Masterclass: FAFSA Uncovered- What You Don't Know Will Cost You

Welcome everyone. My name is Shellee Howard and I am the founder and CEO of College Ready NC, our future now. And I know how you're feeling about the FAFSA. Please do not shoot the messenger. I am a mother of 4 and so I truly am doing the same thing as you are. I have 2 who graduated college, and I have 2 that are in college. So I feel your pain. Just remember, I'm here to give you this information because I believe knowledge is power. I believe when you get to make choices, life gets easier. So again, I'm going to do super fast and furious. I'm going to give you an opportunity to review the video if you need to, because it is a lot of information. But I'm so glad you're here. I chose back in 2008 to make this my mission, my passion, and help families just like yours all over the United States get into their dream college and graduate without debt. So a little bit about me, um, I'll be sharing in just a moment, but I just want to make sure you're in the right room. Um, what you do not know will cost you. It, uh, is proven. And I want you to know that I am a certified Student Aid Index, FAFSA, and CSS Profile specialist. College Ready has been around for 17 years, and we have made it our mission to get a return on investment of a college education. So if that sounds exciting, let's go ahead and jump on in. I will be answering questions at the end, so hopefully I will answer them before you can think of them. So these two beauties are my two oldest. They're my why. My why, my mission is to support teenagers and their families to get into the best fit college and graduate debt-free. Because I know it's possible, and these two are proof. So my son on the right, he went to Harvard pre-med, 4 years, completely free. It was an amazing thing. I know you're thinking Harvard says they're not free, but they did match a full-ride education at USC. I don't know how you want to check that box, but I'm here to say that that money I saved in my 529 almost cost my son a full-ride scholarship at Harvard. So I say almost because he was in and out in 4 years. He was part of a final club. He was part of, uh, the rowing team, and he loved his Harvard experience. From there, he went on to UC San Diego Medical School, as you can see in his cap and gown. He graduated medical school, and now he is at UCLA as an orthopedic surgeon Oh, going on 4 years residency. He'll be 30 this upcoming May, and I'm super excited because it's time for him to launch, and, uh, we can't wait to do that. Um, he will be completely debt-free by the time he graduates and starts his, uh, surgical, um, life. Uh, me in the middle, of course, proud mama, and to the other side is my daughter She had a totally different dream. Her dream was a big D1 football school, the full experience, the sororities, the whole bit. And she got a full ride to University of Alabama. She is a registered nurse in the pediatric ward or the pediatric emergency room and helps babies recover from awful things. I couldn't imagine what she does every day, but I have a doctor and a nurse and I am needle-phobic. My third child, my stepson, will graduate this year completely debt-free. He will have done it in 3 years, and the youngest is actually studying abroad, abroad, and getting a dual degree in the Czech Republic for both the US and European, and she'll graduate in 3 and a half years completely debt-free. So what I'm gonna share with you tonight, I found out because I had the need. So if you're that parent going, I'm just frustrated, I make too much money, or I don't make enough money, but I'm not need-based, and you're my people. That's exactly where all of my students and families are. I can help need-based students. I can help merit-based students. I can help individual scholarships. Our goal is the return on investment of the education. And what does that look like? So hold on, because here it comes. During this session, we call it a masterclass because I'm teaching. We are— I want you to gain a comprehensive understanding of the changes to the FAFSA application. I would like you to learn valuable tips and strategies and to maximize your financial aid eligibility. And I'd like you to get answers to your specific questions during the interactive question and answer. Also receive expert insights. I just did one of these I guess 3 nights ago, and I got a 5-star review on Google. So I'm hoping you too will feel like you got a 5-star experience. If you think I talk fast, you are welcome to join the private College Ready Debt Free Facebook group. We keep it private because we don't want people, um, having deep, scary conversations, and we want to support them. So we will be putting the recording there. If you would like a copy. So the number one question I get asked is, when is the best time to start your college admissions financial strategy? Because that's what we're talking about tonight. We— CollegeReady handles the admission standout strategy, the scholarship strategy, and then the financial, how am I going to pay for college strategy. So it's important to know that This is the low end, right? This is the high end. If you start when your child is a baby or in elementary school, your chances of getting a substantial amount of money is here. If you do it when your student is in their sophomore year, maybe junior year of high school, you're looking here. If you are just thinking about it today and you have a high school senior, you are here. In other words, I, I want you to leave this understanding that there's a ton of money. I know where it's at. My team knows where it's at. I want you to know where it's at. And so I just want to encourage you, no matter if you saved a ton in the right place, if you understand that the FAFSA, Oops, that the FAFSA looks at the second semester of your sophomore year and the first semester of your junior year. But if you're a senior and you're like, I am so mad at myself, I didn't start this earlier, just know we can help all of you, and that is what we're going to do. So I want to talk a little bit— everybody wants a roadmap. Just tell me what I need to do. I tried to simplify this as much as possible. So there are 3 buckets of money. There's institutional aid, need-based, and merit aid. I am going to get to the FAFSA, but I think the foundation of why the FAFSA is important is what I want you to understand here. So institutional aid comes from picking the correct colleges. You want to make sure you have reach, comfort, and safety. You want to make sure that you have colleges that are neat. Sorry, that are very generous and maybe not so generous. So you have the ability to do financial negotiations, ask for financial reconsiderations. These are the things we can do. You want to market your student the very best they can be because ultimately that's, you know, that's them. You want to apply to schools that align with your students' and family's financial goals. If they want to be a botanist and they want to go to a top-tier Ivy school, you may want to look at the return on investment. Not that a botanist is not important. They're just not going to make the kind of money to warrant $300,000 to $400,000 in, in debt. Test scores are critical in this strategy. They are not optional if you want money. Advice on the CSS Profile and institutional aid is what you would get with us. So we explain to you what the CSS looks like, looks at, and what they don't— the FAFSA and the SAI. So important to note, every student should complete the FAFSA regardless how much money you do or don't make. And you'll hear me say that time and time again. The middle bucket is need-based. We can tell you by the time your student is in 8th grade, your student aid index, how much colleges think your family should pay for college. We have a calculator that is spot on, and we are happy to run those numbers for you. All you have to do is do a very brief, very brief financial questionnaire, or you don't even have to do that. I can give you a link, you put in your information, and up it pops. So if you don't even want to share your financials, I'm good on that too. Um, understanding your retirement. Are you going to spend your retirement, or are you going to have a different strategy? Financial education is critical in need-based, and reallocating your assets accordingly is important. We advise on the FAFSA, the CSS Profile, and the Student Aid Index, as well as getting into college. So we are very unique in the college admissions world. And so the final one is your big bucket of money, and that's the merit aid. This is where your SAT, ACT, AP, IB, dual enrollment, All of those are so critical. Strategic college selection, award letter analysis, and helping you appeal. Most students don't even know that this is something they can take advantage of. College Ready students earned over $23 million in scholarships on top of need-based 2022-23. That was 51 students. So when you look on social media and you're discouraged that somebody had a perfect perfect GPA and a perfect test score didn't get into their dream school, let alone, um, get scholarships. Just please, please don't listen. There's so much money out there. Our students every single year are earning massive scholarships. So we're college ready, and we are See Our Future Now because some students are not sure if they want to go to college. But they still need to have their future plans. So if you have a student who's not sure what they want to do, what they want to major in, what kind of career, so on and so forth, we can support those students as well. Because the, the quickest way to get out of college debt-free is to get in, be very strategic, and get out. There are many colleges that take 6 years to get a 4-year degree. That is not a good strategy. We're gonna dive into the FAFSA now because that's, I think, why you signed up. This is about you and your child. This information can save you thousands of dollars. It did for myself and my firstborn. I learned how a 529 could cost a full ride scholarship and take your breath away. So if you have a 529, I just encourage you to be very careful. The FAFSA or the colleges would like that money first. Thank you very much. So have a strategy that, that you understand. We're going to talk about why is the FAFSA important to file, why the FAFSA has changed, list some, some changes to be aware of. I'm going to break it down. I'm going to help you understand what a student aid index is and how is it calculated. How can, how can your family be impacted and what do you need to know? There's a lot I need to cover, so I'm going to keep going. Finally, the FAFSA can provide access. Okay, if you take nothing from this whole webinar, FAFSA equals access to money. If you do not want any free money, do not complete the FAFSA. I hopefully that will help you understand, because if you don't complete the FAFSA, their freshman year in college and something happens to you or your financials, you're done. You can't go back and say, oopsie, I made a mistake. It is that important if you want money. Why is the FAFSA important to file? Well, I think it's the free money, but there's other good reasons. So when you understand cost of attendance When you understand return on investment of this education, you'll realize it's not about picking a school based on the football team or the logo, or maybe the U.S. News and World Report rankings. It's so much more than that. We can show our students the exact GPA, the exact test scores, the community service hours, the leadership, the extracurriculars, the letters of recommendation. The essays. We can show them all of that because remember, if they don't get into college, you don't need to worry about the FAFSA. It really is all-inclusive. So please, please complete the FAFSA. I do not work for them. I do not get a kickback. I can just tell you how many families I've seen over 17 years wish they would have when they didn't. Research has shown that the FAFSA is overly complicated, and that is why it was changed. For those of you who have completed it this year, I feel your pain. It may not be as complicated, but there are some serious barriers and frustration. So the changes are important to note, but what I want you to know, the biggest change is you have to be willing to connect it to your taxes. And remember, it's prior, prior year. The FAFSA looks the second semester of the sophomore year and the first semester of the junior year. So understanding the FAFSA is important. I'm going to share a little bit of my experience with the FAFSA as a parent when I was going through this. It sounded like another language, kind of like tax code. And so I knew even if my child got into a USC or a Harvard, I had no idea how I was going to do that and take care of my other kids and the house and all of that., and it was just terrifying to me to think that my kid would be strapped with all this debt. They wouldn't buy a house, they wouldn't be able to buy a car. Like, it was heavy on my mind. So I read the FAFSA 3 times. The first 2 times I fell asleep. Third time I got through it, and I will tell you, I now completely understand it. Here are some of the basic changes that you want to be aware of. The open date for the FAFSA was December of this year. The number of questions has been reduced. The language is more closely aligned to what's on your income tax returns. The eligibility for the Pell Grant has increased, not by a ton, but it has increased. The Pell Grant may not exceed the cost of attendance. Basic foundational stuff. Dependent students and their parents contributing to the FAFSA must consent to have their IRS data imported. Let me stop here and pause. So the government's not learning anything more about your family. You've already filed your taxes, right? Now they're going to take and they're going to connect them. They're both government agencies. If you say no, you cannot complete the FAFSA. That's it. Students who have parents refuse to file the FAFSA will be eligible for some stuff, but not the big stuff. Colleges are required to offer the opportunity for students to appeal their financial aid award. This is what I've been telling parents for so many years. You do not have to pay the sticker price. Would you go up to a home and pull the flyer and pay that price? No. Well, maybe in California, but nowhere else. Would you go up to the car lot and pull the sticker and go, that's what, what I'm going to pay? Why would you do it for college? Our students, our families understand it is a business. That is not what you need to do. Here's some language changes. The SAI, which is Student Aid Index, replaces Expected Family Contribution. It's not just a name change, but it's important you understand the name. So a contributor is used to describe anyone putting personal information on the FAFSA. This could be the student, one parent, or both parents. Unusual circumstances are when a student is unable to contact a parent or where contact with a parent possesses a risk. Be careful here. I've had many creative families trying to manipulate the system. And I will tell you that you will need legal proof of this. It's not something you can just say. So just be mindful, everything has to be documented. Special circumstances are when a student or contributor expresses significant changes to their financial situation. I had a job, now I don't have a job. There were two parents, now there's one parent. These are special circumstances where you can ask for financial negotiations, reconsiderations. Enrollment intensity is the percentage of full-time enrollment at which a student is enrolled. Generally, 12 credit hours is considered 100% enrolled. That is 4 classes. That is not— actually, yeah, it's 4 classes. Some, some have a little extra credits, but in general, it's 4 classes. Personal circumstances is now used to describe the question relating to the dependency on the FAFSA. Federal tax information is the new term used for discussing tax information. Direct data exchange replaces IRS data retrieval. FAFSA submission Summary replaces the SAR. Other Financial Assistance replaces Estimated Financial Assistance. Financial Need is updated to be Cost of Attendance, your Student Aid Index. Now we're gonna talk about a few important things. Number one is our senior class is full. If you are on this call and you have a senior and you need help, I have people I can refer you to. We, College Ready and See Our Future Now, are full for our senior class. We do not take an unlimited number of students. We actually take 20 students per grade because we know what it takes to get in. What it takes to get scholarships, and what it takes to fund. So if you have a sophomore, a junior, a freshman, an 8th grader, and a very mature 7th grader, or a very mature 7th grader, I am going to offer you to complete your Student Aid Index for free. You can see here, all you have to do is follow this link to set up your discovery session. You put in the data. I don't need to see your finances, and I calculate the numbers for you. It is an incredibly powerful system that I have paid thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars to help you do this. If you are a senior and you're like, I have no idea how I'm going to pay for the college that I, my kid applied to. I have funding specialists who can help you do that. So just know I'm not sending you away. I just cannot be proactive. It's more reactive for seniors. For the younger students, remember that the FAFSA looks at the second semester of your sophomore year and the first semester of your junior year. Why is that important? Because you shouldn't wait until your senior year. I know it's frustrating if you haven't heard this before, but at least you hear it now, and you can be the advocate, the superhero, to let other people know how important this is to get a jump start. Our students start as young as 7th and 8th grade. On average, our students start in 9th, 10th, and 11th. So we do have some seniors if there's spots available. So I just kind of want to help you Get your mind wrapped around that. So the change to the student aid index is because many families just totally misunderstood it. And I will tell you, I don't have too many families who find it super easy. And that is why I do these free sessions, because it's incredibly frustrating when you get this SAI number back and you're like, what is this? And how does— how do they calculate this? And how can I make it better? We can teach you what's on the FAFSA, what's not on the FAFSA, what's on the SAI, what's not on the SAI, which means, right, you can fix it. You don't need to live with it. So how is the SAI used? The Student Aid Index is an eligibility index for student financial aid that colleges and universities use to identify students with financial need and their eligibility for financial aid. Think of the Student Aid Index as eligibility. FAFSA eligibility. What they're trying to figure out is where can we get money for your student? Is it merit? Is it need? Is it sports? Is— where's the money going to come from? The SAI is step number one. So changes to income and assets calculations. So there are situations, right, where you have income changes. You could have child support, you could have a job, not a job, you can have workman's comp, you can have money gifted to a student. Uh, be careful there, that could be very scary and hurt them in the long run. Qualified 529 distributions from grandparents, etc., will not impact, but your 529 and your student's 529 will hurt you. Asset exclusion, exclusion changes. Small businesses, they now count it. Net worth of a farm, they now count it. Education savings account will only be counted as a parent asset if designated for a dependent student. So the 529 and education accounts are really tricky. So be mindful. Do not Google it because you will find everything under the sun., and it is quite intimidating. How could your family be impacted? Well, if you're a single parent, a lot has changed. If you have multiple education savings plans, yep, that's changed. You only have one child in college at a time. Yep, that's changed. So just know if your family has a farm or a small business, that's changed. If you have multiple children in college at the same time, That changed. Your family income is higher than $60,000. That changed. So what do you do to prepare for these changes? Number 1, you know, when the FAFSA opens, traditionally it's always open in October. This year with the changes, they barely made it by the end of December. Students and their parents should create, or you need to create, a FAFSA ID. Now if you don't already have one. So first the parent goes in, creates one. It's all free. All of this is free, so there's no reason not to do it. Then the student creates one, then the parent connects to the child. There are a lot of scary rules here, okay? When it comes to which parent— doesn't need to be both parents. What if you're divorced? Who, who is the best parent to, to be the one with the ID? There's a strategy for all of that. So just know That's gonna be helpful. Set a meeting with me to calculate your SAI. I'm happy to help. I, I do this and I'm part of the Society of Financial Awareness because I want you to know what your choices are. You can also sign up for our private Facebook group. It's totally free and we post so many great resources in there. I didn't charge anything for this webinar and I'm not here to sell you anything. I know you're probably shocked. I go on webinars all the time. I know that feeling. I want you to know we're different. I have a bestselling book, How to Send Your Student to College Without Losing Your Mind or Your Money. If you can't afford it on Amazon, I am happy to gift it to you. I do not want to leave any child left behind. We focus on the student and the parent because we know that a 17-year-old has no idea how much $300,000 in college debt will mean to them in their future. We create a standout strategy so your student gets the big scholarships. We find the perfect major, college, and career where they will get a return on their investment of education. Like I said, I'm not here to sell you anything, but there are things you can do that will help build your knowledge. Number 1 is get your SAI calculated and learn how to reduce it to get the big scholarships. That's the QR code on the left. If you want to watch this again, because I did rapid, um, information trying to keep the time down— oh, I have one more minute. Um, please sign up for the College Ready Debt Free private Facebook group. We vet everybody in there so you feel safe, and we can give you the right information without other people chiming in to discourage you. So with that, I thank you all very much, and I hope that this has been incredibly helpful for you. If you need anything, please sign up with me. Let me help your family. If you have a senior and a freshman or a senior and a sophomore, I can speak to all ages. We can help your family, but just remember, Our senior year is full, and we wish you all the best. Thank you so much, and I hope you have a wonderful day, evening, or morning. Thank you.