eligibility-for-federal-student-aid-transcript

And remember when you fill out the FAFSA, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, you’re also applying for other funds including state funds, academic and education scholarships fr

PSC-ED-FSA-TISD Moderator: Christal Simms October 24, 2017 1:00 pm CT

Coordinator: Welcome and thank you for standing by At this time, participant will be on a

listen only mode throughout the duration of this conference This call is being recorded If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time

Now, may I introduce your speaker for today (Julian Hyman), please go ahead

(Julian Hyman): Thank you very much Good afternoon everyone, thank you very much for

joining us in today’s webinar I will be talking about Eligibility for Federal Student Aid

Just a couple of things before we get started, if you have any question during the webinar please feel free to type-in in the Q&A box and our team will answer them as soon as they can

We will also have a few minutes after the presentation to answer any questions you might have

If you need to upload this presentation, if you go on the upper left hand corner

of your screen, you will see the name of this file eligibility for Federal Student Aid and you can upload it into your system Thank you

At Federal Student Aid, we helped – we are part of the US Department of Education and we are the largest provider of student financial aid in the nation Every year we have over $120 billion in federal grants, loans, and work study to help students pursue their educational dream

So let’s start with some myths and facts on Federal Student Aid The FAFSA

is a free application for Federal Student Aid, one of the myths that we often hear is the fact it takes a really long time to fill out But in actuality, on average, the fact it takes only about 30 minutes to fill out and it’s actually easier to complete than you think

Another myth, my parents make too much money so I won’t qualify for aid

In reality, there is no income cutoff to qualify for Federal Student Aid There are many other factors that are taken into consideration besides the income to determine if you qualify for aid

And remember when you fill out the FAFSA, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, you’re also applying for other funds including state funds,

academic and education scholarships from your institution and other types of financial assistance So always fill out your FAFSA

Another myth, only students with good grades get financial aid In reality, while a GPA is important for a student to get admitted into a good school and

it will also help with academic scholarships, a lot of the financial aid programs don’t take into consideration a student’s GPA

It is important to maintain satisfactory academic progress in his program of study but Federal Student Aid will help student with an average academic record So they don’t have to have really good grades to qualify for financial aid

Another myth, my ethnicity or age makes me ineligible for Federal Student Aid There are basic eligibility requirements but ethnicity and age are not considered All of the information that I am sharing here today, you will find

at studentaid.ed.gov and I am providing links for you to go to our website and find more information about the topics that we’re sharing Also when we respond to your questions, we will try to provide links for the responses

I support myself so I don’t have to include my parent’s information on the FAFSA This may not be necessarily true If you support yourself and file taxes on your own, you may still be considered a dependent student for

Federal Student Aid purposes So we will go through some of the

requirements and conditions to be dependent or independent student

If you are an independent student, you won’t need to include your parent’s information on the FAFSA But if you are dependent, then you must provide your parent’s information but the fact that we’ll ask a series of questions in order to determine your dependency status So you can look for more

information about dependency in that link studentaid.gov/dependency

So who gets aid? So I’m taking all of this information from our website and I’m going to – going through the basic eligibility criteria to show you some of the requirements, basic eligibility requirements to receive Federal Student Aid

Our basic eligibility requirements are that you must demonstrate financial need and this is for most programs, not all You must be a US citizen or be an eligible noncitizen, you must have a Social Security Number, there are some exceptions for students from the Republic of the Marshall Islands and other areas You must be registered with selected service if you are a male student and you must be enrolled or accepted for enrollment as a regular student in an eligible degree or certificate program Those are the basic eligibility

requirements

In order to qualify for direct loans, you must be enrolled at least halftime in your program of setting You must maintain satisfactory academic progress in college or in your career school You must sign the Free Application For Federal Student Aid the FAFSA and this will state that you are not in default on any federal student loans and you do not owe any money on a federal student grant and that you will use your Federal Student Aid only for educational purposes

And you will also show that you’re qualified to obtain a college or career school education by having a high school diploma or a GD or that you

completed an approved high school or home schooling program And again, all of this information I’m getting directly from our website And that you are eligible to enroll in a career pathway program

Satisfactory Academic Progress, what does this mean? Well, every school has their own standard for Satisfactory Academic Progress toward a degree or a certificate It’s important for you to check with your school to find out each standard

Basically, the school’s policy should tell you what GPA you must maintain to

be considered in Satisfactory Academic Progress How quickly you need to

be moving towards graduation or how many credits you must be taking every semester, how an incomplete class, withdrawing or repeating the class or even changing majors or transferring credits from other school will affect your satisfactory academic progress

You need to know how often your school will evaluate your progress You need to find out what will happen if you fail to make satisfactory academic progress, and you also need to find out whether you are allowed to appeal to your school division if they say that you have not made satisfactory academic progress

So, all of that is important for you to remain eligible for Federal Student Aid

If the school decides that you are no longer eligible for Federal Student Aid, you also need to find out how you can regain eligibility

So here’s some quick links for qualifying for Federal Student Aid So if you need more information on any of the basic topics here, you can click on those But I am reviewing most of the topics or most of the information under those topics

So what is an eligible non-US citizen? A US national which includes natives

of the American Samoa or Swains Island, a US permanent resident or

someone who holds on an I-151, I-551 or 551C with a permanent resident card or an individual who has an I-94 from US citizenship and immigration services showing one of the following, either refugee, asylum granted,

Cuban/Haitian entrant or status pending, conditional entrant, victims of

human-trafficking or holders of the T-visa either a T-2, T-3 or T-4 or the holder

of – or a child of T-visa holder or a parolee

So any of these people are considered eligible non-US citizens and may apply for Federal Student Aid

We have an additional list here If you are a “battered immigrant-qualified alien” who is a victim of abuse by a citizen or permanent resident spouse or if you are the child of a person designated as such under the VAWA act or the Violence Against Women Act If you are a citizen of the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of the Marshal Island, or the Republic of Palau If this is the case, then you may be eligible for certain types of Federal Student Aid

So here is information on what type of aid is available for those specific citizens and certain Native American students born in Canada with a status under the Jay Treaty of 1789 may also be eligible for Federal Student Aid So

to get a full listing of all of the people that are considered eligible non-US citizens and may qualify to apply for Federal Student Aid, I recommend that you go to our website And again you can go look at these links right here for non-US citizens

Staying eligible, so remember once you’re in school or career school, just because you qualify for the first semester to obtain Federal Student Aid doesn’t mean that you will always remain eligible

It’s important for you to make sure that you stay eligible for Federal Student Aid by paying attention to a few things including keeping track of your

graduation and the requirements to get to graduation and also, by

remembering to apply for Federal Student Aid every year by filling out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid every October 1 or after October 1 every year

So we’ll go over a few frequently asked questions If I have been granted Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals or DACA, am I eligible for Federal Student Aid? Undocumented students including DACA recipients are not eligible for Federal Student Aid but you may still be eligible for state or college aid in addition to private scholarships

It’s very important to check with your college or your career school and their financial aid office for more information on what type of financial aid may be available for you

If I have been granted DACA, should I still complete the FAFSA? You should check with your high school counselor or the financial aid office at your institution to see whether you should complete the FAFSA and how they want for you to complete the FAFSA and if that’s the way to apply for state and college student aid

To begin with, in order to fill out the FAFSA, you must enter your Social Security Number While completing the FAFSA, you must answer the “Are you a U.S citizen?” question with “No, I am not a citizen or eligible

noncitizen.” After submitting the FAFSA, you should check with your

college’s financial aid office to see what types of financial aid you may be eligible to receive

Very, very frequently asked question is, does my parents’ citizenship or

immigration status affect my eligibility for aid? No, absolutely not Your parents’ citizenship or immigration status does not affect your eligibility for Federal Student Aid In fact, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid or the FAFSA doesn’t even ask about your parents’ immigration status

So what if I have documentation that isn’t listed above? If that’s the case, then you are not an eligible noncitizen and cannot receive Federal Student Aid So then that’s where you – if your school determines that you should fill out the FAFSA, that’s where you would fill it out as not an eligible citizen

Some examples of that case would be if you only have a notice of approval to apply for permanent residency but do not have the permanent residency yet or

if you are in the US on an F-1 or F-2 nonimmigrant student visa or a J-1, J-2 nonimmigrant exchange visitor visa or if you hold any G series visa pertaining

to international organization

If I’m not an eligible noncitizen, can I get any type of financial aid to study in the US? Yes, there may be some scholarships and other aid you can get You can check with your country’s embassy or consulate here in the US or with the appropriate government office back in your country to see if they offer

anything

I know sometimes the consulate sent out press releases to the school of

scholarships that students may qualify for Also we have a link on our website

on studentaid.gov that takes you directly to the US Department of Labor’s free online scholarship search that you can use to look for scholarship

You should also ask the school or the career school that you are planning to attend whether they offer any type of scholarships for students like you and you can also check out the EducationUSA website for scholarships that you can apply for

Let’s go through a little bit about information on dependency status So when

I fill out the FAFSA, who’s my parent? Dependent students are required to report parents’ information on their FAFSA So for this purposes, parent

means your legal, the biological or adopted parents or stepparents or a person that the state has determined to be your legal parent

So here’s a guide that you can use to determine the students’ dependency status But again all this information is found on our website if you need more explanation

So here’s a little infograph that shows you, that helps you to determine if you are a dependent or independent student or whose information you should include as your parent So you can follow this infograph to determine if you need to report any parental information

It’s important to understand that that the following people are not your parents unless they have legally adopted you A widowed stepparents, grandparents, foster parents, legal guardians, older brothers or sisters or aunts or uncles All

of this information is found on our website But if you’re still not sure who you can report as a parent, you could call our 1-800-4-FED-AID

(800-433-3243 number to get more guidance And here we give you the exact link of where to go to find out more about dependency

Applying for aid Every year on October 1, the FAFSA opens up So this is the information that you will need to gather to apply for Federal Student Aid Your Social Security Number, your Alien Registration Number if that applies

to you, federal tax information or tax return, any records of untaxed income that may not have been included in the tax return All of your information about your bank accounts and any information on investments other than the home in which you live

So, the principal residence is not counted as an investment If you don’t have all this information when the FAFSA opens or when you’re ready to fill out

the FAFSA, you could start filling out the FAFSA and save it And then once you have all this information to report, you can come back into the FAFSA and finish it

So the fastest and easiest way to fill out the FAFSA is electronically at

fafsa.gov Depending on your eligibility status, you may have to fill out a paper FAFSA For example, there are some schools that require

undocumented or DACA students to fill out their FAFSA on a paper form So you could go to our website and print it out and then turn it into your financial aid office

So if you – if that is the case, you can take it directly to your financial aid office or mail it in for processing however they determine that it needs to be done But what’s so important for you to do is check financial aid deadline

Each state and each school has its own FAFSA deadline So look at there at the school’s financial aid website to look at what their deadline is And if you want to find out the state’s deadline to turn in the FAFSA for State Financial Aid, you can go to fafsa.gov/deadlines and you can – it’ll link you to the state

of your residency and it will tell you when the financial aid deadline is for that state

So when do you submit the FAFSA? Every year, the FAFSA launches on October 1 The FAFSA must be completed every year that you are attending school

Again, it’s very important to find out what your state and your college

financial aid deadline is and most of the time, the earlier you fill out the FAFSA the better So here’s a little table that will tell you – that will give you