8 Things To Know About Federal Work-Study

The U.S. Department of Education published the 8 Things To Know About Federal Work-Study. We have not seen a better resource for parents and students on the subject. If you’re looking for another way to help pay for college in addition to financial aid, grants, loans, 529 plans and/or savings a work-study may be a great option for you.

Work-study is a way for students to earn money to pay for school through part-time on- (and sometimes off-) campus jobs. The program gives students an opportunity to gain valuable work experience while pursuing a college degree. However, not every school participates in the Federal Work-Study Program. Schools that do participate have a limited amount of funds they can award to eligible students.

  1. Being awarded Federal Work-Study does not guarantee you a job.

    Accepting the Federal Work-Study funds you’re offered is just the first step. In order to receive those funds, you need to earn them, which means you need to start by finding a work-study job.

    Some schools may match students to jobs, but most schools require the student to find, apply for, and interview for positions on their own, just like any other job. Either way, students who are interested in work-study or who have already been awarded work-study should contact the financial aid office at their school to find out whether positions are available, how to apply and how the process works at their school.
  1. Not all work-study jobs are on campus.

    The availability of work-study positions includes community service options with non-profit employers, which means some work-study jobs are available for off-campus work. (An example: reading to or tutoring children at local elementary schools.) If you are curious about securing a community service work-study position, contact the financial aid office or the career center on campus.
  1. Work-study funds are not applied directly to your tuition.

    Unlike other types of financial aid, work-study earnings are not applied directly to your tuition and fees. Students who are awarded work-study receive the funds in a paycheck as they earn them, based on hours worked, just like a normal job. These earnings are meant to help with the day-to-day expenses that students have and are not meant to cover large costs like tuition and housing.
  1. Work-study jobs may be limited.

    You may still be able to work on campus without work-study if your school does not have enough work-study funds or positions to cover all on-campus student employees. Many campuses offer jobs for students with or without work-study. Check with the student employment office on your campus to find out what is available.
  1. Federal Work-Study is not guaranteed from year to year.

    There are several factors that can determine whether or not you receive work-study from year to year. These include your family income or financial need, whether you used the work-study funds that were offered to you in a prior year, and/or how much work-study funding your school receives that year.

    Contact your school for specific awarding criteria if you are interested in work-study. Typically, students who file the FAFSA form early and answer that they are interested in Federal Work-Study will have a better chance of being awarded funds from the program.
  1. Pay may vary.

    Work-study jobs vary in qualifications and responsibilities, so the pay will depend on the job that you are hired to do. Pay may also depend on your school’s policies and/or the minimum wage requirements in the state.
  1. Hours worked may vary.

    How many hours you work each week will depend on the type of job you get and your employer’s expectations. Most employment positions for students, however, will work around your class schedule and only require between 10 and 20 hours per week, but again—that can vary!
  1. Work-study earnings are removed from your FAFSA calculation.

    One of the benefits of earning income through a Federal Work-Study position is that those earnings do not count against you when you complete the FAFSA form. There’s a question on the FAFSA form that asks how much was earned through work-study during a particular tax year; make sure to answer that question accurately so the amount can be factored out. If you do not know how much you earned, you can contact the financial aid office at your school for help.

If you believe you should receive more financial aid or have not started apply and looking for an experienced resource to maximize your offer and minimize your time contact our office today for a complimentary consultation on how we can help.

College Scholarship Scams Offering Free Money

We want to remind anyone searching Google for of all the college scholarship scams offering free money. Better Business Bureaus around the U.S. receive numerous reports of scholarship scams every year.

Unsolicited Offers

It is extremely rare that a college student is awarded a scholarship that was never applied for… How many people do you know that have won the Publishers Clearning House Sweepstakes? If you are directly contacted by an organization offering financial assistance, be sure to ask 1) How the organization got your name. 2) Write down their company name, address and phone number. 3) Independently verify their claim with a secondary source.

Application Fee

I have been stating this for years; never pay to apply for scholarships. Some companies may claim that they can make you eligible to get aid for a processing fee. What they are really doing is filling out a free application on your behalf and will often falsify your information to ensure you receive funds.

Scholarship Services & Fees

Another devious claim that some of these organizations make is that for a fee, they will guarantee you free scholarship money. They also claim if you are not satisfied with their services, they will refund your payment. When the student applies using a scholarship sources provided and receives no money and contacts the company for a refund, their response is by a question; did you apply to all of the sources we provided? The answer is always no. No student can’t apply to hundreds of scholarship sources in such a short timeline. This gives the company a reason to decline a refund.

Personal Information

Make sure to thoroughly research any company that requires personal information, including address, bank account information, or social security number. While this should feel standard for scholarship applications, this is the exact reason that criminals target people looking for college financial aid and scholarships.

Speaking of time and applying for outside scholarships, always start the process in the student’s junior year in high school.  If you don’t, you will miss many deadlines.

If you would like help vetting any college scholarship scams offering free money or ore information on scholarships and how to get more free money for college, please contact our office.

Find Financial Aid For College, Even During The Pandemic

We know it’s possible to find financial aid for college, even during a pandemic. COVID-19 Virus has ripped off students of many of the experiences that make going to college so gratifying.

For high school juniors and seniors, that includes the kinds of events that provide a feel for what the colleges they are considering are really like. Campus tours, weekend-long visits and face-to-face conversations with counselors have all largely been thrown out in favor of safer virtual offerings. While this may be a necessary precaution, it makes it more difficult for students to determine whether they will be able to find their place and community at college.

Research shows that a sense of belonging is directly attached to student well-being, academic success and retention. However, even before the pandemic, first-generation students and students of color reported feeling less of a sense of belonging at four-year institutions than students who enjoy greater representation on campus. With the pandemic disrupting many traditional paths for exploring college options and finding this sense of belonging, these students are now more susceptible to delaying college or changing plans entirely.

You should not wait for the perfect school to come to you. As you begin your college search, you should determine what your interests and needs are, both academically and emotionally, and start doing research to find schools that correlate with them. Go beyond colleges’ brochures and explore their websites, student newspapers and social media. You can easily get a sense of a school’s size, academic programs and other important information through some online research.

You should also be proactive in seeking out help, whether that’s from your high school counselor, a trusted teacher, or some other kind of academic mentor.

Also it’s essential to make a list. Began with a basic listing of institutions you are interested in. Seek out an adviser to help you ensure that your list is balanced, with a mix of schools that matched your interests while having varying acceptance rates. Many students should aim high while including some great schools that were just a little easier to get into. The list should evolve into a series of spreadsheets that will keep track of campus activities, coronavirus-related closures and costs. A spreadsheet is key and will help make sense of the confusing financial aid process and could easily compare tuition, cost of attendance and financial aid offers.

Another good piece of advice to students is to reach out to second or third-year students at the college(s) you are interested in. In regards to campus visits, they will give you a real sense of whether the school would be a good fit for you during and after the pandemic.

Talking to students will help you focus in on the school that would ultimately be a good choice. If you would like help with financial aid please contact our office for a complimentary consultation on how we can lower your out of pocket cost.

FAFSA Changes For 2023-2024 Academic Year

FAFSA Changes For 2023-2024 Academic Year

FAFSA Changes For 2023-2024 Academic Year is coming. A new, shorter version of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) is aimed at encouraging more families to complete it and qualify for financial aid. However, the tweaks to the formula could reduce aid for some families, especially for more wealthy ones with more than one child in college.

The large legislation passed in a hurry by Congress in late December included changes aimed at simplifying the form. A main gateway to grants, loans, and other financial help for higher education, the FAFSA uses details of parent and student finances to compute eligibility for need-based financial aid. But in recent months, fewer students especially those from low-income families have submitted the complex form for the 2021-22 academic year, meaning they are less likely to get aid and attend college.

In an effort to make the form less daunting, legislators trimmed it to two pages with three dozen questions, from eight pages and more than 100 questions.

Student aid advocates cheered the renaming of the form’s fearful “Expected Family Contribution” to the supposedly less confusing “Student Aid Index,” as a guideline for the level of assistance a student might receive. The lower the index amount, the less you are asked to pay and the more aid you qualify for.

But while the form is leaner, the calculations behind it remains complex. The revised formula still considers overall family size in computing potential aid and, among other changes, increases the income sheltered from the calculations. But it no longer offers a break for having multiple students in college at the same time.

The result? A slight increase in aid eligibility for lower-income families with multiple siblings in college, and a significant drop in eligibility for middle and upper-income families with two or more students on campus.

The change won’t occur for nearly two years, but has already prompted some opposition. Some financial aid consultants has started an online petition to repeal the change.

To illustrate the general impact of the change, here is an example featuring a hypothetical family of four, with two working parents and twins. The parents’ annual income is $100,000, and they have assets of $50,000, while their two children had income of $3,000 and assets of $7,500.

Under the old formula that is still in effect, the family’s “income protection allowance”, the amount of income shielded from the aid calculation, taken from a table published by the Department of Education that factors in the number of children in college is $26,570. Then, federal, state and employment taxes are deducted, as are employment expenses, eventually boiling down to a parent contribution of just under $14,000. That amount is then divided by the number of children in college in this case two which cuts the contribution to about $7,000 for each child.

Regarding the “other” form (the CSS Profile) that many private colleges require, it is unclear if the College Board will follow in the footsteps of the FAFSA changes.

If you would like more information on FAFSA Changes For 2023-2024 and/or the CSS Profile and how to properly file the forms, please contact our staff.

Multiple 529 Plans For College Financial Planning 2021

I was recently asked a question regarding multiple 529 plans as part of college financial planning in 2021.

As a general rule, I don’t recommend parents should utilize multiple plans. However, there are occasions that call for multiple 529 plans:

  • If your children are more than a couple of years apart in age, you will most likely have different investment objectives for their college savings. You may decide that one particular 529 plan has better equity-weighted investments (suitable for a young child) while a different 529 plan is more attractive for its conservative options (suitable for an older child).
  • If you have a sense of which particular schools, or types of school, your children are likely to attend, the choice of institution may influence your selection of a 529 plan. This is especially true if your state offers a prepaid tuition plan, or if you are considering the private-college Independent 529 Plan. A few of the 529 savings plans also offer extra benefits for students attending certain schools.
  • If you’re simply not sure about your choice of 529 plan, you can hedge your bets by spreading your contributions among two or more 529 plans. You might also achieve some more diversification in your investments by doing so, at least in regard to the fund managers handling your college savings.

When shopping for a 529 plan, you should always consider your own state’s 529 plan, even if you ultimately decide to go with an out-of-state 529 plan. Special tax or other benefits may be available for using your in-state plan.

In some states, you may be able to take full advantage of a state tax deduction by enrolling just one of your children in the state’s 529 plan, giving you more freedom to search outside your state for a 529 plan for your other child. In other states, however, the full state tax benefit is obtained only when both of your children are enrolled in the in-state 529 plan.

Contact us right now for a no obligation assessment to understand if we can increase your financial aid and reduce the stress of sending your child to college.

Beware Of A New Surge In College Student Loans Scams

Beware of A New Surge In College Student Loans Scams. On December 7th, 2020, the House and the Senate had approved new legislation intended to establish criminal penalties for those who access student loan information from the U.S. Department of Education information technology systems for “commercial advantage” or their own financial gain. Offenders can be subject to a fine, a prison stay of up to five years, or both.

The bill, which has been named the Stop Student Debt Relief Scams Act, would also expand requirements for loan exit counseling for colleges and universities that participate in federal student aid programs.

This exit counseling intends to curb fraud even more by warning students about so-called student debt relief organizations. The law would also require the Department of Education to prevent hackers and thieves from accessing their database for student aid, and to warn students if anything fishy is noticed with their accounts.

With the Covid-19 student loan forbearance to end on January 31, 2021, it’s expected that we will see a rise in these companies trying to take advantage of scared borrowers.

It remains to be seen if the Stop Student Debt Relief Scams Act will become law, but even if it does, student borrowers should be keeping their eyes out for new and old student loan scams. While the worst offenders have been laying low since interest and payments were paused on federal student loans through January 31, 2021, you can expect the same fake student debt relief companies (and perhaps even some new ones) to be back in full force after the beginning of the year.

To avoid student loan scams, the U.S. Department of Education states that you never have to pay for assistance for your student loans. Unfortunately, way too many companies masquerade as debt relief companies who can offer some type of help for student borrowers. Often these companies will try to charge you $1,500 or more for services you can get from the U.S. Department of Education for free, and they may even try to steal your personal information or your identity.

You can usually spot fraudulent companies easily since they tend to make wild claims, but it does help when you know what to look for. These companies might say you have to pay for their help now, or you’ll miss the opportunity altogether. Others might guarantee you’ll qualify for more financial aid, which is just plain sketchy since there’s no way a third-party company can do that.

Some companies may be more interested in obtaining your personal information instead of helping you out. For example, they might promise to erase some of your debt or help you qualify for more aid, but only if you give them your credit card number or bank account information. In addition, if anyone from an organization claims that they can assist you with your student loans and asks for your FSA ID username and password, hang up immediately.

If you would like more information on this topic and how to better navigate your loans, please contact our staff.

Ultimate Guide To College Virtual Summit

Ultimate Guide to College Virtual Summit

The Ultimate Guide to College virtual summit focuses on helping students and parents understand the current college landscape. Watch the video from the virtual summit below to learn “What parents can be doing to prepare for the cost of college.”

During the Ultimate Guide To College summit, I was interviewed by Kathryn Clowes with March Consulting. The interview will be part of a 7-day summit that the team at March Consulting has just pulled together that will include 16 college and career experts.

Industry professionals provide insights for students and parents to help guide them in the right direction in today’s current college landscape. This is an opportunity for a wide range of students to be exposed to different opportunities where their futures are concerned in an informative, fun, casual, and distanced environment.

Watch my interview from the virtual summit. If you would like more financial aid consulting services, including a complimentary consultation, please contact us. Until then, enjoy the video.

The Ultimate Guide to College Virtual Summit 2021

Ultimate Guide to College Virtual Summit

Recently I was interviewed by Kathryn Clowes with March Consulting for The Ultimate Guide to College 2021 Virtual Summit. The interview will be part of a 7-day summit that the team at March Consulting has just pulled together that will include 16 college and career experts.

The Ultimate Guide to College virtual summit focuses on helping students and parents understand the current college landscape.

I highly encourage you to sign in and participate in The Ultimate Guide to College Virtual Summit.

It is FREE OF CHARGE, (all you have to do is register here: https://www.theultimateguidetocollege.com/

Daily interviews with leading experts will focus on topics such as:

  • College Admissions
  • STEM
  • Testing
  • Performing Arts
  • Athletics
  • Career Development
  • Financial Aid
  • COVID-19 Updates

This event is going to be delivered directly to your inbox each day, starting on September 24th.

So here’s the recap:

Industry professionals will provide insight for students and parents to help guide them in the right direction in today’s current college landscape. This is an opportunity for a wide range of students to be exposed to different opportunities where their futures are concerned, in an informative, fun, casual, and distanced environment.

Watch it from the comfort of your own home starting on September 24th.

Reserve your spot now by clicking on the registration link below:

https://www.theultimateguidetocollege.com/

See you at the summit!

College Aid Consulting Services Staff

Are Colleges Offering Tuition Discounts When Students Go To Online Classes?

online college classes financial aid 2021

We are starting to get calls are colleges offering tuition discounts when students go to online classes for the 2020-2021 school year? Coronavirus outbreaks on campus following the arrival of students have caused a number of major universities to dropped their plans for in-person classes for the fall semester and are offering exclusive online instruction.

The shift to remote education has left many students and parents upset that they are asked to pay the same amount for what they see as a lesser learning experience. Students at dozens of universities have started demanding tuition discounts.

A handful of schools have started to lower costs. Georgetown and Princeton are among universities that decreased tuition by 10 percent for the fall. However, many other colleges from elite private universities to publicly funded state schools are charging the same price despite going entirely online.

Students and parents seeking a tuition discount concur that it’s unfair for schools to charge the same amount of money for an inferior experience. The spring semester showed that online classes are not nearly as effective as in-person instruction, they argue. Beyond the educational point of view, students are missing out on the benefits of on-campus life, which will help guide their decision to enroll in the first place.

Many say a tuition discount would show that colleges understand the tough financial circumstances many students and their families are experiencing amid economic difficulties and unemployment brought on by the pandemic.

Universities say requests for a tuition discount ignore the extreme financial stress the pandemic has put on colleges. Declining enrollment, lack of housing revenue from dorms and the cancellation of sports mean many schools are losing millions of dollars in revenue. Even with tuition at normal rates, some smaller colleges may have to shut down because of the severe financial blow. While holding classes online may seem cheaper, the logistics of building a remote education system from scratch have actually made things more expensive at many schools.

Some say decreasing tuition right now would ultimately hurt low-income students. Lower tuition revenue would mean less money would be available for financial aid and scholarships for students who may have no other means of paying for college in 2021 and beyond.

Students at more than 100 colleges reportedly filed lawsuits seeking tuition refunds after in-person classes were abruptly canceled in the spring as the coronavirus pandemic first began to spread around the country. The resolution of those cases could provide a model for similar suits that may be filed in the fall semester.

Students shouldn’t have to pay the same amount for a worse education. There is a long list of problems with teaching over Zoom. Internet problems, the condition of the student’s computer, easy access to cheating, lack of social interaction, and Zoom fatigue are all problems that make a high standard education a lot more difficult in a situation of solely teaching over Zoom.

Parents and students should be persistent with the college(s) when attempting to obtain a tuition discount. As time goes on, I predict colleges will be more flexible with families pertaining to college costs.

If you would like more information on college costs and other educational topics, please contact our staff.

Why You Should Still Pay Your Student Loans Even Though Payments Have Been Suspended

cares student loan payments

The CARES Act, which is currently active, allows borrowers of federally-held student loans receive a payment suspension for the remainder of the year. The legislation was passed in March suspending payments through September has now been extended by President Trump through December 31st, 2020.

The payment pause ensures that borrowers don’t fall behind on their loans since it includes a suspension of interest on the loans. Basically, the suspension extends the amount of time a borrower will pay by the number of payments not made during the period. Borrowers who take advantage of not making payments won’t see interest accrue over that time.

For borrowers who are not experiencing financial difficulties should consider making payments throughout the hiatus. By making payments during the pandemic, borrowers can benefit from the interest suspension and pay off their loans faster.

If you would like more information on student loans and your options, please contact our staff.

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