Since FAFSA deadlines are coming up, we offer you this "Double Scoop", a previous episode that still contains some important, relevant information!

In this episode, we examine the intricate financial landscape surrounding the pursuit of higher education, be it in college or trade school. The point of our discussion emphasizes the alarming escalation of educational costs, which have surged by approximately 56% for public colleges over the past two decades, compelling many students to rely on student loans to alleviate their financial burdens. We are fortunate to be joined by distinguished guests, Patty DaSilva, a high school counseling consultant, and Gillian Moody, the counseling department chair of Harrison High School, who provide invaluable insights into this pressing issue. We delve into the complexities of the FAFSA, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, explaining its pivotal role in determining financial aid eligibility and the nuances that families must navigate to secure necessary funding. Through our dialogue, we aim to equip listeners with essential knowledge and resources to better prepare for the financial demands of post-secondary education.

Guests:

Patty DaSilva, School Counseling Consultant

Gillian Moody, Harrison HS School Counseling Dept. Chair

Useful links from the podcast:

• Georgia Degrees Pay
• Navigating Your Financial Aid Package | SoFi
• GAfutures.org | Georgia Student Finance Commission
• FAFSA

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Takeaways:

1. The cost of post-secondary education has escalated significantly over the last two decades, with public colleges experiencing a 56% increase when adjusted for inflation.
2. The FAFSA, or Free Application for Federal Student Aid, does not provide funds directly but is essential for determining financial aid eligibility.
3. Families must accurately complete the FAFSA to ensure they receive the necessary financial support for their students' education, as errors can lead to delays.
4. Many scholarships exist that cater to a variety of criteria, so students should actively seek out local opportunities that may not require perfect academic records to qualify.
5. Understanding the financial aid process, including the implications of work-study programs, is crucial for families preparing for college expenses.
6. The Georgia Futures website serves as a comprehensive resource for students and parents seeking information on financial aid, scholarships, and educational resources.

Lining up the financial side of college or trade school is our topic for discussion on this edition of the Inside Scoop. Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the Inside Scoop. I'm still David Owen.

If you get something out of our discussion today, please give us a thumbs up and make sure you're subscribed. Also, click that notification bell and share it with a friend.

Unless you've been living under a rock for a couple of decades, you've noticed the costs for education have gone up dramatically. So much that students oftentimes struggle to pay the bills without getting a student loan.

Helping us navigate these uncharted waters are Patty DaSilva, high school counseling consultant, and Gillian Moody, the counseling department chair of Harrison High School. Welcome to the podcast. And Patty, you've been here before. So this is old school for you, right? Yes, sir. Okay, happy to be back.

So, people who, I guess for the benefit of the people who were living under a rock. Sorry, how expensive is post secondary secondary schooling like college or trade school nowadays?

So it actually has increased quite a bit. And when it's adjusted for inflation over the past 20 years, it's gone up about 56% just for public colleges.

Wow.

Right?

56%.

56% over the past 20 years.

Okay.

So private schools are increasing much more rapidly. Public schools are following a little more in line with inflation.

But the private schools are a rapid increase in order to keep up with costs that are associated that they don't get funding from the state or from the federal government.

Okay. And those would be the ones, the private schools would be the ones that do not accept things like the Hope Scholarship and that sort of thing.

It's not 100% across the board.

Well, so the Hope Scholarship just operates a little differently for private schools. They get, I believe they call it a stipend, which is a fair word for. Because it's a small amount.

Something.

Yes, a little something relating to especially, well, I should say, when compared to the cost of a private school.

Whereas the HOPE Scholarship for public colleges usually cover a percentage and this current year, which it could change every year with the budget, but this current year is actually back to covering about 85 to 90% for public colleges.

Okay. And if a student does very well, then they qualify for the Zell. Miller.

So this year the governor's budget was able to kind of go back to just the Hope Scholarship, where if a student had a 3.0 or higher, that Zell or not 3.0 or higher, they got the full Zell basically cost. But that depends on the budget every year. So it could be next year that that's pulled back to being Hope versus Zell.

But this year actually is different, where all students with a 3.0 or higher Hope Scholarship got the full scholarship package.

Okay. So the sad part is it's subject to political winds of the day. Right.

It's subject to, my understanding is it's subject to the governor's budget and what he's able to include and not include.

Okay, you're being very generous.

I mean, really, if we're being honest, it is subject to how many lottery tickets people buy in a given year.

I'm not gonna make any comment on that. Careful. I was about to do a promo and I thought I'd my job. All right, so, Jillian, you're out in the high school.

You interact with these seniors and I guess juniors also at this level. So tell us what's on their minds as they're closing in on that finish line academically, and they're also trying to keep an eye on the future.

What are they anxious about? What's their big concern?

So I will say with students, I think their first concern is getting into their dream school.

Okay.

And then part two for students is, how are we going to pay for it? Parents number one concern is how are we going to pay for the dream school hopefully Johnny gets into?

So, you know, that's where the FAFSA comes in, and they've got to fill that out.

And I think that in itself is cumbersome for parents because it is a big form and it demands a lot of specific tax and I guess your assets information. And a lot of parents have questions about am I filling this out correctly?

Am I including the equity in our savings, and what do they ask for us to fill out? So I think that the financial strain of preparing their students for their future is a big concern for parents with the cost going up every year.

Sure, sure. And of course, it hits at tax time, too. Right. I mean, that's.

It's like some diabolical mind got together with others and said, how could we really make their lives miserable? Right. So fafsa, obviously, that's part of the title of this podcast. What is the FAFSA in a nutshell? Is there a way to. I know that's.

No. I'm actually really glad you asked it.

Okay.

Because I think there's a general misconception that the FAFSA gives you money. It does not. So FAFSA stands for Free Application for Federal Student Aid. So it's literally just an application and

it's a free application.

Yes, it is. Yeah.

You know, it's a little misleading, isn't it?

Well, it's free in that I think that might almost be a way of them saying if somebody's trying to charge you to fill out this application, then you need to beware.

Kind of a consumer protection angle to it.

Right. And maybe FAFSA is better than afsa, I don't know, Application for Federal Student Aid. But yeah. So the FAFSA is just an application.

And ultimately, in a nutshell, the way that it works is you put all of your information onto this form, that form goes to whichever institutions you choose to send it to, and they then take their total cost and offer you a financial aid package based on the information in the fafsa.

Okay, is it income based? Tell me a little more. Tell us a little more about what the purpose of the FAFSA is and maybe even give us an example, if you don't mind. Sure.

So in a way, it's a way of the institution, the college or university, understanding a family's finances and income and how it relates to affording college. So the way that the FAFSA works is a family completes the. The entire application.

It asks lots of questions, like Jillian was saying, about assets and income and, you know, just all these financial pieces.

And then that goes to any of the institutions that the family selects and they do their own calculation, and then that's how they're able to offer financial aid packages. So, for example, a kind of average cost per year. So we're talking total cost of attendance.

When a college gives a number for a total cost of attendance.

This is tuition, fees, room and board, even estimated food for the year, books and supplies, like everything that they have taken into consideration for what it should cost for the total cost for a student for a year. So each college has that individual amount. And it's usually pretty easy to find too.

You can literally Google the name of a college and cost of attendance. Okay, so each college has that amount, and then the FAFSA helps come up with the SAI or the Student Aid Index.

And this is ultimately what the FAFSA and its calculations assume a family can contribute to their student's education.

Okay, so, for example, a pretty good average for some of our public universities that are more popular students is about $25,000 for their cost of attendance.

Everything all encompass meals being not the least of that, right?

Yes. Total cost of attendance for a year of university or college.

And so once a family completes a FAFSA, so a family who has a median income of $80,000, total family income, their SAI would be around $7,000.

Okay.

So when they send the FAFSA to that university, the university takes 25, and they subtract the 7, because that's what they think that the family can afford towards the college, and then the remaining number is what they're going to offer a financial aid package for.

Okay.

That financial aid package, however, could be scholarships, it could be grants, it could also be loans.

Okay, so it could be a combination of these various things.

Yes.

And that some quick math would say that's 18,000 based on your example. Correct. So the family comes up with, for that first year, 7,000, and then that

18,000 is kind of required by each university to offer to fill the gap.

But like I said, that gap could be filled by scholarships and grants, which don't have to be paid back, but also could be offered through loans and things of that.

So does this also. And this is maybe a little bit outside the scope, but maybe not. I mean, as a parent, this would be on. It is on my mind.

I've got one going there, going to school also. So is this an opportunity for parents or students or both to find out whether there are jobs on campus that might fill that gap?

Yes, that also goes through the fafsa, the work study programs, and that would be offered. There's a part in the FAFSA to check off whether or not a student would be interested in work study.

And if they say that they are, that can become a part of the application as well.

And I would presume that's an important thing for them to figure out. Are you able to handle having a job as well as your job being a student? Correct. I mean, that could be substantial workload, definitely.

All right, so how long has the FAFSA been around? I don't remember if you actually told us you have a ballpark idea. Is it a new thing?

No, it's not a new thing. It started, I believe it was back in the 60s, at its very first inception.

But this year is the first time that it's been updated to reflect that. And now I think it's. At most, I think it's 36 questions.

Okay.

So for some families, it could take as little as 10 minutes, but the estimate according to federal student aid website is it shouldn't take more than an hour.

Okay, well, I've got maybe news for you. It ain't happening like that. There have been some new things.

I mean, some new implementations, I guess, in the interest of trying to make things better, but things haven't gone all that smoothly. Right. Jillian, can you give any, you know, boots on the ground perspectives on what is going on and what families are experiencing?

So I think the intent was to help parents fill out the FAFSA form by consolidating the questions and the time that it requires.

I think there's, you know, a period of time where things have to kind of get the kinks worked out, and I think that's kind of what we're going through right now.

They've got the new IRS data like retrieval process where it just takes your irs, your tax information and plugs it into your FAFSA form, which I think really does help. The intent is to help parents with that part of the process, working through the kinks on that.

So I think while that kinks process is working out, it does cause a lot of anxiety for parents while they're the guinea pigs. So, you know, they do a great job of reaching out and asking us to help them.

We've got great resources with Georgia Student Finance to help them through the process. But I do think that the thing parents have to know is they are not alone. We're here to help them.

You know, everybody's kind of going through this, but yeah, it is.

It's a tedious process, but you have to make sure that you fill it out correctly so that you do receive the support financially that your student needs when they get to school.

And I'm sure there are a lot of other parents. And again, I'm speaking, I'm doing this podcast for me, people. I'm sorry.

There is a concern that if there are problems with the fafsa, either technical problems, or maybe the parent didn't fill things out properly or what have you, that it gets kicked back, delays happen, and then my child can't get into the school because all the slots are taken. Is that a valid concern, or do you think that's maybe overblown a little bit?

I don't know that it's not valid. I mean, you know, kinks can happen in the system.

I feel like, you know, the application for next year is available, and I always tell parents, when it's available, get your student to set up their account. You enter your information so that the earlier the better.

You want to go ahead and make sure that you've done all that you can do as early as possible. So if there is a bump in the road or something gets kicked out, you are able to run interference and still get that form.

You've got to resolve it.

And there's lots of resources available.

So not only are the school counselors available, and most of our high schools do at least one financial aid night a year, and this year probably more than one. I know you did more than one, but some of our partners in ED also offer free webinars. So like Apple Ruth offers free webinars pretty frequently.

Apple Ruth, Apple Ruth. They're one of our partners in ed.

They are a kind of tutoring and test prep company, but they also do a lot just about preparing students for the future and how to do the fafsa. Most banking institutions also do different webinars, so Sallie Mae has several of them.

And then even some of our more local credit unions might offer webinars because they're financially based in finance.

Also does webinars on a regular basis to help parents with the FAFSA form.

And they have a whole outreach team, which is who typically comes to our financial aid nights to support the families and even to support the counselors. And they've even got a ton of website or a ton of resources on their website too that have videos and how tos.

But even beyond all of that, when you get into the actual FAFSA application, there's a little chat box that kind of follows you that if you're having trouble, it'll say click here and it'll either give you some extra help, information, information, or there's a live chat that's available too, where you can ask questions of those really working directly in the fafsa.

And it relates to what you're looking at at that moment or the question that you're dealing with.

Technology has advanced well for that.

When it works, it's wonderful.

Yes, definitely.

Okay, well, it sounds like they are working toward a much smoother process. It's just you can't be perfect from the start anytime you do something that substantial.

Growing pains.

So, okay. I heard a friend who shall remain anonymous say, well, what about the idea of having my child apply as his own household? Okay.

To me that sounds like working the system a bit. Gaming the system.

Yes.

Is that a wise move? Is it even possible?

So if you're.

If a parent is claiming their child as a dependent on their taxes, then they have to use their information when they complete the FAFSA from the prior year's taxes. Yes, that is correct.

So if you go on Georgia Futures website, it lists specific requirements that if a student, you know, is award of the state or you know, there's different situations specifically listed where a student can register as their own independent in the FAFSA form. But yeah, parents have asked that question. I've been doing this for a really long time and every year they're like, what if we tried this?

I'm like, yeah, no, we'll give them an apartment somewhere.

As long as it saves us $80,000.

It's not that easy.

Great theory, but they've already thought through that.

Yeah, they're out in front of that.

So, so. And you mentioned a resource a moment ago, Georgia Futures. Georgia Futures. Yes.

Tell us a little bit about who they are and what they can do to help us.

So Georgia Futures is a great one stop shop for all of our students and parents. It has information to help them with fafsa, it has information to help them with HOPE and Zell Miller Scholarship.

It has information for dual enrollment, pretty much anything high school, college related that a parent or a student has questions about. That's where they need to go. Because it's a really easy website to navigate and it's really helpful with the information that they have available.

Yeah, it sounds like a great comfort opportunity if nothing else. Right.

Another really interesting website that's new this year is called the Georgia Degrees Pay website. And that is kind of a joint effort between the usg, the University System of Georgia and the DOE and lots of just state organizations.

And the Georgia Degrees Pay website will take all of the usg, the University System of Georgia schools, so the two and four year colleges, not the technical schools. And it gives these just amazing graphs showing affordability, showing graduating after four years, even what jobs they secure after graduation.

And it compares everything with, like I said, really nice graphs and even lays out colleges side by side. It lays out careers side by side. It's a rabbit hole.

It's a rabbit hole you could spend.

It's not as user friendly as GA Futures, but it is a fascinating new website that has been put out just to help families really compare long term versus just looking at dream school. And this is where I want to go.

Yeah, so you get a lot more information from the data. I'm a visual person and so having a graph kind of show me things is my preference. Some people are like, no, get, get graphs away from me.

You're gonna fall down this rabbit hole. You're gonna go far.

That's great. Won't see anybody after I sit in front of the computer.

So is there, is there anything else that parents who have a student headed toward post secondary schooling needs to know at this point that they could help them? You guys have offered so much.

We do at most high schools is we have like a scholarship bulletin that's updated on all of our websites and it is broken down by local scholarships available to our students. And it might be something like the Due West Elementary School scholarship.

So seniors graduating that attended that specific elementary school can apply for a scholarship all the way to, you know, national scholarship applicant pools. So I always tell parents, I'm like, you need to FAFSA and see what you qualify for.

And I give our scholarship bulletin to our junior parents so they can go ahead and look at the qualifications for all the different scholarships and start mapping out.

Okay, well you're just shy of a community service activity so you need to make sure you do this before the deadline so they can make sure they're applying for other financial supports.

Again, having a little time to make adjustments along the way. So and again this is for me. But if you have a senior, you could still pursue a scholarship for a second year in post secondary, I would presume.

Is that likely in many cases or is that maybe so there's scholarship that

are annual, so they keep getting them and it will stipulate that when they apply, I would say after they graduate, it's probably more of the institution scholarships they're going to be looking for like a fellowship or something along those lines.

Okay.

But we do have scholarships that are renewable each year as they go through college.

And I would agree with scholarships. I think sometimes families and students think that there's nothing out there. I'm not going to, you know, be able to get any.

But there actually is a ton of money out there that organizations want to give away. And we also keep each local school has a list, but then the entire district and all the students can access the scholarship list in naviance.

And those are ones that aren't specified to like the local school but are actually more open and available for all students.

And I would say not so much geared towards those national ones that say $20,000 but look more for the local ones that are like one to two thousand thousand dollar range. Look for local organizations, look at the, wherever the family works or the utilities that they use or anything that's truly local.

And if a student is willing to put in the work, there really is a Lot of scholarships that they can earn. And even if they're not renewable, it's still just kind of helpful for the first year.

And they can still look for those scholarships for future years too, if they keep a track of where they earned them from.

Yeah, I would say a misconception that a lot of parents have is that, oh, my student doesn't have a 4.0, so they probably won't get any scholarships.

Yeah.

And there's scholarships for everything. So I always tell parents, I'm like, you need to look, because there's scholarships literally for everything.

For activities, for religion, for having big feet. Like there really is. There's scholarships out there.

So taking the time to research it and get your student to complete the application and essay is probably the hard part about it. But they're there, the money is available.

So, I mean, I would say scholarships is one piece of the financial conversation that has to be put in there. But the other piece, the fafsa, I mean, I have a lot of families that'll say, oh, well, we won't qualify.

And what I usually say is, what if you did that application and the college gives you just $500, was that one hour of your time worth $500? And most of them, when you put it into that perspective, okay, you might not get $20,000, but I think every little bit helps.

Sure, absolutely. Especially as the economy goes up and down, we all need to have something to fall back on.

So ending the podcast with the weirdest scholarship you've ever encountered, what comes to your mind?

I would say the most specific one I probably ever saw was for redheads. And you had to write an essay about what it has meant to you to grow up being a redhead.

Wow.

That's probably the most specific one. But like I said, the left handed one, that one was really interesting. That one always sticks out in my memory too.

Yeah, I had a kid that found a scholarship for having big feet because we were having the discussion of you don't have to. He had like a 28 or something and he found the scholarship for big fees.

I don't know that he actually followed through and applied for it, but I was kind of taken aback that there's a scholarship for having.

I used to tell students what's something unique about Google that as a scholarship, I would Google curly hair scholarship. I bet you there's one.

Absolutely. You would definitely win that one. That's for sure. Well, you guys have imparted some incredible information. I'm personally thankful.

I know the viewers out there are grateful for what you've offered, and we'll make sure that we put those links to all of these amazing resources. It sounds like in the show notes and the description.

And if you've liked what you've heard or gotten something from this podcast, make sure that you like this podcast, click the like button and share it with a friend. Because they can could benefit too. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Inside Scoop, a podcast produced by the Cobb County School.