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Then be sure to listen to today’s episode - the points code is IN the show itself!
Scholarship Update
The Massachusetts Convention Center Authority’s (MCCA) Hospitality Scholarship Program awards academic scholarships to students pursuing an education in the hospitality field. Four scholarships of $2,500 each are available annually to Massachusetts residents-two from Boston and two from other areas of the Commonwealth. The deadline for applications for the 2009 academic year is March 20th.
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+ The Financial Aid Podcast is sponsored in part by:
Robin, a financial aid administrator, wrote in with this vitally important update about FAFSA dependency overrides:
For Dependency Overrides the Federal guidelines are extremely clear. Being self-supporting is NOT grounds for an override.
Instead you must prove INVOLUNTARY DISSOLUTION OF THE FAMILY. This means you were forced to leave your parents’ home and have no contact with them. You must explain,in detail, why you cannot live with your parents. Then you must have official third party letters, on letterhead, that back up your story.
Just because you feel mature enough or responsible enough to be on your own does not erase your PARENTS’ OBLIGATION to assist you with your education.
We accept letters on letterhead from H.S. Guidance counselors and teachers, lawyers, personal counseling centers, social services, clergy, etc. We also will accept police reports documenting abuse. Absent that, we require two letters from people personally knowledgeable to the relationship with the parent like a Grandparent, Aunt or Uncle. The letters must be very detailed about the situation and their relationship to the student.
Most students make the mistake of having a roommate or employer write a letter that the student is self suffient and pleading for us to just cut them some slack. They don’t realize that Fin Aid reps are personally liable for willfully violating Federal Law. I’ve been in Financial Aid for 12 years and I haven’t met a student yet that is worth going to jail for.
There you have it, folks. That’s exactly what you need to know about dependency overrides. Thanks, Robin!
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The 11th Annual National High School Poetry Contest is now accepting submissions. This year’s scholarship prizes (12) range from $100 to $1000. We also name up to 100 Honorable Mentions and hundreds of Regional and Topical Winners every year. All winners will receive an offer of publication.
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I have a question about my taxes and the affect on the FAFSA - Question 85.
I was laid off in May and am getting unemployment, so meet the dislocated worker definition. I earned $24,000 in my job, and I also received $16,000 in unemployment. There is no way I can get my AGI below $30,000, but if I take the Hope Credit off the front end, it would lower my AGI to $36,000 however I would lose about $1,200 in refunds.
I met with a tax advisor today, but am not sure which way to go. Counting my daughter’s tuition on the front of the 1040 will reduce the AGI, but not below $30,000 to qualify for zero EFC. How much difference will it make to the EFC if my AGI is $32,000, $36,000 or $40,000? With any of those as the AGI, would she qualify for a Pell Grant? Or am I better off to take the tuition as a deduction on the second page of the 1040, and get the refund?
Not being a tax expert, what I’d recommend is that you feed the two scenarios into the government’s official FAFSA forecaster. This will give you an estimated EFC based on the FAFSA data you provide and you can then judge if the difference in EFC merits the tax refund loss. My instinctive guess (and it’s a guess) is that the refund is worth more than the EFC change, but try out the forecaster and see what it says.
Free Stuff Friday
There’s a lot of valuable stuff in this week’s show. Just to be clear, everything in here is 100% legal - so when I mention a free audiobook or something, the offer is legit and not from some sketchy MP3 site in Lower East Dragonblight or wherever software pirates do their work.
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Scholarship Search Secrets, Fifth Edition. This is the book I’m most proud of. It goes over how to use Google and other techniques online to find money for college. Of all the eBooks I’ve done, this one I think has made the most tangible difference in the lives of the people who have read it.
2009-2010 FAFSA Guide. The FAFSA eBook is for anyone and everyone having to fill out the latest FAFSA, which the government simplified by adding more questions and making existing questions more complex. Good job, Uncle Sam.
How to Write a Killer Cover Letter. Take one part copy writing, one part sales, and one part experience as a recruiter and hiring manager, blend carefully, and you get an eBook about how to write a cover letter that doesn’t hit the circular file immediately.
Marketing eBooks
The Twitter Power Guide. Tired of the endless re-runs of “What is Twitter?”, I thought I’d kick it up a notch by creating an eBook of advanced things you can do with Twitter once you’re past the Twitter 101 stage.
Synchronizing Social Networks. Want to do even more with your social networking experiments? Want to preserve the progress you’ve already made and help keep your social media efforts future-proofed? This is the eBook for you.
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The 2009-2010 FAFSA is now available for filing. Get going by grabbing our free FAFSA eBook and getting your application in as soon as possible.
One note on the eBook, the FAFSA web application has absolutely no line numbers, which at least one person has said makes the guide a little harder. I’ve updated the eBook so that it includes the FAFSA on the web worksheets, which are the questions from the online application cross-referenced with the paper application. This should help some.
TONS of mail in the mail bag this week. Two that stood out:
Ron wrote in:
I am trying to help a friend of mine’s daughter to apply for college financial aid. Her situation is unique as most are that post here it seems. I could not find any comments similar to her situation so I will go ahead and post even though I can almost guess what you are going to tell me just from reading the other posts. The girl is a Sr. in high school with very good grades and above average ACT. She currently lives at home but plans to move to the town where she plans to attend college in the Fall. Her Father was incarcerated in Nov. 2008 and is not expected to be released until several years after this girl will finish college so his financial contribution is zero. He did hawever have income in most of 2008 and supported the family entirely with his income–i.e. the Mother did not work in 2008. In fact, she is still unemployed and her prospects for a full time job are not real good as I write to you. She has taken in other people to help with rent and other expenses to help survive. The daughter and one of her brothers work in addition to going to high school and they both are required to pay a certain amount each payday to their mother to help out. She is applying for help from the Federal govt. programs (Food Stamps, etc.) but that is taking along time and that probably won’t be much $$ in the end.
So the situation is that when Fall comes and she moves away to college–she will support herself with work and financial aid help to attend school. How do you advise addressing the completion of the FAFSA application with the significant loss in income from 2008 going forward and how can I help this girl establish independent status so that a fair financial picture of her situation can be made? We are meeting with the college financial aid office next week–can you give me any tips to help me with her in those discussions? Thanks!! Look forward to hearing from you!
A few things. First, in the 2009-2010 FAFSA, the mother should indicate dislocated worker status which will help with some of the simplified needs tests for more aid. That’s in the parental section. For the father’s income, that will count against her but the school’s financial aid officer should be able, based on circumstances, to do a professional judgement override for future earnings and income, as this is definitely a different situation than normal. The faster the mother can get qualified for TANF or other programs, the better, as that will help with additional simplification of the FAFSA.
Nadeau writes in:
I’m a 26 year old high school drop out who recently enrolled in an adult education prog and obtained a hs diploma. I want to enroll in my local community college and don’t know where to start, nor do I have a lot of cash on hand. I dont have family to help me with this. Do you have any podcasts on, “where/how to start”?
First of all, I congratulate and salute your willingness to pick up where you left off. That takes a tremendous amount of resolve and determination.
For local community colleges, the first place you want to go is the FAFSA. Get it done, get it in. Then start Googling for returning student and non-traditional student scholarships. The good news is that community college is relatively inexpensive and still has great instructors. Plan to work if you can during school.
Also, I’d take the time once you do the FAFSA and associated paperwork to pay your school financial aid office a visit and get to know someone there on a personal level. Explain to them where you’re coming from and see what resources they may know about that can help you.
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The FAFSA for the 2009-2010 school year is now available! Make sure you file it as quickly and as accurately as possible, ideally very soon but no later than the end of the month.
+ Why you should file it
+ What you’ll need
+ Download our free FAFSA guide eBook to walk you through step by step
+ Many states have a College Goal Sunday coming up - they’re free and good - thanks to James Rodriguez of NY for pinging me about New York’s
Mail Bag
From Twitter, Beth asks: Is it true that I don’t actually need to have received my W2s in order to complete the FAFSA again this year?
Absolutely true. You can estimate your finances and file a correction later - just indicate so on Questions 33 and 82 on the printed form, or online when it asks you if you will file a tax return, say you will file later.
It’s important to file a correction later as things like actual income tax paid may vary from your estimate and give you more eligibility. Some schools say to wait to file because they don’t particularly want to process a second round of FAFSA data, but you should still file early.
5 most recent Financial Aid Podcast postsDid you enjoy this? If so, please consider subscribing for free to get it delivered to you. Subscribing for free means you don’t have to remember to download it every day.
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5 most recent Financial Aid Podcast postsDid you enjoy this? If so, please consider subscribing for free to get it delivered to you. Subscribing for free means you don’t have to remember to download it every day.
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Keep hunting for scholarships! Every dollar you find in scholarships is a dollar you can either pay back for what you’ve borrowed or can be applied to tuition.
What to do if your college savings and investments are in trouble
Last night I was talking to a parent on Twitter who had already lost more than 50% of their college savings in a 529 plan. Here’s a guide for what to do.
Disclaimer: I am not an investment professional. I am not a certified financial planner or CPA. Always do your homework and research for yourself, especially for any kind of advice you’ve gotten on the Internet.
If tuition is coming due in the next 2 years, consult a financial planner SOON about cashing out, cutting your losses, and taking the tax break for selling losses. If you do this, you should do it before the end of the year to get the tax break for this tax year.
If tuition is coming due in 2-4 years, do the 2-4 shuffle. Do the first two years of school at a community college, pay out of pocket, and hold your investments so that the market has time to recover.
If tuition is coming in a decade or more, now is the time to do some serious bargain hunting. There are lots of stocks and other investments that are seriously undervalued; do your research to find opportunities. Look at preferred stocks with high yields and good dividends.
A photography scholarship, the youngARTS is NFAA’s core program. It provides recognition and awards to young artists across the country. We are the only organization that encourages and recognizes artistic excellence in nine art forms: dance, cinematic arts, jazz, music, photography, theater, visual arts, voice, and writing. Each year, approximately 6,000-8,000 students register for the youngARTS program and approximately 10 percent receive cash awards. youngARTS Winners share over $500,000 in cash awards. $10,000 Gold Awards $5,000 Silver Awards $3,000 Level I $1,500 Level II $1,000 Level III $250 Honorable Mention Awards* $100 Merit Awards* Hundreds of youngARTS participants share over $500,000 in cash awards. youngARTS Finalists share a total benefit package valued at $1 million including an all-expense-paid trip to Miami, Florida, in January for youngARTS Week and individual cash awards ranging from $250 to $10,000. Our panelists select up to 150 students each year as youngARTS Finalists and bring them to Miami for youngARTS Week for master classes, showcase performances, exhibitions, enrichment programs, and final adjudications.
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“Mi corazoncito”
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