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Financial Aid 101

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Learn everything you need to know about the financial aid process during this one hour information session for students, parents and guardians.

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so let's get started what is financial aid who would like to share with me what they think of when they hear the term financial aid what does it mean you can type your answers in the chat or you can unmute and you can speak them out loud does it mean that the state of the government pays for your tuition or whatever you can't pay that is definitely part of it absolutely we have a couple of answers in the Chad Gregory now I'm sorry if I'm pronouncing your name wrong says financial assistance and Michael mint World money provided by the government to help pay for tuition board and other school fees at can come in Grant's absolutely this is all true. There's more to it anybody want to offer any is it all free money okay all right so it's not all free money but all the answers that will given are correct and but it is a whole lot more than that it is a loaded term so we're going to we're going to explore the entire gamut of financial aid and I hope that you all going to have a much better understanding of what financial aid means overall when we're done I'm moving on there are various types of financial aid first of all I would like to say that all college students in New York state are fortunate that we do live in New York state where every college student does get the opportunity to attend classes at a college of their choosing at prices their families can afford that is one of the Hallmarks of what we do here is that we make sure that all of our students are attending colleges that are not going to present an undue financial burden on them or on their families either during the time that they're in college or afterwards when they may have to start paying awesome loans so financially it is accessed through first of all grants the federal Pell Grant is the one source that the most students access money through that comes from the United States government the New York State tap award for students attending college in New York state or from New York state is for students whose families earn less than $80,000 annually then we have the new New York State DREAM Act Grant it which is a grant for undocumented students who live anywhere in New York state The Excelsior scholarship Grant which is strictly for tuition for public colleges for students from middle-class families whose G families earn more than $80,000 annually and then there are Merritt grants from colleges that are offered at the time that you were accepted what all grants have in common is that they are funny that you do not have to pay back you won't have to pay them back except in the case of the Excelsior scholarship which we will which we will discuss briefly later on but the other thing grants that you need to know is that they generally are repeated year after year so if you win American from a college and one year you can generally expect to get it the following year did owe for the New York State tap award and the federal Pell Grant unless the family's income changes substantially from one year to the next then we have other types of financial aid work study which is a system in which students work on the campus of the college in order to get money that can then either be used to pay off their tuition or or other bills with the college or it can going to the students pocket for for walking around money for pocket money odd it is also not money that it is also money that you do not have to pay back then we have opportunity and success programs in that only for lower-income New York State residents attending colleges in New York state they will talk about these programs a little bit more for the run but they are available in public and private colleges across the state then you have loans federal guaranteed student loans that come from the federal government that the students must stay back after they graduate Federal Parent Plus Loans that come from the federal government as well but payback by the parents and then you have private laws and generally when you read the stories about students who graduate from college with 100 or $150,000 in debt what they have done is they taking out private loans because usually the federal government will not give people enough money to make it difficult for themselves paying back out paying them back after they graduate what's the private loans that we need to be careful about and we generally in our College office do not recommend that families take them on tax credits for parents if you pay taxes to the federal government or to the state government there will be a credit against those taxes so you can get back up words as much as $3,500 a year from the federal government and up to I think it's about $2,000 a year for the state government and then in addition to that scholarship which we will address a little bit later on scholarships can come from government agencies private organizations there are Merit Scholarships from the college that you attend would you apply for a base tan strong grades or particular levels of success than the program that you're in and then athletic scholarships which might not be what folks think they are we will discuss those little bit later on as well are there any questions right now about the different types of financial aid self moving along let's dig down a little bit more into grant money grants her money that stood in do not have to pay back or work for all students May apply for the various grants that are available so you can always apply it doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to get the money based on your family's income but you can all students have the opportunity to apply for these cramps so you have the federal Pell Grant which today is worth up to approximately $6,300 annually it's applied for through the fat the application then you have the New York State tap Grant which again is only for students from New York State who are attending college with in New York state which is worth up to approximately $5,200 annually it's applied for through the hesc website which is the higher education Higher Education Services Corporation of New York State the New York State DREAM Act Grant which is equal in value to the tap Grant which is available it's available to undocumented students The Excelsior scholarship which is worth up to $5,000 annually strictly for tuition for public colleges students whose families are in too much for them to qualify for the full power and tap amounts so it can be worth up to $5,000 total in grant money including any federal Powell and New York State tap cramps that you and then again the Merit grants from private colleges which are awarded at the time you were offered admission so if you get a notification from a college that you've been accepted either in that notification or soon after you will be told that you've been offered a merit Grant sometimes they can be worth a lot of money sometimes they're worth only a couple few thousand dollars but I have seen Merritt grants as high as 30 to $40,000 per year any questions about grants moving on loans is I'm sorry there is one question Thomas just asking when completing the fast but I must both parents income be listed or only the parent who the child resides with okay so that's a bit of a that's a bit of a compass dated a question not terribly complicated but it's a great question and it needs to be addressed and I'm glad it was asked when a student lives with only one of his parents then that students financial aid will be based on that parents income so the general rule of thumb is that your financial aid applications and your financial aid Awards will be based on the in come of the parent with whom you live with most of the year if your parents live together then both of their income will be listed on the applications sometimes we get complicated situations where students to living with neither of their parents and then we have to kind of sort it out we have to dig into what the actuality is who is the guardian who is listing students on their tax return but primarily the test is who does the student live with must appear sorry does the amount of parent make qualified student from the federal Pell Grant and the New York State tap Grant so the question is the amount that the student makes disqualify a student from the federal Pell Grant and the news again it depends on the amount of money that the that the parent makes it depends partially on the size of the family and it depends on how many students in the family are in college at the time when you have more than one person in the family attending college then your grant money will be increased and I don't think that there's a particular index but nice to say in our experience in our school most of our students qualify for the full pit Federal Pell Grant and the full New York State tap Grant but as your income goes up then you can expect the award to be reduced I can tell you that when my own son went to college he was going to college in another state and we received a very small amount of money into the Pell Grant and because he was going to school in Boston we received nothing to the New York State tap Grant but had I had another child in college at the time I would anticipate that each of them would have gotten a little bit more I don't know if that answers the question exact if I guess the the short answer is it depends okay and we have two more question, do ask so what if you live with both parents but they filed separately okay so filing separately does not mean that there are excluding that either one is excluded from the income whether they file jointly or they file separately as long as the parents are married and they are Guardians of the student then their finances will be included that's a really good question and Janiah asked do we have to we have to 54 Merit Grant generally you do not have to apply for merit grants and that's another really good question understand that Merit grants only come from private colleges in general or not only but in general they they come from private colleges occasionally some of the public colleges will be able to offer Merit grant money to the to the outstanding students who apply to their colleges but the damara kranson not generally something that you apply for because private colleges will offer you a merit Grant in order to make sure that you are able to afford to attend that college so when you submit your FAFSA you will get a number at the at the final page when you when you get your confirmation that will tell you what your estimated family contribution is or the EFC again most of our students to end up having efc's of 0 but let's say your e f c is $2,000 so they're anticipating that your family will have to pay about $10,000 to attend the college but the college actually cost $60,000 a year to attend then they are going to put together a package includes the grants and any loans that you might be eligible for and then they're going to make up the difference with the Merit cramps that they decide to award you so the Marriott Grande Can it can actually become a number that they plug to make sure that your family will be able to afford to attend that college they've accepted you they want you to go there but they know you're not going to go there if you can't afford it so that's where the married friend comes in I hope that answered the question any additional questions moving on now loans loan was as we know our funds that a student has to pay back students receive them while they're in college but they must be paid back once they graduate or otherwise we've college so with the Federal he'd loans you do not have to put start paying them back until you leave College whether it's for through graduation or just deciding to stop attending classes but you must apply for the Federal just be at the FAFSA so they are automatic every student is offered the opportunity to take out up to $5,500 a year in loans from the federal government so they break down this way the sub rise loans mean that no interest is accruing or building up while you are in college you will only have to start paying interest after you've left the college and started to pay off the loans then have unsubsidized loans which are approximately $2,000 and these loans the interest does accrue or start to build up at the time that the loan is taken out so if you take title loan for freshman year you're not paying it back before years but the interest is starting to build up now you could make a judgment about whether that's fair or not I happen to think it's not fair but it is just the way it is and you we generally do recommend that students take advantage of the of these loans the federal guaranteed loans in order to make sure that they can afford to go to because the worst case scenario is that the end of at the end of the four years that you've attended College you're going to have about $22,000 in loans to pay off and that generally translates to about $100 monster 10 years for every $10,000 that you've taken out so if you have taken out $20,000 in loans over 4 years you graduate you have a $200 a month I meant to make over a. Of 10 years but presumably you've gotten a good job in the field that you wanted to go into so you go to college to become a nurse you got work as a nurse after you've left you're paying $200 a month but maybe you're earning $5,000 a month or you're learning a lot potentially a lot more than that so over the course of a career the $22,000 becomes a very small amount the money relatively speaking then you have Parent Plus Loans these are loans that they aren't I haven't generally seen them automatically off but in situations where there is a gap between the financial aid that is being offered through the guaranteed loans and the grants and the total of cost of attending then the college will offer the opposite parents the opportunity request these loans most of the time what I've seen is that parents opted to just pay that money as they go but we have some some students take out these loans they are also relatively low interest and the money is coming from the government rather than from private Banks and then we have private loans where you would have to go to a bank and request this money the interest generally starts to recruit a crew or build up the moment you take out the money and the kicker that sometimes gets folks in trouble is that the rates can be variable so the bank can decide to raise the interest rate you are anticipating paying a 6% in all of a sudden you looking at a loan that's maybe that you'll be in charge eight or nine or 10% on and now you dealing with something that you didn't expect so we want we really want our families 2 very careful about taking out loans in general but especially these private loans does anybody have any questions about loans so there is a link in this slide in this slide presentation which I plan to make available to anybody who wants it you can click on it and that will take you to the federal page the page on studentaid.gov where you can learn more about the loans so this will give you the space will give you all the information that you need about the about the loans that are that are available does anybody have any questions about Lawrence questions in a chat about the loan okay I'm back I miss them are this is Miss Thomas yes I just don't be afraid of the Federal loans what I found because my estimated family contribution is out of control that I basically only qualify for a parent plus loan need it but I took it cuz you recommended me to take it and I'm glad I did cuz what I realized it also off open up opportunities for Dana to qualify for college like endowment scholarship because they see that they're still a need and you know I don't know if that's the reason but I feel like that's the reason that if I had not applied for the Parent PLUS Loan you know that she would not have qualified for the other scholarships at the school the school offers their own scholarship within our engineering department and she qualified for you because the estimated family contribution in the course of the school there was a gap so I just want people to fill in Courage Mountain great, that's a great story so I think what you're saying is that if you if you do the Parent PLUS Loan it not only will help you afford to pay for your child's College in the we are now but it may also send up a red flag to the college that you're not easily able to afford this and that if they don't reach out with more money from their own funds that they may lose the student body that's good to know are there any other questions about loans right now okay let's move on all right I'm sorry my screen is frozen okay there we go alright work-study federal work-study jobs help students earn money to pay for college or trade career schools so they they are part-time jobs they're available to undergraduate graduate students who need the money they're not going to go to the to the students whose parents are writing a check for all of their tuition they're going to go to the students who students we were referring to but are the ones who need loans and grants in order to afford to go to school they usually worth about two to three thousand dollars per year which in the general scheme of things is not a ton of money but they can often make the difference between having to pay money pocket or having everything covered when you're in school so the money can be used to pay off your bills with the college or the the money can be put into the student's bank account and then used for incidental expenses other costs in college it's administered by schools that participate actively in the federal work-study program should not all schools offer work-study if it is something that you that is very important to you than you can check with the college's financial aid office to find out if they participate any questions about work study going to click on the link because it keeps taking me out of full-screen when I do that but in this presentation wherever it says link that means that it's a link that you can click on to get more information directly from a website that offers comprehensive information on that topic any questions about work study moving on okay so what do you need to apply for financial aid this is where our students tend to run into the greatest roadblocks oh my God I got to do this application I don't know what information I need my parents don't know information we need we've never done this before I'm the First Student in my family to go to college college is expensive how are we going to pay for it and then very often students over by the process and the truth is the FAFSA is really pretty simple to complete especially for families who just work for a living if you have if you own property if you have your own business and other factors can make the FAFSA a little bit complicated but for the most part it's a pretty simple application you'll find that it's really not that difficult to complete so what do you need you need Social Security numbers for the students and the parents you need a family tax return If the parents worked and filed a tax return in the current in the year that is being looked at then you will need that tax return there's no way that you'll be able to proceed on your financial aid applications if you don't have it if you don't have it communicate with me there are ways to get your hands on copies even if you're not in contact with your tax preparer you're there is a way to apply to the federal government to get a transcript of your tax return so the forms that were looking for are the Federal Form and 40 which most everybody files and the New York state it-201 which most everybody files so if you've done your tax return you've kept it held onto your copies of documents you should have them sitting right in that folder and below in your file cabinet other documents that can be used if there is not a tax return W to switch of the income statements you receive from your employer at the at the end of each year in order to do your taxes whether you filed your taxes are not that W2 can be very helpful if there if nobody in the family works and has an income from wages then but you receive Social Security or supplemental security you can use those statements to verify income if a family member is receiving a pension from their previous work that used New York City public assistance and snap budget statements so we call the budget letters and not really letters there a big print out those documents also hold information that can be used to verify the financial aid on FAFSA and then child support documentation if a parent is receiving child support or alimony from a former spouse than that also be used and then finally folks who are on disability or have had to leave their jobs because of an injury than you can also use statements from workers compensation ability these are the documents that are Nest that are needed in order to be able to fill out the FAFSA and the tap applications each person working on this phone the student and the parent must have what's called an fsaid which is fancy term for your user ID you will register on the FAFSA website it takes about 10 or 15 minutes to go through the motions on that get everything inputted and then you get your fsaid which you will which will follow you forever so if you are a student today and your apparent in 20 years applying for college for your for your child then you will be able to use the same fsaid if you've had a student if you had an older student who went through college or is currently in college you can use the same fsaid for the parent that you use but that other child but the student and the parent must have that FSA ID in order to perform various functions on the FAFSA application most importantly signing used to be you did a paper form you mailed it off to the government it's not done that way any anymore it's done online so we use the fsaid to facilitate the signature and then a computer with Wi-Fi access please do not do these applications on your phone I wrestle with the students all the time because they're trying to use their phones to complete their applications and these applications are not meant to interface well with the operating systems that we have on our cell phones please try to do this on a computer does anybody have any questions about what you need because there isn't anything else really this is what you need in order to complete the FAFSA okay I'm going on after application you will find it at studentaid.gov anytime you need to get to apps that you can just Google it and it'll pop up at the top of your screen but I'm this used to be a bigger deal than it is today but it used to be that if you Google the FAFSA you would get links to all kinds of other websites that posed as FAFSA websites but we're actually not they would take your information and in some in most cases genuinely pass it on to the government but then when you get to the end they to ask you if they would give you a bill and ask you to pay some money 550 50 or $100 to submit your FAFSA do not pay to submit your FAFSA and always make sure that you're at student aid dot-gov who can tell me what the first staff in FAFSA stands for Shout It Out free the FAFSA is free to remember the first staff and FAFSA stands for never paid for it questions okay there is a link there that is the link to the FAFSA website a pointers remember that the pasta is the key that unlocks all financial aid I like that metaphor you have the a locked door with money behind it filling out the FAFSA is the key that opens the door so that you can get the money again never pay to submit your FAFSA remember that the information you input to the FAFSA is confidential the folks who handle student do not share your information with other authorities it goes into kind of a lockbox and it is only shared with the colleges that you list on the FAFSA nobody else gets access to it so you can have complete confidence that you not putting anything on the FAFSA that's going to come back to hurt you later on the FAFSA must be filed for every year don't forget that that just you don't just do it once before freshman Year you going to do it again during freshman year for sophomore year and during sophomore year for junior year and so on and so forth the 8th is limited to 4 years total on this is an important Point remember that when you have received four years of financial aid whether you have a have graduated or not the fifth year is on you so we need to plan accordingly and make sure that you're enjoying success in college because if you failed some classes and you have to go back for a 5th year or in some cases colleges will require you to take a fifth-year for a particular degree you need to plan Ford and make sure you're going to have the money for that so I have had students who went to engineering school which is a five-year programme and their financial aid ran out after four years that you had the foresight to discuss with five Central Aid what they were going to do to afford that 50 year and in most cases the school was able to offer them an on-campus job or you know find some additional scholarship money for them what is something that you have to plan for if you think you're going to be in college for more than four years and then while you're in college do yourself do your family a favor and just make sure that you're succeeding and passing all your classes today you don't need that additional year without financial aid both students and parents should have fsaid before starting the FAFSA file as early as possible to maximize our so going back to those Merit Scholarships there's only a limited amount that schools are able to offer the work-study they might only have availability for a hundred or two hundred students to do work study because the he is limited when it comes from the federal government to pay for it so the earlier you apply the closer you are to the front of the line to get that money you can revisit your FAFSA as many times as necessary so the fat what is a dynamic living document you can go into the FAFSA to make changes as many times as you need to be in fact you will be going into the fast so you'll have to change the schools that are listed on the FAFSA or some adjustment to the amount of money that you put in a particular field because you realize that you found something different or the college will ask you to make an adjustment so that it be the amount that the amounts that bear scene was on the FAFSA match up with what they've been told separately here's another important thing there is something called the automatic data retrieval tool make sure that you attempt to use that what it does is it allows you to transfer the information directly from your tax return from the IRS to student aid again you will need your fsaid to do this you should have your fsaid to the parent in place before you get to that point on the FAFSA where you are adding information about the parents income and then you can make the automatic transfer and it has the potential save a lot of extra work later on if it doesn't work then that's okay it doesn't create a generally create a ton of extra work but it's convenient to be able to use it and then at the end of the application after you've submitted the FAFSA for the first time you do get an opportunity to transfer the information from the FAFSA directly to the tap application look for that on the confirmation page still be a link that's that gives it that tells you that you can click here to transfer your FAFSA information to your state application take advantage of that if you get the opportunity and then fine don't do this alone don't wander in the woods with this application it can get very complicated and confusing so when you have questions when you need help reach out you can contact us in the college office and he a support with this does anybody have any questions about anything on this page okay I have one more big pointer that was shared with us by our representatives from the Department vegetation yesterday and I'm happy that I'm able to do that right now self link your FAFSA to your school and this was prepared specifically for us by the city when you get to the page on the FAFSA where you have to enter your high school you going to search up the name of the high school did this several times today actually with some of our seniors if you just wear the field says what is the name of your high school just put the name Chelsea and then choose New York State for the state that the high school is located in and click confirm and our school will come up on the screen it should look like this with all caps Chelsea Career and Technical education High School there you will also get a choice of Chelsea Vocational High School maybe was our school many years ago but is not our school today so you definitely want to make sure that you choose this option in all caps written out entirely Chelsea Career and Technical education high school so why is that important because we need to have our students financial aid applications linked to the data that we get in our school so that we are able to track who has completed their FAFSA who hasn't completed their FAFSA and who has submitted the faster but needs to correct some errors so this will help us to help you make sure that you will have got all of your financial aid locations in the works and that is not hanging there incomplete without being processed and then you lose money as a result does anybody have any questions about this next the New York state aid and the tap application so all of these applications are located on the State website New York State Higher Education Services Corporation or Hask this is the agency within New York state that provides financial aid to our students in New York state and remember you are only eligible for this money if you live in New York state and you are attending college in New York state and there are three different options depending on your status the tap application is available for students with family and come up to eighty he always eats a year and the amount that you receive is up to $5,200 a year this money can only be used for tuition so if I haven't really seen more than one or two situations where this became an issue but if it is being but if you want to use it for room and board or for some other college costs you cannot do that the tap will be applied first to your tuition and then the college will apply any other financial aid that you get including your Pell Grant to the excess that is not covered by tap the plus any Room & Board these other costs that you were then we have the New York State DREAM Act which is available for undocumented students last year for of our students received the full amount we were very happy because that essentially pays off call Ditch Witch so it's important for you to know that if a student is undocumented or their parents are undocumented students will still get financial aid it's also important to note that if a student is american-born and has a u.s. passport and birth certificate but the parents are undocumented the student can still apply for student aid and the full amount none of this for disqualify students from the opportunity to afford to go to college and it will not and then finally The Excelsior scholarship which is also found on the Hask website it's for students who receive less than $5,000 a year in Powell and tap grants combined and it can be worth up to $5,000 a year it is available students whose families make less than $125,000 a year so this is the scholarship that was created when Governor Cuomo announced a few years ago that all students going to get financial aid for college that we are now offering financial aid to middle class families as well as working class families so some of our students do get this get this scholarship so bear in mind that even if you think you might not qualify maybe you do qualify for some money through the Excelsior program any questions about New York state aid palamecia nothing okay alright I'm going to I'm going to move through this one pretty quickly the CSS profile typically we only have a few students in our school who have to fill now they each year we would like to have more and we expect will have more but essentially this is an online application that helps colleges determine how much that money and scholarship money they should offer to students who are applying to schools where the cost of going to exceed what is available to tap and Pell so if you're applying to colleges out of state if you're applying to private colleges some of them may ask you to do the CSS profile it can get a little complicated but remember you're not alone we will walk you through it there are about 400 colleges that use it and it's administered by the college board or the the agent the government not non-governmental agency that administer the hour for AP classes and the SAT exam the CSS profile is another function that they that they manage any questions about the CSS okay scholarships scholarships come in different forms of ships these are the ones that you have to apply for they can be where I've seen scholarships that were worth a hundred or $200 I had a student once who won a scholarship $20,000 that allowed her to go to college at City tech for 4 years undocumented student it was her only source of funds at the time and it put her through college before years $5,000 a year so they can be worth a lot of money look for them this is the time of year when scholarship start to come through my inbox in my email so seniors in particular should be looking for notify patience about scholarships that are becoming available you have to apply for them sometimes they require an essay sometimes they require recommendation letters everyone is different but they do come from government agencies so it could come from say the city councilman Sophos or it could come from a not-for-profit organization like like one of our community. organizations that works with us companies and corporations McDonald's has a scholarship program you see the advertisement on TV for that unions my own Union the UFT does offer a scholarship is open right now in students going to inquire about it and then individuals the one that I mentioned before that my student one for $20,000 actually came from an individual's program that he said that he wanted to make the Powerball to needy students you are attending CUNY so typically they make up of only a small portion of the total cost of attendance so don't Bank on them this is not your this is not the the the golden ticket that gets that gets me through college cost free but they can help a lot then you get Merit Scholarships which I've already mentioned that come from the college you are attending they might be offered at the time you're accepted to a college if you have really high or you have a very strong SAT score or you've shown a particular aptitude in the particular subject area or you might have to apply for them after you've attended for a semester or two semesters you need to inquire about them from the college's find out if they're available but definitely if they're offered to you at the time of me you're accepted at a college you want to accept that money and then again they can range from and it's too many thousands of dollars and then there's that question about athletic scholarships I've had many students asked me mister how do I get a scholarship to to play ball well typically what happens when a student receives a scholarship to play ball or to participate on some other athletic in some other athletic team or activity Scouts are already coming to look at you some students will go to one of these websites where they can put up video tapes of their performance on the field and then put it out there so that Scouts from colleges have the opportunity to come look at them but it's important to remember that beats college athletic scholarships are only offered at Division 1 and division 2 colleges most of our most of our students do end up going to division 3 schools and junior colleges because usually about 50 to 60% of our students go to CUNY and there are no division one or two schools in CUNY but some of the state colleges have gone Division 1 UK look into them but just remember fewer than 1% of college students ever received one dime for a playing ball or participating in some other kind of athletic opportunities so this is not something you should Bank on but it is something you can walk into and then know that applications for scholarships are open throughout the year whether you're in college when you're not in college yet it's your job to reach out and find them we will be giving information to RC once the applications are in students will be have information shared with them about scholarships that they can apply to does anybody have questions about scholarships next a quick word about New York State opportunity programs these are not actually financial aid per se but they can result in financial aid State opportunity programs which are heop in the or the higher education opportunity program in the private colleges vop Educational Opportunity program at SUNY and then seek and College Discovery in CUNY seek for the four-year colleges College Discovery for the two-year colleges they are admissions programs and academic support programs not financial aid programs although like I said they lead to financial aid what these programs do if they allow students who are not admissible to colleges under their regular academic guidelines to attend those colleges with a lower GI yay or SAT score that then what the school generally looks for so we have many students who take advantage of this and apply for the programs and they can make the difference whether you get accepted at that college that you want but you are not the key again is applying early to the college get at the front of the line for these opportunities and make sure if you get an a letter or an email from a college saying that you were being considered Percy Corey Opie or heop admission make sure that your reply immediately because if they don't hear back from you if you haven't checked your email if you have not replied to that email that's in your inbox they're going to go to the next student. Westin offer it to somebody else and when you contact them they going to say sorry we gave that up if Unity to the next student timeline so just make sure you move quickly all the CUNY colleges offer secret College discovery all this or I think almost all the Sunni four-year colleges and even some of the community colleges now offer eopie and there are about fifty private colleges in New York state that offer 8 top so we strongly encourage our students to participate here's kind of how it works so there's this example here of Johanna Johanna has a GPA of 81 and an SAT score of 850 the income for her family of three is $35,000 for $35,400 and she wants to go to John Jay College with a GPA of 81 and an SAT score of 850 so let's take a look at what that looks like if you look on the left hand side her family's income of $34,000 is under that $40,000 threshold so she does qualify find actually then if you look on the right hand side you see that for regular admission John Jay is looking for an 85 GPA and a 986 sat but johanna's numbers fall some significantly below those numbers at 81 and 8:40 but if you look at the columns on the right hand side John Jay admit students to seek with an eighth CPA and an average 8:19 on the SAT Johanna attends Johnjay for free see how that works does anybody have any questions about the opportunity programs next CUNY success programs there are three of them three primary once I think there are some others now that are a elbow on a case-by-case college by college basis they are primarily offered in the community colleges ASAP or accelerated studies and Associate program is offered to students who academic and social support it is not means-tested so it doesn't matter how much your family's income is it is available to you if you need it so you're it is a program that you apply before after you've been accepted at a college and you have told them that you are going to attend there and you have completed all your financial aid so those are the three tests you got accepted at the college you except your placement there financial aid is done and submitted to the college and then you can apply for ASAP what is it give you it gives you personalized advisement you got career counseling you got free tutoring you get waivers for tuition and mandatory fees you can get early registration but the best things and this is what our students like to hear the most free metrocards and free books it's an awesome program it has been dramatically expanded in recent years it is now not only available in all of the two-year colleges but it is also available at the 4-year colleges that offer 2-year degrees specifically College of Staten Island City Tech in Brooklyn and Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn then you have the CUNY Start program which is for students who come in without the skills that they need in math or reading writing to get their skills up before they start taking classes that they're in danger of failing because they don't have the skills and it also makes sure that students are not using their financial aid until they're ready to actually take college classes so the way it works is if Kenny has decided that you are not that you don't have the skills to be in classes right away they will offer the opportunity to go into the Start program you pay only $75 per semester and you get college-level instruction you are in college taking college-level instruction you just not getting credits for college classes yet one get to the point where you can pass the exams that they use to test whether you're ready to do the college-level work you pass that test then they tell you you're ready to start classes at the beginning of the next song master and only then you start using your four years of financial aid it's a great program and then clip is a similar it's very similar to start but it's more for students who are relatively recent immigrants are still learning English and it works kind of the same way as start you pay $180 per semester for up to 25 hours per week I've been in Intensive English instruction as soon as you're in skills where they need to be by virtue of taking that test and they've determined that you're ready ready to take regular classes then you can begin taking your classes any questions about the CUNY success programs there is a question in the chat do all CUNY schools have ASAP okay so again the answer is no all of our community colleges except for guttman Community College offer the ASAP program Gutman does not offer it because they originated this model so they didn't need to take on ASAP because they were already doing it once it proved to be successful at Cottman and then they moved it out to the other six community college's zip  hostos Bronx Community Queensboro LaGuardia BMCC Kingsborough write 6 in addition to that there are three four year colleges that are now offering 2-year degrees associate programs they are City Tech Medgar Evers and College of Staten Island so those colleges are also offering ASAP I heard a rumor that it was going to be introduced at Lehman College and possibly one or two other of the four-year college but I don't know for sure that is being offered yet does that answer the question any other questions we're not too far from finishing folks I promise documented students and families I said this before but I'm going to but a we have a whole separate slide for it for emphasis all students in New York state have access to financial aid or top four College regardless of their or their parents immigration status for students who are undocumented immigrants there are two primary sources of Aid so again I'm going to tell you that if a student is documented is a is an American Edison but his or her parents are not they are entitled to fall financial aid but if the student him or herself is undocumented there are two possibilities the dream us scholarship which pays up $7,000 per year to undocumented students with high school GPA of 80 or higher in the past it was offered for scoot to students regardless of their gpas but this is a new feature that they're now asking I guess there's been so command that they're only offering it to students with gpas of 80 or higher in New York it is only available currently the students who attend CUNY colleges and you should apply early because the funds are limited and then you have the New York State dream at Grant which I talked about earlier relative to New York state New York State financial aid it's available to all undocumented students regardless of their grades I understand has pays in Mount equal to the tap Grant about $5,200 per year and the links are here you can also find them by by Googling just to let you know we had for undocumented last year all of them received both sources of funds so they are going to be going to college for free for 4 years any questions about this you know if there are quite let's take them at the end of the at the end of the presentation because we would like any conversations over this to be confidential moving on verification this is something that everybody needs to know about times are students FAFSA is selected for review in a process called verification but it is this will only at happen only after school has been accepted by the college and then the college needs to verify that the come that's been reported on the FAFSA is actually true so that they have the go-ahead to give that money this is something that the federal government has started doing in recent years to make sure that people are not cheating on the FAFSA I haven't seen that happen so if usually goes off without a hitch but you need to be prepared for it you need to be prepared to submit additional documentation and usually that Tails using the IRS website to request a tax return transcript which is different from the tax return because it's an actual print out from the IRS of what the IRS received from the taxpayer in terms of the documentation and the amounts of money that they earned so be prepared for this but the the process does not take long but it can take a little bit of time a matter of a few weeks to get the the transcripts back so if you are asked to do verification move on it quickly let the college office know that you have support cuz if you're selected for verification you will not receive federal financial aid until all verification requirements are met so you don't get that documentation you're not getting your money and you going to have to pay out-of-pocket for you classes until the verification is done any questions about this okay here's the timeline applying for financial aid in October the FAFSA opens it used to open only on January first because you would use the financial information from the year before you're applying now they change that they're now they're now using prior prior year meaning that for next year when the school year begins in Fall of 2021 there looking at the family's finances for 2019 so it's two years for that they looking at so you have that opportunity to use the tax return you did last April or before for the FAFSA that you're filing for next year 2021 2022 and it's open it's open now it's been open since October 1st we have quite a few students who have actually submitted it already in November we have financial aid month in New York city that is if if you have a student who is not a senior you should anticipate this it kind of fell flat this year because of the virtual nature of what we were doing but once we get back in person you should expect to see a lot of publicity and fanfare what's the word I'm looking for encouragement to get financial aid financial aid or done early by the end of November so that you are in the front of law the line for all that money that's available the best practice is to complete the FAFSA by the end of the year in December at the very latest preferably sooner January and February is probably the best time to complete the tap if you haven't all done it at the tail end of filing a FAFSA and then in March through June you going to get financial aid packages by the college's where you've been accepted that's the time when you are going to have to provide additional Financial documentation it could be copies of tax returns W-2s written statements but it also includes that verification process that I mentioned before if you need help with it reach out to the college office or reach out to the financial aid office at the at the college I'm fond of saying to my students once your applications are in you dealing more with the college's than you are with me I'm here for support and some questions help you with applique but essentially I can't do anything for you you're now working with the college so you can reach out to the college you can reach out to us for support and then finally May 1st is generally decision day where you have to After Decline your financial aid packages from the college's although in recent years sometimes that process drags out into into June or even July we anticipate with the shutdowns that have occurred this year that we're probably looking at a May to July scenario for when you have to accept or decline your financial aid packages but be prepared for it don't let it slide make sure you know what's being offered and make sure you know what the what the implications are of the financial aid that's being offered to you whether it's grants or loans or scholarships and then all year long you can look for and apply for scholarships

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