Financial Aid for Admitted Students

Checking volume level, can you hear me Paula?

Perfect.

Hey I'm gonna go back to 1st slide.

Alright, Good afternoon everyone. Welcome to the financial aid workshop for admitted. Students were just giving folks here minute to log in and will look it started in just about one minute so that people who still need to access their links have some time here.

OK, so let's get started. So again I want to welcome you and thank you for coming to our financial aid workshop today. This is really intended to try to give you a good understanding of our financially process, so a little bit of behind the scenes and help you understand the information that you have available to you. So our agenda for today we're going to talk a little bit about the application process that some of you have completed. What to know for future years. I'll talk about the different types of financial aid grants and scholarships, loans and work study, and what?

Each of those mean.

Will talk about the alternative financing options for you and your family to consider when it comes to covering that balanced for Allegany College.

Will review the situations when you can. We could adjust a financial aid award. I'll talk about the value of an Allegany College education and then will wrap up with some Q&A.

I want to start by introducing myself. My name is Meg Ryan. I'm the director of admissions and financial aid. I'm also joined here in the chat room by Natasha Eckert. She is one of our associate directors of financial aid and Allegany, a lomman wonderful resource for our students. She's here in the chat room so you can ask questions as we go if you hold your questions to the end, I'll take them and answer them verbally. But Natasha is going to help throughout the time as well. If you feel like we're moving on from the subject, please feel free to ask.

I also like to add a face to the names because as a financial aid office, a lot of times people are intimidated by us, but the reality is as we are here to help you pay your bill. So our job is to give financial aid out, find you different resources, an different financing plans and so we really do hope that you reach out to us and our colleagues at any point. If you have any questions we help with everything from start to finish and walk you through the process as best we can.

So let's jump in with starting with some application basics.

First and foremost, for those of you who've submitted your application already, you've submitted your application for our merit based financial aid.

We take the information from your admission application and the committee. It uses all of that information to consider are merit based scholarships. So your application for admission is step one for need based financial aid we require the FAFSA. That's the free application for federal student aid. That's the only form that we require. If there is additional documentation that we require to go through a process that's called verification, that's the federal government requiring us to verify the documents or the information that you submit.

On the Fasa we follow up for the for that information and ask you for it. But until you get notifications or requests from us, there's no additional documentation required. No non custodial parent forms. We like to keep our process as simple as possible, so your application annuar fast is all we need.

Our preferred deadline for submission was February 15th. That doesn't mean that it's too late. If you haven't filed your fax it yet, we still encourage you to do so. It just means that when we have that information in earlier that were have a longer lead time to get you the right information back in your hands so that you can make that enrollment decision. When it comes to paying your deposit and making that choice with all of the information that you need now. It is also important to note that if you're receiving any need based financial aid and I'll help define that in just a minute.

You need to apply for it each year so you do need to file your fax at each year and we keep that February 15th preferred deadline all throughout your time. Again, that gives us just enough time as an Allegany student. If you're a junior or senior returning that, we can make sure that we get all of the documents that we need. Clarify any processes if that's required in our verification process. So February 15th is the timeline to stick with their.

So before we get into the details of financial aid, I want to start by identifying a few commonly used terms so that we all understand some real basics and this can help you understand or compare financial aid across different colleges 'cause every college is going to present this a little different. So the first term is cost of attendance a lot of times the questions that we get are what is your tuition while tuition is a part of cost of attendance, but it's not the only part of fees that you incur when you're in Allegany student.

And so we want to make sure that you're comparing apples to apples when you're looking from one institution to the next and a cost of attendance is a full comprehensive cost that includes tuition fees room and board and also factors in books and miscellaneous expenses as well as transportation to and from campus.

Those last two books and miscellaneous expenses and transportation are what we refer to as indirect costs. That means we don't actually bill you for those fees, but you obviously have to travel to and from campus. You need books to study, and so these are expenses that you will incur as a college student, and you should be prepared for them. Listing these in a full, comprehensive cost of intendants is an important thing for us to do, because it changes your eligibility for merit based scholarships that are outside of the college. So if you're applying for outside scholarships.

Or even sometimes loan information so you can need that information about books and transportation expenses so that you could apply for all of the funds that you could potentially receive.

So for our 2000 and 22,000 and 21 academic year, here's are listed comprehensive cost of attendance.

So you'll see our tuition and fees, room and board those make up our build expenses. Then we list our books, travel in miscellaneous expenses for our total comprehensive cost of attendance that you see listed here.

This is for the 2021 academic year. Historically, our tuition and fees do tend to increase around 3% each year, so that's something to plan for if you think about the four year plan overtime at Allegany that our cost of attendance has historically increased a little bit.

The next time I want you to understand is what we call the expected family contribution. This is often referred to as the FC. the AFC is the amount of family can contribute over a nine month period of time through a combination of directly contributing from income, drawing down on assets and borrowing against assets. There's a couple things I can tell you about your expected family contribution. The first is that you probably won't agree with it, and the 2nd is that there is nothing that you can do to change it. So first and foremost.

A lot of families have a gut reaction to that expected family contribution that this can't possibly be right, and I want to remind you that it's thinking about how we finance in education over an extended period of time. So over the nine month period of time from directly contributing from income, but also in terms of borrowing against assets and drawing down on assets, it's looking at the overall financial strength of a family. It's also an old formula. It comes from the Congress. And when I say there's nothing we can do to change it, that's what we mean.

This formula is set through the Department of Education and it's something that's actually being evaluated and voted on as we speak, so it's something that is taking a really complicated process and trying to take the thousands of applications for financial aid and say that we're going to come up with a fair process. Everybody in this process goes through some things. Some things are more unique to certain families, and so I want to talk a little bit about how we come up with those numbers.

The expected family contribution formula is called this federal methodology. That's the formula through the Congress that I referenced.

This formula does consider things like parent and student income and asset data. It also takes into consideration certain allowances to protect against that income and assets. So what I mean by that is that there are lots of different data points that go into this formula, so something like the age of the older parent, it asked that information on the Fasa and basically what it's saying is as you get closer to retirement, protect more income and more assets because you have less time to pay back or borrow against anything.

So that's one example of an allowance. Others include taxes, taxes vary by state, so our neighbors in New York state pay more in taxes than we do here. In Pennsylvania. There's a larger allowance, allow given to people from New York State than there is for people in Pennsylvania, so it varies based off of zip code based off of where you're coming from.

There's also allowances and protections given based off of the size of the family and the number in college, so that is a really key factor. So that means if you have a sibling attending college here, a filing your FAFSA this year and you're saying that there are two dependants in the household who attend college a sensually, what that formula is doing, it's taking your expected family contribution and dividing it among two kids when you're older sibling graduates. Now you're saying there's only one student in college?

That formula is likely going to say we still think you can contribute the same amount towards college, but now it's only going towards one student and so that expected family contribution for you is actually going to increase. So this is also something we want you to keep in mind if you have siblings attending college either now or maybe you're the first to attend an in your junior year, you'll have two that could mean that your expected family contribution could decrease that year, which means that you could be eligible for additional need based financial aid.

Overall, the expected family contribution is assessing a family's ability to pay for college.

What this formula is not doing? It's not a cash flow analysis, so building in certain protections and allowances is important because those things are things that everybody has to incur, so we can fairly say everyone has to pay taxes. Let's account for taxes.

We we can't do is fairly say this expensive. This family has is something that we can account for, whereas this expense is not. And what I mean by that is we have some really real circumstances that we understand. Some families say maybe they're paying for their health care for a grandparent who doesn't live in the household, so they're not getting that protection. But you know, it's an outgoing expense that we recognize is very real.

It's really hard for the government to be able to say well, we're going to account for that in this formula, but not account for this other family who has credit card debt. So all these outgoing expenses we recognize their very challenging sometimes, but it's just not something that can fairly be applied for in this process.

It's also not assessing a family's willingness to pay for college. Ability to pay for college and willingness to pay our oftentimes very different things, and so this is really looking at the overall financial strength of a family.

So then once we have all of those numbers understood, the next one is financial need. So understanding what financial need is is what we do is we take the full comprehensive cost of attendance. We subtract the calculated expected family contribution, and the leftover balance is what we would call your remaining financial need.

Need based financial aid at Allegany with first we award merit based scholarships and need based financial aid. Comes in. After that. Any student who completes a Fasa is considered for every available financial aid fund that we have to award. To be eligible for a need based financial aid, you must have remaining financial need after merit scholarships. So that means let's say we have a $60,000 cost of attendance and your expected family contribution is calculated to be $20,000.

That means you have a need of 40,000. If you receive 30,000 in and merit based scholarship, you now have a remaining $10,000 leftover in demonstrated financial need.

So let's talk about the different types of financial aid.

A financial aid package is going to be a combination of grants or scholarships work an loan programs in an attempt to meet the families financial need. It's important to note that Allegany does not make that promise. We unfortunately cannot commit to meeting 100% of demonstrated financial need just like you were on a budget. We're on a budget and we do the best we can with the financial aid dollars that we have.

Grants and scholarships are the free money. It's the money that everybody wants and thinks about when it comes to financial aid. It's money that you've earned and do not have to pay back. Do not have to earn overtime or borrow so the first or what we have our merit scholarships. Those would be listed in a financial aid award as a trustee scholarship, alumni scholarship or a creative and Performing Arts Scholarship. These are awarded to you at the time of admission. There guaranteed for all four years as long as you stay enrolled full-time.

So we left him in your acceptance letter as per semester and the traditional student takes 8 semesters to graduate. That's with these awards are guaranteed for.

There's no minimum GPA requirement for these. That's a big part of our academic philosophy. We really think our students should take classes outside of their comfort zone and take classes that challenge them. And so as long as your continued to enroll full-time, you'll continue to earn these scholarships.

Next, we have institutional grants, so these are need based financial aid funds, and they'll be listed ad in your financial aid award as the Allegany Grant. If you're eligible for this, this means that you're receiving need based financial aid from the college, and that you would need to apply for that continued need based financial aid each year. So if you have this plan on filing your fax at each year.

Then we have our federal Pell Grant, the federal Pell Grant is typically the same from one college to the next. If you're eligible for the federal Pell Grant, it would have been listed in your financial aid award package and it would be the same from one institution to the next. Assuming that we all have the most recent facts on file.

The federal ECOG Grant is a little different. The federal saoji grant is still federal funds, and it's still free money. But basically it works a little differently. Each college is given a lump sum of funds, and then they decide how to award those funds among the neediest of students. So if you are eligible for that fund, you would have seen it in your financial aid award from Allegany. But it could be different from may be getting the same saoji grant at another institution in a varying amount.

We also have state grants, so here in Pennsylvania will list this as a FIA grant. It's a Pennsylvania State Grant. Pennsylvania has a reciprocity agreement with six states. That means that at the state government level, we've decided that you can take your Pennsylvania State grant to West Virginia, and that West Virginia grant can come back to us. But it means that we're not making the decision as a college. So, for example, New York and Pennsylvania and do not have a reciprocity agreement. So that means that we are not exchanging grants with that.

So you can check with your local application process if you filed for your state grant in your state. If you're a Pennsylvania resident, you need to have your FAFSA filed prior to May 1st each year. No exceptions. Granted in order to be considered eligible for this Pennsylvania State Grant.

Federal loans are considered financial aid and are included in most financial aid packages. If you file the valid FAFSA with us, we would have listed this in your financial aid award and so these are funds that you are required to pay back the federal direct loan. This is the current interest rate for the current academic year. It's typically updated over the summer and it's usually around the same amount, so we'll see if we have a change this year, depending on the current situation.

But this federal direct loan is given directly to the student. This means that once you file your FAFSA, that's you applying for the direct loan. There's no additional application process. You don't have to have a credit worthiness background. It's given directly to the student. Parents are not on the hook for this as well, and all you have to do is complete what we call an entrance process at the end of this error at the beginning of this year in the summer, and then complete a master promissory note annually. So basically you're signing and agreeing that yes, this is alone, and I plan to pay it back.

But you're eligible for it as long as we have your facts on file.

The maximum that you can receive in the federal direct loan in total is $5500 in your first year.

This can be impartial subsidized, which means that the interest is not accruing as you're currently enrolled as a student, so no interest will accrue until after you've graduated, or you're no longer enrolled full-time.

In order to be eligible for the subsidized loan you have to have demonstrated financial need after other financial aid is awarded.

If you are eligible for that, the maximum your first year is $3500.

The unsubsidized loan is a non need based financial aid award in this particular loan, interest begins accruing as soon as it's dispersed into your account.

And the total that you can receive in this is like a mentioned $5500. So for students who are not eligible for the subsidized loan, you would take the full balance in the unsubsidized loan for 5500. If you're eligible for $3500 in the subsidized loan, that means you can get $2000 in the unsubsidized loan for a total of 3500.

Federal work study and campus employment are also considered financial aid. These are resources. That typically help students cover those out of pocket expenses. If you're eligible for federal work study you must have remaining demonstrated financial need, and a specific need threshold within our community. It would have been included on your financial aid award. If you're eligible and listed at the bottom of your financial aid award after the remaining balance due to the college and that's because, like I mentioned most students use this for out of pocket expenses.

Like those books in Miscellaneous Transportation to and from campus.

Campus employment is not necessarily listed on a financial aid award, but that doesn't mean you're not eligible for it. Any student who does not have federal work study on their financial aid award is eligible for campus employment for up to $2000.00 for the academic year, so this would renew each year and just like any other job, you still have to work the hours you have to show up to the job interview. Get the job yourself will help you with that. So student employment I know can be a nerve wracking thing, but if you want a job on campus and your proactive in your search.

Those students typically find the jobs on campus that are fit for them.

We have a a session on this over our orientation, so if you are enrolling Allegany, our summer orientation will cover this. We send you a little bit of information over the summer. You can actually start your job search over the summer. We help you with dispersing your applications and then like any other job you follow up with your supervisors and do some outreach there to ensure that you have the interviews lined up and get the hours set up for your schedule.

Work study funds are not directly credited to the bill. Although you can work with financial services if you'd like to have portions of your paycheck going directly to your balance.

So now that you have an understanding of your full financial aid package, let's talk about some alternative financing options for the remaining balance, do.

First I want to talk about outside scholarships. This is a great resource. Outside scholarships just means that any financial aid that's coming from any place other than the federal or state government or the institution itself. So often times these are local student organizations. Maybe local community organizations that are giving out small scholarships.

My suggestion is that you talk to your high school counselors that you look for these smaller scholarships. Look locally an online and apply all throughout your enroll name. There's a few resources listed here, some that you might be familiar with, like College Board, an niche. They also have national search engines for scholarships. There's a scholarship out there for literally everything you can think of. They give him based off of major based off of interest based off of accomplishments in high school. Will it? Last year we had almost $2,000,000 brought in.

In outside scholarships by Allegany students. So our students are definitely using them and definitely encourage it. Somebody has to win the full tuition scholarship. So if you want to go for it then go for it. But the $500 here $1000 there. They often are very ignored and have smaller application pools, so just apply, apply, apply. And like I said, keep applying all four years so we have a friend of ours who we know makes their students applied to just 10 every year and maybe something. You get some more.

Years and others, but at least you're trying and that way you can see if there's other resources out there.

Now, a lot of students ask if I get an outside scholarship, what adjustment would be made to your financial aid the majority of time. In fact, most of the time there's no change to your financial aid package, but there are some situations where we are required by law to adjust a financial aid package, and that's when outside scholarships, plus all other financial aid that includes federal work or federal grants, loans, or work study is greater than the financial in need that your college or that the federal government thinks you have.

What I mean by that it's easier to understand with an example. So in this example we have are listed, cost of attendance is 60, Seven 1560. They expected family contribution is $20,000. That means that the federal government has calculated that this family needs $47,560 to attend.

If you're receiving a financial aid award that's $40,000 and you earn $10,000 in outside scholarships, you now have $50,000 to attend, and the federal government only thinks you need 47,000. So in that example, we would be required to make a reduction to some of your self help funds. So the funds that you have to earn or borrow. So this would mean that we would reduce your federal work study eligibility. You can still work on campus through campus employment.

If additional reductions are required to happen in order for us to be in compliance, we would reduce your subsidized loan. However, for every dollar we reducing your subsidized loan, you can still borrow in the unsubsidised, so it's which is your eligibility a little bit. But overall it's still going to help you with the bottom line in this example, and in almost all cases you would keep every dollar of Allegany funds that were awarded to you both merit and need based. The only time that would ever be adjusted is if you had that full comprehensive cost of attendance completely covered.

And that includes us complying with the federal government guidelines. In that case, we'd be happy to let somebody else pick up the bill.

But the majority of times that does not happen. If anything, it's typically adjustments to federal work study or subsidized loan that we might have to make.

So the other thing that we consider at this point would be alternative loans. So these are loans beyond the federal direct loan. The first one I'm going to tell you about is the federal direct parent plus loan, and the reason why I will tell you about it is because it is a federal loan. So there is an application process in this example.

Or in this particular loan, parents do have to apply, they go through a credit check and then if they are approved, they can borrow up to the remaining cost of attendance less any financial aid. The interest rate for the current year is listed here. So now I tell you about it because it's a federal program and we can't be in the business of recommending a specific loan from a private lender one over the other. But I will tell you that in some cases this isn't always your best loan. So if you have a strong credit background.

And you want to do some research. There are more competitive options out there for you, but the best thing we can say is, you know, do your research. Talk to your financial advisors and figure out what makes the most sense for you. So for some private loans, they can come from a variety of different lenders. They can often be lent to the student with a parent as a cosigner. There are some out there that can go directly to the student, but very few students have a credit application that will get them approved for a private loan without a cosigner.

So you want to ask questions about deferment plans, so let's say you're considering Graduate School. What are your deferment options? If you're paying if you're going into Graduate School afterwards, who is borrowing, is it the parent? The student, both of them? Anything along those lines? We have a resource linked on our website to Elm select com.

They have a basically a vetted, a few really reputable private loans and give you some information about that that can help you start your research for private or alternative loans.

Next we have our payment plan, so if you consider what you are, your remaining balance is do we actually will default to a two semester payment plan. So we'll have 1/2 of the balance due in July and half of the remaining balance then would be due in December for the spring semester. If that doesn't work for you in rolling in the payment plan can help you potentially reduce the amount that you need to borrow and break up your payments into smaller monthly payments.

So you can enroll in the payment plan for $50 per semester. That enrollment fee goes towards our payment plan provider. There's no interest charge on the balance that you owe to the college, but again, can make smaller monthly payments more manageable. It's five months per semester plan, so if you enroll for both semesters, you have 10 monthly payments instead of two larger payments.

OK, so let's talk about the situations when we can review a financial aid award.

The first is a reduction in income, so if you remember when you filed your fat sub, it asks for information about your 2018 taxes and So what we're doing is basically saying most families have very similar income from one year to the next, and so we're going to assume that from 2018 to 2019 things were fairly similar. However, that's not the case for any everyone, and so if you had a change in your financial situation from one year to the next, and typically I would say a greater than 10% change.

It might be worth it to complete a change in financial circumstance form.

You could email our office and we can provide you with that form. We basically ask you to provide the documentation that shows the change in your financial circumstance and then we'll go through this process to see if we can just any need based financial aid based off of your changing circumstances.

So some examples of those changing circumstances could be things like maybe 2 parents were employed in 2018 and you either had a change in employment status for one or parents are now separated, then that would change your.

Tax filing status and so that's a change to your financial circumstance. If you're a Commission based or you had a one time bonus that couldn't change, so there's a lot of reasons why you might have a changing in your financial circumstances. This is also important to note we can work with you right now as you go to make your enrollment decision, but this is available to you at any point throughout your enrollment as an Allegany student. So let's say something happens as a sophomore or junior. Reach out to her office and know that this is available for you.

Situations where you could request a review of your financial aid. I talked about those outgoing expenses were not factoring and outgoing expenses. There's always an exception to the rule. And here's when we will make those exceptions. So the first is if you have unreimbursed medical or dental expenses and they exceed 10% of your adjusted gross income, so these are out of pocket expenses, not expenses that were reimbursed by insurance. If you had those and they exceed 10% of your adjusted gross income, you can provide us with the documentation and we could potentially make an adjustment to your need based financial aid eligibility.

Anytime you have circumstances that are not reflected on your FAFSA, it never hurts to reach out, so we have a lot of families who maybe talk about those outgoing expenses. I will say a lot of times are answer is there's nothing we can do, but there's no harm in asking about it. If you've got an unusual circumstance you think we should know about, please email us. Give us a call. We are still answering our phones and available to assist. If you've got any questions on this.

And then the last reason would be if you have competitive offers from other national private colleges and universities and that's the reason why you feel like you can't enroll Allegany. We certainly want to know about it, so I want to talk about those a little bit more in detail.

If you have competitive offers from peer institutions, we could potentially review those in a just a financial aid award based off of these other enrollment options was important to know is that we cannot respond to any athletic scholarships, so as a Division Three institution, we are committed to not treating her athletes any differently than our other. Rest of our student body in to be in compliance with the NCAA. That means we can't take into consideration competitive offers that include athletic scholarships.

However, if you have other merit based or need based scholarships that you think we should know about, you can submit those awards along with the form to us. To request an increase in your financial aid package. I always say this isn't necessarily a matching program. Not every college has the exact same programs that they can offer. What we're really asking you to do is to consider what financially viable.

Option at Allegany really is, and to think about what that number is. To request an increase. What you're doing is demonstrating that you have other offers from other colleges and then asking for that bottom line amount. It's a really simple form when you leave it blank and don't ask for any specific amount, you're asking us to make that call for you. And again, if we think about our budget an are need based financial aid. Applicants were going to keep a large portion of our financial aid reserved for need based financial aid were more likely to respond to private colleges or universities.

That are nationally at recognized as liberal arts or research institutions, so other competitive, nationally recognized institutions like Allegany. But you can submit any any financial aid award from any other institution. If you'd like, just know that the strongest argument is usually ones that we would consider peer schools.

In order to do this, you submit a form and you provide those supporting documentation's along with the letter of explanation if you need to.

Typically this is looking to close the gap by small increments, so I don't like to be discouraging, but I do like families to know that this is not moving the needle by huge amounts. The average amount is typically less than $2000 in an increase in financial aid, but we understand that that can make a difference for some families. My philosophy is it never hurts to ask. At least you'll know at that point, and so if you'd like this form at the end of this process, we would just ask that you email at the financial aid account and we can send you the.

Or if you're requesting it.

And so I want to wrap up here before we take the rest of your questions with talking a little bit about the value of an Allegany College Education. Now there are a lot of different ways that you can measure return on investment and a lot of colleges are going to give you information to help you with that, including us. But I always encourage you to think about it from a really personal level. What is the investment that you're looking for? Is it the social experience? Is it the academic program? Is that the one on one attention that you're looking for and try to come up with the ways that you can evaluate or get information from each college?

About how that fits your particular investment.

One thing I like to think about is what our students doing and how are we setting them up for success, and so one way I like to look at that is by asking about a college is default rate.

What is default rate is? Is it basically it's the number of students who are entering payment for their loans that they've taken.

And I'm actually going to say that these particular slides looks like they just adjusted our decimal points a little, so I apologize for that. So the default rate is basically saying these students have entered the workforce. They're required to start making payments and they are not able to make those payments, so our current default rate for our most recent group of students is actually 2.8% when we compare that to other jelq schools that other Great Lake Colleges.

Association so comparable liberal arts schools in the area they hover at about 3.6%.

And then when are we compare that to all private colleges? They average of 77% default rate, so Allegany graduates on average tend to do really well in the workforce. We hear all the time that our students are really well sought. After that, our employers are looking for Allegany students because they know that they think critically. They adapt really well and are able to hit the ground running in the workforce, and that's one of the reasons why we have alone low loan default rate.

We can also think about what they're doing right after graduation, so if we think about the number of students who are entering the workforce, typically that's about 60% who goes straight into the workforce, and within six months of graduation, 95% of those students are typically employed in their field. Then we also have about 30% of our students who go on to Graduate School.

These Graduate School could be anything from Masters to pH D2 professional schools like medical in law school when it comes to the acceptance rates for medical in law school, average them at twice the national average and so we have really strong reputations for students who are entering in with those as their long-term goals.

And then another 10% of our graduates go on for compensative competitive service programs like teach for America, peace core and so on. So our students typically land where they want them to. We have great resources like the Allegany Gateway, which offers career services that will give you all of the resources that you need to get the jobs that you want. The internships you want, prepare for those interviews if you want to learn a little bit more about the Allegany gateway, we have a virtual information session on them coming up next week, so it definitely encourage you to check that out.

And then Lastly, it's not just about the job that you get right out of college, it's about your long term investment as an Allegany Alumni. You're in Allegany alarm for a lot longer than your in Allegany student, and so it's really about the community of academic leaders and artists that you're joining. So a few of our highlights were regularly recognized as one of the most innovative colleges are curriculum changes and adapts really well and has for over 200 years to really show that we are giving an education that trains are students for a really relevant workforce.

We are competitors in really high achieving programs like the PA house legislative fellowship. Like the Fulbright scholars in Gilman scholars, or one of just 40 colleges that's recognized as one of the colleges that change lives and regularly recognized in national organizations for the wonderful academics that we provide our students. So hopefully you'll have a good way to evaluate how you feel like that investment in Allegany College fits with your family's financial circumstances.

And so with that, that wraps up our session today. I hope some of this information was really helpful.

Like I mentioned, we are still answering phones, so we are available Monday through Friday from 8:00 to 5:00 at our phone number that's listed here and we can answer any of your questions by email, typically within about 24 hours at FAO at allegany.edu. As in financial aid office.

So we've got time here to take some questions, so if you still have questions, feel free to ask them in the chat and we can answer them through our Q&A session. I'll give you guys a minute now.

So one question here is if you're only receiving merit based scholarships and not determined to have financial need, will the merit scholarship amount be lowered if you receive outside scholarships? Absolutely not. Your merit. Scholarship is yours. You have earned it, and so we are going to keep that amount all four years at that exact same amount in each semester renewable, regardless of what outside scholarships yearning.

OK um.

See.

Question an unsub direct unsubsidized loan has an interest rate of roughly 5% that begins charging interest after graduation. That is correct. So are the interest rates for next year for the 2020-2021 academic year haven't actually been set there. Typically set in end of May early June. They have not really changed too much each year, but it's based off of the T bill, so model background information to say that.

Given the economic circumstances now, we could see a change in that interest rate. The interest rate is typically, like I mentioned, very, very similar from one year to the next, but it's set by Congress, typically in May or June, and so if you have the unsubsidized loan that interest rate will begin accruing as soon as it's dispersed into the account. So unsubsidised means that nobody is subsidizing that interest rate, that you're going to start earning interest, right as soon as the.

Find is dispersed into your account. You do not have to make payments until after graduation, so in both cases no payments are required until after graduation. But in the case of the unsubsidized loan, interest is earned.

So while we're on the topic of loans, I'm going to see another question here about the unsubsidised limits for 2, three, and four, and I apologize for not answering that on the slide, but the total amount that you're eligible for in your two for the total federal direct goes from 5500 to 6500, so that $1000 increase.

Can be in the subsidized portion, but it just depends on your need based eligibility. So in total, the unsubsidized and subsidized together can be a maximum of $6500 in year two in years three and four. That increases to $7500 each for both year three and your 4.

If a student decides to study abroad, how to study abroad? Impact of financial aid award? That's a good question. The majority of time our students go through study abroad programs that our partnership organization so that we've signed an agreement with. And so basically one of the reasons are benefits of going that way is so that your financial aid can stay the same.

Anne, I know Natasha's it works, most specifically with our students who study abroad. So I'm going to ask her to.

Maybe add something in the chat here if I'm not covering the full thing that we should be thinking about as a first year student, but really lots of great financial support for you as you're studying abroad.

So I do want to say that we are getting quite a few questions and we're going to keep taking them as they come along. Keep asking, but we're monitoring an moderating this chat so that we're not overwhelmed at one point. And if we don't get to your question, I would encourage you to email the FAO at allegheny.edu account directly and we can provide you, maybe with something that's a little bit more specific to your question.

Um?

Can you turn down the unsubsidized loan? Great question. The answer is you can turn down anything on your financial aid award. Most students keep all of the free money, but Yes, you can turn down part of the loan. So let's say you want to take the subsidized and not the unsubsidised. Or you only want the unsubsidized in a portion we can work with you on that. So your steps for doing that would be to reject the process through an email to us and then also to not complete the entrance process if you're turning down the entire loan, but the direct loan program is.

An option to you, it's not. It's never required that you borrow alone if it's listed in your financial aid package, but it's a resource, and if you choose not to take the loan, we don't replace it with other funds.

If the student receive scholarships greater than the first year payment, can the funds be applied to next year's balance? Uhm, that typically is not allowed, and that means that you'd be getting more financial aid than the total tuition and fees and room and board is charged, so it's not something that we can actually allow you to keep all of those funds. I can tell you, though, that that rarely happens, and so this again, what you what we going to is the full, comprehensive cost of attendance.

So not just the amount that were billing you for, but that books and miscellaneous expenses and transportation allowance. You have to get more than all of that. So that would mean that even if you're getting all of those funds.

Covered by outside scholarships, you're going to have a check or some, you know, a refund that comes back to you that will help you with your books in miscellaneous expenses. With that will help you with the transportation cost to and from campus. Like I said, it's not something that we commonly see, but if it were to happen, it would only be after you get those refunds that will help you cover those out of pocket expenses that we would be adjusting financially.

Hey, we fill out the fear form along with our fasa and indicated Allegany as our first choice. Can we assume if there's no indication of Fiat money on the financial aid award letter, that we don't qualify? That is a safe assumption. the Pennsylvania state grant is limited to families with a specific expected family contribution and so it's based off of what your expected family contribution is. If we have that on file for you, we evaluate it, and if you're eligible for the Pennsylvania State Grant, we include it in your financial aid package.

Do we have other scholarships available to freshman students besides the merit and need based financial aid? The short answer is no. If you've applied with your fast, so we've considered you for everything that's available to you. There are a few scholarships that require additional applications. One of 'em is the creative and Performing Arts scholarship, so that's a scholarship that's available to students who are interested in music.

Theater drama um dance and movement studies at or the visual arts. It's a $1000 scholarship and students are required to participate in whatever area of art they receive or the scholarship for for all four years. That deadline for that application was January 31st. But if you think that you'd be eligible for one of those and you like to go through the process again, you can email us. We can connect with the faculty and see if they can make an exception. Other than that, every application re scholarship is really considered.

At the time of us receiving your fasa, we have one other nationally recognized program called the Bonner Scholarship program. That's for students who are committed to significant community service that also requires an application. An also has an expected family contribution threshold, so it's typically geared towards students with lower expected family contribution's. You can apply for that as well. That's based on a rolling basis, so it's the Bonner Program Bonner.

You can search for it on our website and submit that application. We select eight students for that scholarship each year through that national program. Otherwise, I recommend searching for outside scholarships through those different resources and looking for scholarships that you might be eligible for in your local community.

If you're part of the Bonner program, how will that affect your eligibility for work? Study our campus work. The Bonner Program is a community of service learners, so this is for students who are really engaged in community service and we were trying to create community service leaders on on campus and throughout the local community, and so in. Order to do that, your community service assignment becomes your work, study assignment and so that's basically how it impacts that. Is that your work study job is your community service job?

And you'll get paid for the time there because it is such a significant commitment to be in that program.

Can we explain the note that says if a parent is denied A plus loan for freshmen and sophomore students are eligible for 4000 more? That's a good question. So I've talked about the Parent plus loan earlier as a resource that's available to students or to parents who are applying and have a credit application. So it's evaluating the creditworthiness of.

Current there is. You know some requirement that you have a credit history in a certain credit strength and so if the parents applies for a federal parent plus loan and is denied, then the student of that student would be eligible for an increase in their unsubsidized loan. So on top of the amount that they are already receiving, they could receive another $4000 in the unsubsidized loan as a freshman and sophomore, and then that amount increases. So while there may be some hesitation from a parent who says like I don't want to go through the Parent plus loan.

Because I know I'm not going to be approved. Typically it's for like I said, a lack of credit history recently filing bankruptcy that could really be at working against you in that application process.

But if that's the case, it can actually be a benefit to go through it in order to increase your eligibility for the student to borrow in the unsubsidized loan.

Does room and board also increased 3% each year? Historically it has been about that amount, so typically they don't increase at the exact same rate we evaluate it based off of the charges. And just like any business, our expenses for each one, but it has historically been around 3% for a room and board increase, so plan on a direct cost of attendance, increase of about 3% each year.

If you get more scholarships than needed for tuition and fees, can you use that to cover books? Exactly? That's what I mentioned earlier, so it's very rarely happens that a student has their full comprehensive cost of attendance, so that includes the books and miscellaneous expenses covered. But if you do, and you have that, that means that you basically have more financial aid than what we're billing you for, so we would take those outside scholarships, process them, and you would actually have a refund available to you to help you with those books and miscellaneous expenses.

If you're forced to take a leave of absence from Allegany, would you lose scholarships? The answer is no to Allegany scholarship, so you're allocating. Scholarship is determined at the time of your first year, and it's awarded per semester basis. And So what we're doing is guaranteeing you the number of semesters that you're eligible for that scholarship in the amount and so.

If it's a $30,000 annual scholarship that's typically $15,000 for each semester, So what it could do is, it could mean that you've used some semester of eligibility in one year, and maybe you graduate in nine semesters instead of eight. That something to keep in mind, but no, you are still eligible for your merit based scholarships, and you would still be eligible for need based financial aid from Allegany when you return.

There are some circumstances where we have to keep you on track for graduation that's called satisfactory academic progress on that's for federal financial aid. Honestly, that's going down the rabbit hole a little bit will certainly talk to you about it, but that is basically you have to keep on pace and keep earning more credits each semester. Keep increasing your GPA to a minimum of 2.0 in order to continue to receive federal financial aid.

If we are from out of state, do we need to fill out a form for state grant money or is the fast? So use the answer to that is you have to check with your state each state does it a little differently. Typically there is a option on as you file the FAFSA to also file the state grant form.

So you want to make sure that you do that regardless of what state you're from, but know that those Pennsylvania State is only going to take certain.

What state grants from very specific states from those six states that we have reciprocity agreements with?

Can an international student receive a grant or student employment so um, international students are not eligible for federal financial aid, so any need based federal financial aid you're not eligible for that unless you are a refugee status or asylum seeking or something specific that the fax allows.

When it comes to student employment though, yes we are. We have campus employment that you are eligible for just like any other student on campus, and so we will work with you and give you all that information over the summer. Just like the rest of our student body.

Question do we need to pay a deposit on the room? Students pay $100 for the room and then at the end of four years get it back. If their room is in good order, does Allegany do that? So the short answer is no. When you pay your enrollment deposit, you're paying your enrollment deposit for all of Allegany. It's not room specific on the longer answer is if there's damages to the room, there could be a charge listed on your account. It's not a deposit that you're paying to it, but.

We ask you to keep the room in the same quality that we left that you had it so there could be charges in Curd. But that's just something to know. Your $400 enrollment deposit. Hold your spot in your first year class. It's added to your student account and it's returned to you at the time of graduation.

And so it's, uh, something that our students might have in their pocket, you know, to get ready for graduation expenses, or that first months rent as they go out into the real world. But it is a deposit. It stays on your student account.

Confirming that Allegany accepts the post 911 GI Bill, the answer is yes. We have a wonderful member of our staff here who knows all of the in's and outs. An shoes really great at working with families who are interested or who have veterans benefits, and so we really encourage you to connect directly with Nicole Mcqueary. You can find her information on our website or you can email FAO at allegany.edu will get her directly connected with you. In that way we can give you really specific numbers.

I think we have time here for maybe one more question and then like I mentioned will get. Will follow up with you guys and you can also email us if we didn't get them answered today.

Are there summer semester merit awards? If you're taking any summer courses, the charges over the summer will be applied to your student account. There are need based financial aid awards that could be available in the summer, but your semester. Your merit based financial aid is based off of a semester award, and that's for the fall and spring semester, so those are the traditional 16 week semester's that we have here and we don't use those merit awards for our summer semesters.

Last questions.

Our creative and performing arts scholarships only eligible for upcoming freshman. Is it renewed every semester? If you receive the creative and Performing Arts Scholarship, it's renewable as long as you continue to participate in that particular area of the creative or performing arts. So you could plan on having it for all four years. However, it's only awarded at the time of incoming freshman, so it's not something that you can apply for as a sophomore and junior. If you choose to. Then later participate. So this is a recruitment scholarship that's available that you would need to apply for now.

So I know that this has been a long time and I hope we got some of your specific questions answered. I hope you found this useful. Like I mentioned, will follow up with some folks and we really hope that you reach out to our office. If you have any questions. Will be answering phones again tomorrow as early as 8:00 AM. Thank you guys so much. Wishing you all of the best and please let us know how we can help as you make your enrollment choice.