would use the parent that provided more financial support in the last 12 months. And the stepparent, if that parent is remarried, if the financial support was equal, you would select the parent that had the higher income or assets in the last year. [00:36:00] Um, if no financial support was given to the student in the last 12 months by either parent, you would select the parent who provide the most support in the year when the student last received support from a parent.

Um, also the. Federal Student Aid has said that they don’t think that in a real life situation, any family provides exactly 50 50 support to the student. That if one parent provides an extra cup of coffee to that student, then that would put them over the line, um, towards providing more than 50%. So you can choose that parent.

So it is up to the family to make the determination. Who provides more than 50% of the support? The student then would invite the parent to the fafsa and this. Process is much easier this year. This is one of the big improvements they made to the FAFSA that the student only [00:37:00] needs to enter an email address for the parent and will send them an invitation to invite them to the fafsa.

The email address that they use on there does not have to be the same email address as the parent used when they filled out their FSA id. Um, so they can choose, choose an email address that they know the parent will receive that email in order to send the contributor. If the student is not sure who should be the contributor or the parent on their FAFSA form, they can click into that who counts as a parent on the FAFSA form, and it will bring them into a wizard that helps them answer some questions and determine whose information should be on the fafsa.

So the student then sends the email to the parent, and the student sees a confirmation that the parent will receive an invitation to their fafsa, and they’re also, um, see a code [00:38:00] below there that, that is the code that’s being sent to the parent in order for the parent to match to the student’s information.

When they then log in, the student can also, um, see that code. So if the parent doesn’t receive the email for any reason, they can share that code with them as well, um, by looking at that right here on the form. But they can also see that in their FAFSA summary as well. And the parent then accesses the FAFSA by accepting the email invitation and using that code.

The student then can review all of the information that they reported on the fafsa. Again, they won’t be able to see any information that was pulled from the IRS that’s not going to be displayed to them. But any questions that they answered will be displayed to them here. Um, and they can click continue.[00:39:00]

The student then signs and agrees to the terms and conditions and until they sign on there, um, their FAFSA is not considered complete. So they do have to complete the signature section of that. Once they’ve signed, given their consent, um, the student section is complete and it lets them know that it’s just their section is complete.

But they now have to have their, um, contributors fill out their section. It will tell them the status. Of the parent’s invitation, um, that it’s been sent but not completed at this point. And it tells them what they can do next, that they will receive, um, via email, their FAFSA summary once it’s complete, and that the FAFSA still needs to be filled out by their contributor in order to, um, be [00:40:00] completed.

So the parents will then get an email invitation to do the fafsa. The parent clicks accept invitation that’s going to bring them to the FAFSA site. And the text in here is going to stress that completing the FAFSA does not mean that the parent is financially responsible for the student to go to college.

They do not have to contribute in any way, um, monetarily to the student. Attending college, but their information needs to be completed in order for the student to find out their eligibility for federal student aid. I think the parent can start the FAFSA before the student, and we’re gonna look at that in just a moment.

But again, the process is a lot smoother if the student starts the process. So you’ll see the code here. Um, note that code, that will be what you need in order to, [00:41:00] um, link the FAFSA from the student to the parent. So the parent is taken right to the student aid.gov to log in with their F-S-A-I-D. If they don’t already have an F-S-A-I-D, they can use the create an account in order to, um, create their F-S-A-I-D At that point, then their parent logs in with the F-S-A-I-D.

Once they log in with the F-S-A-I-D, they can accept the invitation from the student by entering the invitation code there. And once they hit that and submit, that means that they can then, um, fill out the parent section of the fafsa.

Then the parent info from the F-S-A-I-D is listed for review as well. And just like the student section, if any of the demographic information has changed for the parent, they have to go [00:42:00] to the account settings to update their F-S-A-I-D that can’t be updated directly in the FAFSA process, but they need to do that in the F-S-A-I-D through account settings.

The parent then is asked to provide consent to allow, um. The FAFSA to pull the information directly from the IRS onto the student’s fafsa. Again, any information pulled from the IRS is not going to be displayed to the parent or the student at any time. Um, but you do need to provide consent for this process to happen.

Even if you did not file a fafsa uh, tax return, you must provide consent in order for the IRS to verify that you did not file a tax return. If you do not provide consent, the student will not be eligible for federal student aid. [00:43:00] So all contributors must provide consent. A screen will show again when the information is being imported from the IRS showing that that process is happening, um, and if the parent didn’t file a tax return information will be returned.

The information was that the parent did not file taxes and that information will be pulled in that way. The parent is then asked their marial status, and this will help determine if there is another contributor that’s needed on the fafsa. So here, um, the parent lists their information about their marital status.

Again, they’ll ask if the parents received any federal benefits during the year. If families do receive federal benefits, then um, it would skip the asset questions. So, if the parent did receive any federal benefits in [00:44:00] 2024 or 2025, please answer those questions accordingly. If you received none, um, you would check none for that.

The family size is automatically being assumed based on the information that was reported on the tax return. It’s not necessarily going to be displayed to you what the information is that was pulled from the tax return, but you can override that if you know that that information is different from what was reported on the tax return, especially in cases of separation or divorce.

That information may be different from what you reported on the tax return to how many people are actually in your household, and that would be anyone that you would include in your household size, anyone that received more than 50% of support for you in in the last year. So you want to enter any dependent children who, who meet that criteria.

Or if you have, um, the parents’, parents are [00:45:00] living in the household and you’re providing more than 50% of the support, you may be able to include them in the household size as well.

For the number in college, you wanna report how many people are in college. You don’t include the parents in here. And this is not going to be used in the calculation for federal aid, but some schools may use that for their institutional funds. And then the parents are asked, um, a couple of additional questions about their tax return.

And again, for the IRI rollover or the pension rollover, if you did have one of those on your 2024 tax returns, you wanna enter the amount of that that is a rollover for either of those in order for the calculation to, um, be correct about not including, um, information about how much you have in an IRA, um, unless you received that informa that.[00:46:00]

Payout to you in that year and it was not rollover. So the only way for that to be reported is if you automatically, um, if you put that in here, ’cause the information that is reported from the IRS about the IRA, it’s just putting the amount that was reported on there. It doesn’t know if it’s a rollover or not when it’s pulling from the IRS.

You’ll also, again, want to put any information about grant scholarships or AmeriCorps benefits reported as income to the IRS. And again, this was for the prior, prior year and you only want to put information on there that was taxable and received from the school on a 10 98 T. Um, and if there was any foreign income listed under the foreign income exclusion, you want to enter that information in here as well.

Then the parent will be displayed with parent asset questions unless, um, [00:47:00] the parent has met certain criteria that their income was below 60,000 or you receive federal benefits, then no asset questions will be asked and you’ll be skipped. Otherwise, you’re going to be reporting the current balance of your cash savings and checking accounts.

If you receive child support in that year, the annual amount of child support that was received by the parent will be listed there. Um, you want to list the current worth of investments including real estate except for the home that the parent is living in. And if you are reporting real estate amounts on there, you would deduct the amount that you owe on that from the value when you are reporting the net worth there.

You also want to exclude any life insurance or retirement accounts when you’re reporting that. And again, 5 29 college savings accounts. You’re only reporting for the student [00:48:00] that is filing the fafsa and that is reported as a parent asset. Um, you also want to put in there the net value of all businesses and farms, except for small family arm, family owned businesses with a hundred or less employees.

Um, farms where the family resides on the farm or any family owned commiss. Commercial fishing businesses are not reported.

Other parental information, um, it’s going to ask information about the other parent that if the parent is married or living together or their current spouse, it’s going to be asked for the spouse’s date of birth. Um, and. You would enter that information here. Then the parent is given a review page where they can review all of the information that they reported on the fafsa.

Again, [00:49:00] any IRS information will not be displayed for the parent to review, but they can review any of the other information that they provided on there. Then the parent would pro would agree to the terms and conditions. Um, and once they do that, that will bring them to the signature page and the FAFSA is not.

Considered complete or process until all sections are complete. If the parent completed the last required section, the FAFSA will be submitted for processing. And then this page provides information on tracking the fafsa. In next steps, the student will receive an email, um, with confirmation that the contributor has completed their sections as well.

And they will also receive an FSS, the FAFSA submission summary as well.

Um, if the parent wants to start the FAFSA first. [00:50:00] Now again, it’s much easier if the student does the process first, but the parent can do that. They would log in with their F-S-A-I-D, click start, uh, 26 27 FAFSA, and log in with the parent F-S-A-I-D. Um, and once they do that. They can hear say that they are starting the form as a parent.

Then they’re going to be asked, um, information about the student, including demographic information, and they’re asked the questions to determine the student’s dependency status. And then the parent answers their own FAFSA questions. The student will receive an email with notification that the FAFSA has been started on their behalf and receive an invitation to the fafsa.

Then the student would log in and with that invitation, provide their consent for IRS data transfer and sign the fafsa.[00:51:00]

Um, once the FAFSA is completed, the student will receive a FAFSA submission summary, which is a summary of all the FAFSA information it lists when the FAFSA was received and processed. It links to a financial aid summary. It also has four tabs on there, their eligibility overview, what they answered on the forms, all of the schools that were listed on there.

The next steps and the FSS should arrive one to three days after the FAFSA submission. And here’s what some of the pages of the FSS will look like. The eligibility overview will show there a list of federal aid the student may receive, including Pell Grant and direct loans. These are only estimates they’re not.

Um, definite. You’ll receive a financial aid offer from each of the schools listed on there, um, that the student applies to [00:52:00] and is accepted to, uh, later on. But this is going to give you some estimates of what the student may be eligible for in different federal programs. This will not list institutional aid on here or state aid.

It’s only going to list their eligibility for federal aid. It’s also going to list, um, the student aid index. This is what’s used in the formula that, um, schools use in order to determine the student’s need for financial aid. Your SAI will be displayed on there for the student to see. Um, it will show all of the questions that the student and parent answered there on the FAFSA form.

Um, and if there are any corrections that need to be made, this is where the student can click that, make a correction box, and make any changes that they need. Um, if they [00:53:00] need to list more than 20 schools, this is where they would click that, make a correction box as well, and add those additional schools as well.

Again, data transferred from the IRS is not going to display on this page. It will not be displayed, um, to the student at any point. School information is listed on here. Um, the information about all of the schools that will receive that information, as well as that school’s graduation rate, retention rate, transfer rate, um, their default rate on student loans, their median debt upon completion, and their average annual costs are shown there for the student.

It’s then lists the next steps, um, and that what happens after this. If the student needs to make a correction, they could use that box for corrections, that they may, that the information is sent to schools [00:54:00] and that they should check with the schools to see if there’s any more information that’s needed from them.

So all the colleges and states, the state that student lives in receives the data electronically from the fafsa. The colleges may request additional documentation or additional information if the student is selected for a process called verification. If they’re selected for verification, you’ll receive information from the school saying exactly what information needs to be provided in order for the student to complete the verification process, and make sure that the student checks their student portal, checks their student email to see if they receive any correspondence from the school about additional documentation that may be needed.

Um, even though you’re filling out the FAFSA in October, and you should do that as soon as you can. Um. [00:55:00] Colleges typically set out their financial aid offers in March or April. So you won’t receive those offers immediately after, um, filling out the fafsa. But you should make sure that you meet all those deadlines, filling out the fafsa, and each school may have a different deadline for that.

So it’s important to check what those deadlines are. So things you can do now, you want to register for other MEFA webinars at MEFA. Dot org slash webinars. We have a couple coming up next week about the CSS profile, so you wanna check on that as well. You can get an FSA ID for the student and or the [email protected].

You can do that right now. You can start filling out the FAFSA through the beta process if you want to right now, if you wanna get a jumpstart on that. Um, but it will become live in October, on October 1st for everyone. You wanna make sure you research those deadlines and the required applications at each school, what each school requires and what their deadlines are may differ from school to [00:56:00] school.

So make sure you’re checking the websites of each of those schools that the student is applying to. And make sure you complete the FAFSA as soon as possible along with all the other financial aid applications. Um, your. Make sure to meet all of those deadlines. Um, if you miss those deadlines, there may be some aid that the student could be eligible for that they may not be able to receive because you did not miss make that deadline.

You can use this QR code to connect with MEFA and um, we are on social media as well. You can join us at all of these different areas and if you have questions now, I see there’s still some questions in there, I’ll be happy to go through those as well.

Stephanie Wells: Sean, I have a, a, a couple of just big, big picture topics that if we had a lot of questions about, could you go back to the slide about, um, there was a few [00:57:00] questions about ordering the order of the schools, how the order, if there’s a impact, you know, when ordering the school, putting those in order.

Shawn Morrissey: Where are the scores? Here we go. So for some states, um, in order to qualify for state aid, that school needs to be listed first on the fafsa. For Massachusetts schools, the order does not, um, matter in order to maintain eligibility for financial aid, um, state financial aid outta school.

Stephanie Wells: Great. And then, um, the other question that we had a few of, um, is on related to the SAI, if you could elaborate a little bit more about the range. We had questions about how high can it go and what A little bit [00:58:00] more about the, um, meaning of a negative SAI.

Shawn Morrissey: Okay. So the SAI can go as low as negative. 1500.

Um, if you receive a negative SAI, it’s treated as zero in the formula for financial aid. But the negative 1500 means that the family has the most need for financial aid for the student aid index. How that works is the school takes the cost of attendance at the school subtracts, the student Aid Index, um, and that determines the family’s need for financial aid.

And again, a negative number is considered zero for, um, purposes of that formula. And the SAI can go up to 99. 9 99, I think is the highest. SAI that they, they [00:59:00] have. Great.

Stephanie Wells: I’m gonna see if Julie or Meredith have any that they wanna send out to you, but I, I will just. Also remind folks we had a lot of CSS profile questions, as you can imagine, we usually do when we have FAFSA programs, ’cause a lot of families are doing both.

But just a reminder that we will have another webinar about, um, filling out the CSS profile on September 30th. So feel, feel free to register for that one as well. ’cause it, it’ll be just as great as this one today.

Meredith Clement: Yes, and thanks Sean. There were a couple questions. One was back on the FAFSA slide where it’s asking about the parent killed in the line of duty and it says, did you have a parent killed in the line of duty while serving as a member of the US Armed Forces or as a public safety officer?

And the public safety officer definition on the fafsa, it’s slide 32 on the FAFSA says Public safety officers include law enforcement officers, firefighters, and emergency service [01:00:00] workers. And someone asked, is an emergency service worker, would that include a Department of Public Works worker? Such as.

The snow, snow or ice removal. Do, do we know exactly what an emergency service worker means?

Shawn Morrissey: I am not sure as to how broad that that emergency service worker goes, but I can research that and we can provide that information as well. Um,

Meredith Clement: okay, that’s great. We can put that, um, we can send that out. I, I would, I would guess it’s more in line with a, a public worker, like a police officer or a firefighter, but Okay.

We can find out. Yes.

Shawn Morrissey: That, that’s my understanding is by, and and, and it’s usually like, I believe if it was in the events of nine 11, there were a lot of emergency service workers that were involved with that, that I believe that may be why it is a beyond law enforcement work officers and firefighters for [01:01:00] that, um, purpose.

But I will research that a little bit more.

Meredith Clement: Okay. That’s great. And then one more that we do get this question once in a while, the, the student receives social security payments since the death of her father, but those will end when she turns 18. Mm-hmm. Is that something that gets reported on the FAFSA or, or not?

Shawn Morrissey: So what happens is if that was taxable social security benefits, they, because it’s prior, prior year, it would be pulled from the IRS. And if it is ending, then you should let the school that you’re attending know, um, or let the schools that you’re applying to know that that’s ending so that they can make note of that when they are looking at the information.

Meredith Clement: That’s great. And it, what we could probably do since we’re at one o’clock, is we do have some questions that are remaining. What we can do is answer those offline and we can send out the full [01:02:00] list of questions and answers to all the. Of you just so to make sure that all these questions do get answered.

Um, and then one additional question. The CSS profile webinar that is coming up, someone was asking about the date of that. It’s on the 30th, which is Tuesday. So if you go to mefa.org and you just click on webinars at the top, you’ll find it in that first line. So it’s September 30th at 12 noon and it’s called What To Know About the CSS profile.

There’s another one on our website called A Deep Dive that’s for school counselors, but if you’re a a family, a student, look for that title. What to Know about the CSS profile on our webinar.

Shawn Morrissey: Okay. Thank you everyone for joining us. Um, we will be sending a copy of this recording as well as the slides, Ian, you can also see all the answers to all the questions as well, and we will go [01:03:00] through and answer any unanswered questions and you’ll receive those when you receive that link as well.