College Context S1E2: FAFSA Information

Published: December 03, 2020

Author: Dana DeFreezer

Hey guys, welcome back to GU’s College Context Podcast. Today we’re talking about the dreaded fafsa. We know this could be a difficult thing at times to speak with your parents or just going through the whole process but we’re going to speak a little bit about how to go through it. Hope you guys enjoy. 

Ayebale Barigye: So my name is Ayebale and i’m an admissions counselor here at Greenville University.

Kealin McLean: My name is Kealin Mclean. I'm an admissions counselor here at Greenville University as well.

AB: And then we have some special guests with us today. 

Hollie Fike: My name is Hollie Fike and I am the financial aid advisor in the financial aid department 

Dave Kessinger: I'm Dave Kessinger and I'm the director of financial aid. 

KM: Okay perfect perfect guys we got a first weird questions for you. What is your favorite food?

DK: Oh favorite go-to food right now actually is Joe’s pizza. So that’s why I showed up today.

AB: Did they pay you to plug that in right now? 

HF: Crazy thing but my favorite food would actually be pizza also. There’s not really a pizza that, I’ve never met a pizza that I didn't like.

AB: Okay let me follow up. For both of you since you like pizza does pineapple belong on pizza? 

DK: Not on my pizza.

KM: Thank you 

HF: Okay here’s the thing I would probably eat it but it’s not my favorite but I mean it’s pizza.

AB: Yeah I think when I was younger I was against the pineapple on pizza because you can’t mix fruit with pizza but I learned to appreciate the awkward combination as I grew up.

KM: I refuse to put pineapple on pizza. I won’t, I won't do it.

HF: What about a fruit pizza?

KM: That I do like but that's not truly pizza though. 

HF: I mean it’s flat. It’s round. It has like a sauce type thing and you put fruit on top. Candy pizza?

AB: Sounds like you’re contradicting yourselves over on that side but great. We just wanted to get you guys here to be able to speak on something that a lot of students and parents actually dread. It’s something that you know oftentimes it doesn’t make a lot of sense. I remember when I was going through senior year of high school and this thing called the fafsa all of a sudden was now you know on my computer and I was trying to navigate it. To be honest it's like one big blur I don’t even remember how we did it. But we wanted to just kind of get your guy’s you know perspective of why the fafsa is so important for students that are coming in and how does it actually work. 

DK: Right well the fafsa itself is a federal government form so that in itself can be intimidating but don’t let that stop you from tackling it. The average amount of time a fafsa is filled out is 22 minutes so that’s on average. Sometimes takes longer, sometimes less. I have two sons here at Greenville right now. It took us probably about 30 minutes, probably 35 minutes to fill it out. Of course dad, financial aid director, we were going down going through. Okay you really know what this means right going to the regulations and everything but yeah so it’s very important. Actually the state of Illinois this year is going to require it for all high school seniors graduating at high school to fill it out.

AB: That's actually that's pretty surprising because I would have I would have thought that the average time for the fafsa is much longer that 22 minutes but yeah 

KM: I would think it’s more like two days 

AB: Yeah to be honest

KM: It feels like two days when you’re doing it as a student. 

DK: I know they try to build in a lot of skip logic and things like that so if you answer a question a certain way you don’t have to go through all these other questions and things like that. So it tries to really get to the point that in your situation your family is that.

HF: Yeah and if you can use the irs data retrieval tool. Do it.

DK: Huge, huge

HF: Because that’s going to pull all of your information directly from the irs. All your financial information it’ll be correct. There are a few instances where we might have to check it but don’t call me on that. But more than likely it’s going to be correct. It'll be there in a jiffy and then you won’t have to worry about that anymore.

AB: Yeah and for some of the students or families who you know it might take longer than 22 minutes to fill out the fafsa. What to you guys are some of the most common mistakes that you see being made on a fafsa? I know we were just kind of talking about it before the camera started rolling but could you go over that.

HF: So the most common that I see is whenever the parent financial information is duplicated into the student information. So if most students don’t make much money and whenever you look at their student income and it’s just as much as the parents that totally skews the fafsa calculations and it’s not an accurate picture of the family so there's that's a major problem.

AB: And then working with like the efc they write the expected family contribution that goes way higher right and then in turn they get a lot less financial aid from whatever schools that they’re applying to because it looks like they're making you know so much money as students right.

HF: Yeah that's correct 

DK: Yeah exactly. So two other quick things about the fafsa. The magical dates October 1st is when it opens up every year. The fafsa is something you have to do every year typically at your university you’re going to, your college. And the other thing is the fsa id you can actually go out and get your own fsa id right now. It’s the middle of September right now when we’re talking nothing stopping families, students going out getting their own fsa id. The secret there is the student needs one and the parent needs one. Both parents don’t need, One parent has to sign the fafsa if there’s two and two in the household. But yeah, they each need one.

KM: I’m glad you mentioned that because we get a phone call about that almost every day towards the end of the year. Where’s my fafsa id. I’m like I do not know. I don’t know how to tell you this. Where do I direct them to? So where would we direct students to so to get that id for that going forward?

DK: Right and we don’t we don’t even have access to that. That's a department of education uh id so it’s like an online, of any of you know amazon or whatever company you have a username and a password for, it’s like that. So you can go to the fsa id website and you know retrieve password, retrieve your username there and that is the best way to go I would think.

HF: Just google fsa id and it'll come up and you can either create one, you can manage it or I think it's just create and manage. It seems like there's a third tab and I can’t remember what it is. My suggestion to you, to any student, senior, a new senior who is going to be filling out the fafsa on October 1st because that's when it opens. Do not use your high school email for your fsa id because eventually high schools will shut those down. So this year it’ll be fine but next year when you go to do your fafsa again and you can’t remember your password, because who remembers a password that they only use every year, you’re not going to be able to reset it. That happens all the time in our office. I get calls all the time, I don’t know my password, I can’t get in, I can't complete my fafsa. I can't help you. At that point you have to call the fsa helpline and that is much more difficult than just using a personal email.

DK: So what is your fsa id? That's actually you. That's your electronic signature when you're signing the fafsa. So this is not something you just want to be handing out to people. You want to keep it like a password. You know you're not handing out your password to everybody hopefully so you also want to protect it in that sense. But it is, you're signing the fafsa like you are on a piece of paper with that fsa id.

AB: Right which would make sense why none of us, whether you’re in admissions or a financial aid office, why we wouldn’t have access to that because i’m pretty sure some illegal things would be done if everyone knew your fsa id but yeah.

HF: The other thing is they will verify your information so they’re going to verify your social security number. They're going to make sure you are who you say you are. So you don’t want to be giving that out. The other thing is, it takes, it’s not like when you sign up for an account on a retail store when they ask you to verify your email and then you can go login. It’ll take a few days to get that back. So if you haven’t done your fsa id, do it now and then you’re ready to go. 

AB: Awesome. Alright so let’s say that you know I finally got my fsa id uh and I’ve you know got, I've put it in a place where I can remember it. Now I'm actually in the fafsa we use you mentioned that every single year you have to fill it out and right now we’re in the midst of a pandemic and so a lot of people’s families have been affected uh by COVID-19. So how would you go about notating that you know within your fafsa to be able to give an accurate read of you know how much money your family made let’s say last year versus this year?

DK: Yeah that’s a great question. So keep in mind the fafsa is just a snapshot and the fafsa is going to look at your tax information two years ago. So obviously as we have all experienced the last however many months it’s been, a lot can change in a short amount of time and especially two years from now. So what you’re going to do is you’re going to fill out the fafsa, it's a snapshot that the day you fill it out. It’s looking at two years prior tax information so you're going to fill it out just as that way. So you’re going to do the drt, that information is gonna come over. That may not be where you’re at financially as a family today that’s okay. Fill it out. Get it submitted. That’s the biggest thing. So then if circumstances have changed, COVID, COVID 2, you know what’s going on in the world craziness and you know a parent loses a job or whatever happens you know, out of the ordinary circumstances. You’re gonna contact your admissions counselor. You’re going to contact us in financial aid. We’re going to step through that process with you, it's called a professional judgement. So anytime there’s department of education federal government involved there’s forms so the fun saying in financial aid is oh we have a form for that. So yes we do have a form for if your income has been reduced. If there's been a separation in the family different things like that we can work through and we’re there you know to go step by step with the families to walk them through it. So it’s intimidating. The most important thing is get your fafsa filled out and if things have changed since the taxes two years ago don’t panic, we’re here to help you.

AB: Yeah and I think just the way that we as a society approach the idea of money at times it can be almost like embarrassing to have to you know let’s say expose something that's let's say personal to your family or things of that nature. But one thing that I do want to say to students is as admissions counselors we’re on your side and we’re really trying to help you as much as we can so it will take a little bit of vulnerability to say hey my family isn’t financially in the same place that you know it was let’s say a year or two years ago and so that’s really important to you know have that kind of vulnerability and also we’re able to help you out much more because of that information rather than trying to hide it or you know put it under the rug. Then at the end of the day you’re actually missing out on maybe getting more financial aid or a better scholarship or whatever it may be. So I think that's something that's important to note as well.

DK: That's a hundred percent because we’re here to help you as a student, you as a family. We get excited when we find money for people. That’s our job so we’re gonna ask questions and we’ve heard it before so yeah please don't be embarrassed about your situation those type of things it’s okay

KM: And believe it or not that is hard for a student to do is just be open up on the phone like that, just saying hey we can’t do this. This it’s hard for us because it’s every student doesn’t feel comfortable enough to do that. But I know one thing for sure about the fafsa, how early should you fill it out and how fast you should try to get that in? Because I know it’s more important to get it in earlier than you can as soon as october first comes around.

DK: Right so what we say in the financial aid offices is we have a priority filing date of December 1st. The reason we do that, so there's different categories of financial aid there's federal financial aid, there’s state financial aid institutional financial aid and then there’s self-help. The reason we say December 1st is for state financial aid. They will actually put a deadline of a date that you have to have your fafsa filled out to qualify for some state programs. So just to be on the safe side we put a priority filing date of December 1st for students. That doesn’t mean if it’s February 2nd and you forgot to fill out your fafsa that you’re not going to do it. Do it, but the priority filing date for us is December 1st.

KM: So that’s important fill it out early soon as possible

DK: Oh yeah which you said right

HF: So really when should you fill out the fafsa? As soon as you can. So October 1st hits, try to fill that thing out. A lot of times when October 1st hits it’s busy. Everyone in the whole nation is trying to fill that fafsa out so you might run into some slowdowns, you might not be able to get in but keep trying until you get that done because yeah December 1st is our priority deadline and then for the Illinois State MAP Grant you would need it in by December 1st to guarantee those funds if you qualify. But as soon as you can then it’s done. You don’t have to worry about it for the next year. Do it just as soon as you can.

AB: Yeah and then I think on the other side as well it gives you more time to analyze like the financial aid and whatever comes out of that. You’re able to kind of sit with that and make a better decision rather than being rushed let’s say you’re doing it at the end of the, at the end of the school year and now you’re trying to find a you know college university and you just you have no idea what to expect because you don’t really have as much time to sit on it and think about it and talk about it.

KM: Oh which question do you want me to go to? I was waiting for you. Okay which question do you want to go to now? So what role does the student and the parents have to do in completing the fafsa in a sense? So what roles do each one of them have and doing it and how should they do it together to get it done as fast as possible?

DK: Yeah that’s a good question. So they each have their own fsa id I think we covered that. So the initial tab, there's different tabs that you fill out on the fafsa the initial ones are the basic demographic information you know your address things like that that you’re going to fill out. There’s going to be a tab just for student information so you know whether it’s the parent or student entering it you know the student needs to be aware of it because at the end the the student fsa id is going to be used and signed on that they looked at the information and this is true and accurate. But there’s also student income information in there and if the student filed the taxes they can do the irs data retrieval that Holly talked about a little bit earlier. Then the next tab is the parent information so you know is one parent at home or two parents in the household you know so both the information is on there if there’s two parents in the household. And the next tab is the parent financials uh that way, so it’s a team effort basically. Like when both of my boys filled it out, we sort of sat down and went through it. It took like I said like 30-35 minutes to do and we sat down on the couch with the laptop you know and went down through the questions together.

AB: Okay and then once you fill it out, what can you kind of expect out of the fafsa. Right so it’s not necessarily you know fafsa isn’t your financial aid package so once you do get your financial aid package you mentioned you know the kind of different modes of financial aid that you can get could you go a little bit deeper into that and explain the difference between like federal merit scholarships those types of things.

DK: Yeah so I like to look at financial aid sorta in four quadrants so let’s back up a little bit. The fafsa itself, what to expect out of that. You’re gonna fill out this fafsa you’re gonna hit the submit, you’re gonna sign it with both fsa ids.

HF: Can I interject?

DK: Please

HF: So there’s two buttons. There’s a save button and a submit button and a lot of times new fafsa filers will hit save but not submit. If you don’t submit it does not ask for those signatures and it will not be completed until you do. So save it if you’ve got to step away and come back. Save it often so you don’t have to, you know you don’t lose something, website doesn’t go down, whatever. But definitely make sure you hit submit because otherwise we will not get it. okay sorry about that.

DK: Right no that’s great. So yeah so once you’ve hit the submit button and it’s gone it will go to the department of education. They’ll go through all their checks they do with the information and then in about seven to ten days you’ll get an email. Sometimes it’s sooner but expect about seven to ten days and you’ll get an email saying okay here's your student aid report. So it’s sort of a summary of what was on the fafsa. It also gives you the efc which I really like to think as an eligibility indicator. So what that tells us in the financial aid department is uh those different quadrants we talked about. So fed federal money you know you hear a lot you know lots of talk about federal financial aid these days the big one is the Pell Grant. So this efc if it’s below around 5400 you will probably get the Pell grant, some amount of Pell grant. So your efc, the eligibility indicator, can range from zero to I don't like a million or something like that a lot. So it’ll be a number that you get back that’s on the student aid report. So that tells us in the financial aid department if you’re Pell grant eligible, if you get the SEOG Grant, if you’d qualify for like a subsidized loan federal direct subsidized loan from the federal government. Things like that on the federal side. The state side same thing applies the efc. If it's below 9000 you most likely will get the Illinois State MAP Grant if you’re an Illinois resident.

HF: And you meet those deadlines 

DK: Right and you meet the deadlines thank you

HF: I mean if you filled too late yeah. That's nine thousand dollars. I mean that's fifty three hundred dollars this year that you would lose.

DK: Right exactly 

AB: And the efc is expected family contribution which is pulled from the right, the irs data that you would put in 

DK: Right it’s all the financial information that you put in. It takes actually, it takes account number of family, number in college, age of the oldest parent. So this actually, the tax rate of your state, I mean it goes into some pretty detailed stuff, pretty complicated calculation but yeah.

KM: And with the MAP and Pell, can you explain a little bit more into that. I know one used to run out before the other but does that still happen now or is that something a little bit different going forward? 

DK: Right so with anything and that’s why it’s sort of fun to work in financial aid it’s always changing. That can also be some of the frustrating parts about financial aid too but that’s okay. Right now the federal Pell grant, you can earn up to 600 percent of your federal basically six years worth of a Pell grant. So if you’re going to college you know full-time in a fall semester that and you use your Pell grant that’s 50 percent. So usually you know fall spring semester is 100 percent so you can do that six times for the Pell grant and then you’re done. That’s your lifetime limit. The Illinois state MAP grant actually just did away with their limit and you can as long as you’re a degree seeking student first bachelor’s degree you can get a MAP grant.

HF: Now we should mention that for the MAP grant you have to live in Illinois and go to an Illinois approved school like in Illinois yeah

DK: And your parents do too. You have to be Illinois residents- parents and students

HF: That’s a better way to put that

KM: Parents and students have to be living in Illinois to get the MAP grant 

HF: If they’re dependent students yes 

KM: Okay I always thought maybe one parent could be living out of state and they can still get it, if they’re living with a parent in state. Does that work that way still or is it a little bit different?

HF: If they’re like in a if they yeah if they’re living like the custodial parent is in Illinois then yeah

KM: Okay 

DK: And if they’re living with, if that parent’s providing more that 50 percent of the support for that student 

HF: Yeah, which could lead to the next question of which parent do we put on the fafsa if my parents are divorced and don’t live together. Which one do you live with 50 percent of the time? You pick that parent.

KM: Right yeah better for yourself

HF: But you know, I mean students going into this they don’t know. It asks for parent one, parent two. Well what if I have a step parent? If you live with the step parent, the step parents information has to be on there also. Yeah it can get kind of confusing.

DK: We’ve heard it all, so don’t again don’t, just let us know and we’ll help you walk through it. Don’t feel whatever about it. It’s okay.

AB: Then one thing that I really always try to tell students when we’ve having like financial aid conversations at least the way that it works at Greenville University is any time that you see the word awards, scholarship, or grant that’s money that you don’t have to pay back. You guys are talking about how sometimes you’ll get a student who said hey I didn’t know that I had to take out loans or that I had these loans and took them out and so that’s something that I do want to tell parents and students as well as they’re looking at the financial aid package you kind of mentioned the four different you know kind of quadrants that loans is also something that you want to be aware of that hey okay this is what i’m taking out. Then you don’t have to take out the loans but you can choose to take out the amount that’s given to you. So yeah I just wanted to mention that as well 

DK: Right and to go back a little. We didn’t finish the four quadrants either, you know. We went to the federal state so then there’s the institutional quadrant too. So what we do as an institution, we take the fafsa information but a lot of it is merit-based, panther preferred. You know all those great scholarships that your admissions folks will be talking to you about. That’s the institutional quadrant right there that we really try to zero in on. And again we’re not trying to hold anything back so we’re giving out as much as we can up front for folks that way. So check the website, you know talk to your admissions counselor. They’re gonna have the latest and greatest on the institutional quadrant on that. The fourth quadrant just to wrap that up there is self-help. That’s sort of where loans come in into play a little bit. But the institutional, the federal government, the state government sort of sees this picture in four quadrants and yes self-help is family, student resources. Some of those could be loans. Most, the majority of universities will package a financial aid package with the federal student loans. So nine times out of ten if you get a financial aid package there are going to be loans on there. Absolutely do not have to take those out if you don’t want to. Again, those are just offers out there. Usually what we do for the federal student loans is we put the max amount out there and you can reduce that down to whatever amount or just decline them all together as well. But the self-help quadrant as well, you know be thinking about summer jobs, you know christmas presents from grandma and grandpa, you know hey help me buy some college books or something you know things like that or a laptop. You know things like that you need for college. Start thinking about that your junior, senior year and you can start ramping up some resources outside scholarships 

HF: Yes 

DK: Holly knows about that 

HF: I will tell you until I worked in financial aid I did not realize how much five hundred dollars will add up. I mean a 500, if you get three $500 scholarships from I don’t know your school has scholarships a lot of times. In my community there’s an air force family that does a scholarship in honor of their son. Apply. It takes a little bit of effort on your part but if you get a thousand dollar scholarship that’s a thousand less dollars you have to pay. And it adds up. I was surprised until I worked here I didn’t really realize how much that would add up.

DK: So yeah, so you ask your high school guidance counselor. They should, that would be a good resource. You can do google searches. You know there are search engines out there or websites for external scholarships like that as well that you can go. Sometimes your parents' work will have that. Another great thing that we do here at Greenville University is a church partnership scholarship. So if a church is willing to give money up to a thousand dollars we will match that. Greenville University will match that money. So if they give $500 we’ll match it with $500. So there’s your thousand dollars again. So just keep an eye out and ask around you know with those people and anybody you know really you know, where do you get outside scholarships or external scholarships. 

HF: And you really might get it. I had a student in my office this year who was like I applied for a $10,000 scholarship and I wound up with $5,000 for fall and $5,000 for spring. We never thought, I mean I don’t want to give false hope right but they were like I really did not think this was going to happen and I was so excited for them because that’s funds they don’t have to repay.

DK: But if you don’t ask the question. You don’t do the research. The answer is going to be no. 

HF: And if you don’t apply

DK: Exactly

HF: You’re not. I mean search them out 

KM: Yeah I know being an admissions counselor here we always talk about doing like  external scholarships and how important it is to do them early and start getting working on it too as well. But they do, like you said, it does add up very quickly and they can help out a  tremendous amount if you just take the time to sit there and do it. So if any students are really listening and sitting in on this with their parents, take that time to go look at outside scholarships because it will help you a tremendous amount whether it be a $200 scholarship or to a $10,000 scholarship it adds up. It can help pay for school and it makes things much better and much easier to be more financially capable for stuff.

DK: So if your student is bored at home that should be the go-to response. Well have you looked for scholarships recently? 

KM: Yes

DK: You know if your friends are over and bored, get together and look for scholarships. I’ve heard of having scholarship search parties you know of students doing that so 

KM: That’s a winning circle right there. I wish I had more of that as a student 

DK: And you can do it even after you’re in college. You can continue to look for those external scholarships. It doesn’t stop that

HF: That’s correct

DK: First year in college 

KM: Wait so you can look for more scholarships while you’re in school still?

DK: Yeah yeah for sure 

KM: I just learned something new

HF: You might not want to, I don’t, okay you might want to edit this out, but I get a lot of calls, “hey I saw this scholarship on your website do I qualify for this?” Institutional aid is ran through the admissions department. Federal aid is the financial aid department. So if you’re interested and see if you want to qualify for an institutional scholarship, call your admissions counselor. We kind of do what they tell us on that end you know. Now, you got a question about your Pell grant or your subsidized loan or your MAP grant? We are more than happy to try and answer that for you and tell you if you qualify but as far as qualifying for institutional aid always start with admissions. And you can edit that out if you want but i’m just I thought that because that I mean I get that question all the time.

KM: What are some common questions that you guys get up there, besides what you just said Holly. What are some common questions you guys get from parents when you’re on the phone with them about financial aid?

DK: Wow well Holly is the one that is the sort of the front person in our office that if you call the financial aid office you’re going to talk to Holly.

HF: Yes you are 

DK: That way so I’m going to try to defer to her. I’m stalling a little bit so she can maybe think of some some 

HF: I mean I think we’ve covered a lot of them. I also get a lot of student account questions but that’s not really what this is about.

DK: So there is a separation. We’re financial aid. We’re going out and looking for money.  Where you make payments in your student account and all the billing and stuff happens in a whole nother office department 

HF: And we cross over. I mean I’m more than willing to help you if I know the answer but sometimes I just don’t know those answers and you need to talk to student accounts and you know vice versa they do the same for us.

AB: Something that you know even right now as we’re talking i’m noticing that you know on the student and parents side it’s a team effort and then also on our side right it’s a team effort between admissions and financial aid. So we want listeners to understand that a lot of times this is something that’s new for families, it's something that they’ve never done before. They don’t necessarily know how to navigate it as easily and that’s 100 percent okay. There should be no shame in that and we actually you know, we have our phone numbers on the websites and you can actually set up appointments to talk about you know financial aid and talk about the different scholarships that you may qualify for. So I think that’s also something that is important to note as you listen to this podcast or watch that we, you know, even though we deal with these things on a daily basis we still recognize that they can be difficult to navigate even for us as we deal with them. So definitely on the student and parents side it’s not going to be the easiest walk as well so we are a resource that you can reach out to and you know get help and we’ll do our best to really make college the best investment that you can make. 

DK: Absolutely. So let me just cover the timeline real quick is as you talk about helping. So fill out your fafsa in October. First, you should be applying and getting accepted to Greenville and then starting usually about the first of December ish, depending on how you know software updates and all those types of things the federal government announcements all those things come into play. We will start doing financial aid packages. So October and November you should be filling out your fafsa getting that done. December, January and on we will start sending out financial aid packages and then obviously once you get that, your admissions counselor, the admissions folks are the great first line of uh you know of reference that you can call for questions there. Then we’re sort of the backup. That way we’re sort of calvary that comes in you know if needed so.

KM: And I do want to say with financial aid calls. Do not be scared to call us because that’s what we’re here to help you guys do. We know those numbers can be very intimidating when you’re looking at it all the time saying like what does this number go to where is this money going to or how does this work? That's why we are here. We want to help you guys in the best ways possible. So that’s when we set up phone calls with you guys to do financial aid calls we’re going to walk through it step by step and if we don’t know the answer we’re going to ask them and they’re going to figure out the answer for us so that way we can help the best way as possible because at the end of the day we want to make this possible for you to be a student.

DK: Absolutely

KM: Well guys we want to thank you for coming on the podcast with us again today.

DK: It’s been great

HF: It’s been fun 

KM: And that’s right