Lisa Bridgewater: All right. We've gone. We've hit the record button for the fastest simplification. Webinar and I'll go ahead and turn it over to you, Lauren Megan Watson (she/her): Lauren, you're muted. Lauren Greider: Thanks. Lauren Greider: So now I will say welcome and thank you for joining us. Lauren Greider: We hope to give you kind of a high level overview and introduce you to some of the main concepts associated with Fafsa simplification. I know that it's something. We are deep in the weeds on in financial aid and scholarships. But there's certainly some overlap. Lauren Greider: some key dates, phrases, things of that nature that we want to make sure our campus partners are familiar with, because inevitably. I'm sure it may impact work that you all are doing, or at the very least, you know, have student questions, things like that. So Lauren Greider: we will go ahead and jump right in. As Lisa mentioned, we are recording today, so we'll make this available if you need to go back and review, or for colleagues who weren't able to join us today. So the the Lauren Greider: kind of high high level, most pressing questions that we want to make sure to answer today is just what is faster simplification. It's something that you may hear Lauren Greider: quite a bit about. You may see some headlines if if you're, you know, looking at higher LED. News things of that nature. So what is it? What are we talking about? What is the timeline? Lauren Greider: What is changing? What does that mean for for us and for students. What will we need to change so in our office? But as a campus, you know, across I up, what will we need to change as a result. And what do we still not know? And there is quite a bit so I will. I will throw that out there. We are still learning, the feds are continuing to roll out additional guidance. Lauren Greider: So this is likely the very first of several trainings that we will offer, as we continue to learn more details as well Lauren Greider: with this significant change coming our way. So what is Fafsa? Simplification? This is something in the financial financial aid world that we've been hearing about for a number of years. Lauren Greider: That lawmakers have wanted to make it a more streamlined. Simple. Reduce the number of questions on the Fafsa just simplify that process for students, and and I will highlight that piece. It will be. The intent is to be more simple for students. Lauren Greider: not necessarily for financial aid offices or or universities. So originally it was going to take effect in 2020, Lauren Greider: 3, and that got pushed back. So all of the the updates are actually gonna start taking place in 2,024. So with the new Fafsa for the 2024 2025 academic year that's when we will see the bulk of the changes. Lauren Greider: So that's kind of the the timeline we're looking at with with those. but essentially Lauren Greider: the the goals for fast. The simplification again, high high overarching goals is to make it a simple process for students. So, looking for a more streamlined application process in in the form itself online. Lauren Greider: but then also expanded eligibility for Federal financial aid. So, looking at how they're determining eligibility and we'll touch on that a little bit later in the presentation, reducing barriers for certain certain student populations, and then a better user experience. Again, within the fafsa form itself. So some of the the layout and the experience when you're in that online form change. In addition to some of the elements kind of going into calculating eligibility as well. We will touch on a little bit today. Lauren Greider: and then I will pass it over to Megan to to talk a little bit more about the timeline and and what that means for us. Megan Watson (she/her): Hi, everyone! My name's Megan. Megan Watson (she/her): So, as Lauren kind of mentioned in her previous slide, the timeline; for when the past, the simplification is being rolled out as being done in a phase in approach, we can see that most of the changes are going to be happening within the 2324 year, which is our upcoming year, and then a a lot of the big more substantial changes we're going to see in the 2425 a year. Megan Watson (she/her): So, starting with the upcoming 2324 each year. We're going to see the removal of the drug conviction questions on the Fafsa. We're going to see how the cost of attendance is going to be calculated. There's going to be changes there, and we'll talk about that a little bit more in this presentation Megan Watson (she/her): We're going to see changes to how students have to re-verify their homelessness. Status on the annual basis so currently students have to recertify their status Megan Watson (she/her): annually, now moving forward. It's going to be done on an initial basis, so they will only have to approve or substantiate that homelessness status at a one time thing, and then it will carry forward through the rest of their their educational career. So that's going to be great. That will be a big bird that will be left it off with students Megan Watson (she/her): in the 2425 academic year. Again, we're going to see a lot of the more substantial changes. Megan Watson (she/her): Lisa is going to highlight some of those in her section. But I will just kind of point out that when we talk about this simplified fast, but it's not simplified for the financial administrator. It's really simplified for the student and the student experience like Lauren said, You know they have Megan Watson (she/her): removed a lot of questions on the Fafsa that has changed. How we are going to award aid, and how we will calculate, you know, things like the housing for their cost of attendance and what not. So. And there there's there's big implications on our side of all of these changes. Megan Watson (she/her): so that will be a big thing. The other thing that we're going to see in 2,425 is going to be. How the Pell Grant will be awarded the Efc. Or that expected family contribution. That will be changed. It's now going to be the student lead index. Megan Watson (she/her): The formulas for how the Pell Grant will be calculated are going to be different. Megan Watson (she/her): We used a modeling tool not too long ago to kind of predict how we might see our our student aid our students and their 8 eligibility being impacted by the changes to this calculation we actually found that we're going to have more pell eligible students. We're actually going to see more students qualified for that maximum pell grant amount. So that's a positive thing. Megan Watson (she/her): So there's a lot of great things that are happening with this fast with simplification. Megan Watson (she/her): And we're also going to see more students and families importing their tax information directly from the Irs. So that is a result of that direct data exchange. Megan Watson (she/her): or that Fti that's mentioned there on that last section of this slide information will be coming directly from the Irs. It will make that process a little bit easier. That's going to have an impact on how students are selected for verification and the documents that we're going to have to request from them when we need to verify their income information so Megan Watson (she/her): that will impact the students overall experience to accessing financially as well. So those are just a lot of the the big changes that are to come. I won't give way too much more. But at least, if you want to go to the next slide Megan Watson (she/her): awesome Megan Watson (she/her): with this slide, we have actually been told by the Department of Education that the fastest for the 2425 cycle will not be available on October first, as it has been in recent years. So we kind of started expecting, you know, October first was the Megan Watson (she/her): big day that the fast would roll out this year. We've learned that it's going to come sometime in December, so that could be anywhere between December first December 30 first. We're not quite sure, so it's kind of a wait and see what happens. But we do know that it will be a little later and and Megan Watson (she/her): later in the cycle than normal. But some time before the end of the year, so that's awesome. Megan Watson (she/her): This will have an impact on our our cycle, our campus cycle. It's going to change things like when we send out financial aid, notifications for incoming freshman. It changes the timing of our communications to our perspective students. Megan Watson (she/her): Our websites will need to be updated. It changes how we award scholarship dollars. You know we're trying to leverage those dollars to increase enrollment, and it's going to change how we use the student aid index, and we calculate unmet need. So there's going to be changes in how we award aid in general. Megan Watson (she/her): So that is some of the the impact to the timing of when the fast will be available. I'm going to pause here. I'm going to transition it over to Lisa and she can give us a little bit more detail. Thank you. Lisa Bridgewater: Yes, so what's changing? Let's give you I just. We just want to give you a little bit of a Lisa Bridgewater: a small dive into what is going to be changing. So there are a number of elements. And then, remember, this is really to help the student experience and overall it really does do a a decent job for doing that. Lisa Bridgewater: So first of all, the user experience, the the the Fafsa is going to be role based which means the student will have their element as the student, and then parents will have their roles. Lisa Bridgewater: There's also gonna be a dashboard attracted progress of when the students submitted their piece, and the parents have submitted theirs. Another element to this is in the past. When students filed the fafsa, they were only Lisa Bridgewater: able to add 10 colleges, so they've increased that space, so students can add an additional 10. So now they can include 20 colleges on their form. Lisa Bridgewater: Like Megan and Lauren had alluded the calculation to determine aid. Eligibility is going to change. But there are key elements that are really going to be impactful moving forward. So the removal of the number in college that's going to be an element that's going to change. And typically what we've thought about that in the past is Lisa Bridgewater: students would, or families would have people in college be one, maybe one or 2 people. Well, that money would be Lisa Bridgewater: be allocated for the 2 people in college or 3, or however, it worked out. So this is going to be a big change in how that calculation is going to happen changes to other elements. So the farm and business net worth that used to be just something that they would exclude. Now we're going to include that. Lisa Bridgewater: and there's gonna be changes like Megan had mentioned. Efi e Fc. We're so familiar with Efc. Now it's going to be sai, and the sai the student aid index that actually can be a negative number. This is a really big change for us, because in our world 0 has always been the the lowest. Lisa Bridgewater: But getting into a negative number. Now, we're really gonna see in that population who really is the neediest in that that pocket that would have typically been in 0 Efc: and that will give us some opportunities to leverage some, some a, and hopefully in different ways. Lisa Bridgewater: Now, with cost of attendance, cost of attendance, did have some elements that changed one big one for housing we are required to use whichever is higher, the meeting or the average of our on campus housing, and that's how we budgeted our our housing budgets this year some elements must be included that weren't previously required. So one of those things is, first, professional, credential and licensure fees. There are certain programs out there that require a license or a credential, that one. to complete their degree and move on into their career. And we're going to be able to now include those costs into the cost of attendance. It's a requirement. Lisa Bridgewater: and also some language has changed, and honestly it's a lot better. It. Our room and board is, is really college. Speak so now we're calling it food and housing, so that it makes sense to really everyone. Food and housing is really how it, it should be broken down. Lisa Bridgewater: So there are some changes. Really, this is just a chart that was out there that kind of talked about what really that impact is going to look like for those students. So i'd mentioned the negative sai. So the Efc. Lisa Bridgewater: Was 0. That was the floor. So now they're going to be able to go into the negative number. So that really is going to help our students get more. Pell. So that's actually a a benefit. Lisa Bridgewater: There's a shorter list of untaxed income that's gonna be included. Income Protection allowance is gonna be a little different. But that's really gonna be able to lower that Sai, which is what we want. The lower the sai, the better they get with their pell, grant and other aid. Lisa Bridgewater: Now some of the other things that may incur a higher Sai, a higher s student Aid index this. These are for the students that we were kind of concerned about, because these folks, just looking at the different ways that it's calculated. Lisa Bridgewater: It may be a little higher for these folks, so no more multiple households and members. Again, I'd mentioned the college it used to be. How many people are in college now that number is not included. Lisa Bridgewater: State and other tax income. Exclusion is going to be eliminated the net worth of family farmers small businesses. now that they have to include that into the fafsa that's going to bring some of our families into that higher Sai field. And we're still looking to see how really that's going to impact that group, one. Lisa Bridgewater: And there's still some other things that we will need to to still figure out. So just moving forward. Lisa Bridgewater: What will we need to change? And this is why we definitely want to have this information out for the community, so that we are all working together to get the changes taken care of that we need to. Lisa Bridgewater: So the changes that we all are gonna have to make as a campus any web pages that reference the October first deadline. So any publications, websites, mailing postcards, anything that you send out we have to take that October first. Reference off Lisa Bridgewater: the launch. Date now will be December of 2,023 and we're hoping the summer will get a more concrete date. That's at least the rumor that they're going to tell us the summer. Lisa Bridgewater: So any materials that reference the Efc. That's going away. So we're gonna have to update everything that any of our printed materials again. Efc: now will be considered sai any gift agreements that have that reference. So any donor private donors foundation we work with. If they're looking at Lisa Bridgewater: mit ctl, and the documentation, if it references Efc. We have to have that changed any web web pages that mentioned tuition and fees. So all of our websites and all the different programs on our campus have information about tuition fees, and we're hoping that you are forwarding to our website 250, Lisa Bridgewater: because we're always going to keep our websites updated with the the most accurate in compliance regarded information. So if you have information like that, go ahead and forward to our pages as opposed to making your own, because it is a little harder to to keep track of with with all of these changes. But if you do have tuition and fees Lisa Bridgewater: anywhere listed with your websites, it also has to talk about cost of attendance. Otherwise we're just giving the allusion to the students that tuition and fees are all they have to pay. They have to be able to be able to see the whole package. Lisa Bridgewater: And of course, anyone that specifically list costs must remove the specific cost, detail and point them to our student central cost of attendance page, and that's the page that we own, and that we update regularly. Lisa Bridgewater: So now there are still a few things that we don't know, and unfortunately that means it's gonna be a little still. A few more things that we're gonna need to look into. So some of the questions we're looking for Lisa Bridgewater: i'm sorry. I'm just moving that over. Okay? Well, the removal of the health and housing question regarding students living situation remain. Now. I know that probably doesn't make a lot of sense necessarily. But on the Fafsa we actually ask our students, how are Where are they living when they're in campus? Is it on campus off campus are living with parent. Lisa Bridgewater: The Fafsa has said, Well, since that's not something that is required to create or come up with the Sai that they weren't going to put that housing question on the Fafsa. Lisa Bridgewater: So now most of the nation that use that question to determine how housing is going to work. We're all kind of scrambling to figure out what that's going to look like. So we're working with admissions and some some other departments to current. Try to see what that's going to look like for our students, so we can still capture that information. Lisa Bridgewater: Also, how widespread the impacts will be from adding the family farm a small businesses. That's we really need to dig into that to see really how our students are going to be impacted. We also don't know what verification is going to look like for 2425, as Megan had mentioned before. Lisa Bridgewater: The verification is gonna look a little different. We're hoping because the families are going to be able to utilize that data retrieval that's going to connect them to the Irs a lot better than it has been in the past. So really anyone filing the fafsa should be able to use the data retrieval element that they will have now moving forward. And then also we're waiting to hear from the State. The state's also waiting to make some decisions because they are going to be impacted. Remember our Frank abandon awards are based on expected family contribution. So now that Efc is going away, how is Sai going to look for them, and what that? What is that going to look like. So we're still waiting on details, of course, because we're waiting on how this is all going to unfold for the for everyone that's dealing with the this change. Lisa Bridgewater: Now that was our presentation, for today I have a couple of questions in chat, so i'm going to go grab those for a bit. Oh, it looks like Brandon's question was answered. Is there a target deadline? These changes need to be implemented, and Lauren had mentioned? The websites must be updated by fall 2,023, so that's a great point. I just want to make sure that everyone also heard that as well Lauren Greider: and that kind of goes to that slide that that we saw at the beginning where it it and Megan talked about the phased approach. So there are some things that we're having to do and implement now. Lauren Greider: you know, leading into fall 23. And then there's a good portion of those that won't take effect until fall 24. But the web page updates specifically around cost of attendance, and making sure that anywhere that mentions Lauren Greider: fees, anything like that, that you are listing all cost of attendance components. That is one of the items that that is effective. Beginning with the 2324 years so we'll wanna make sure Lauren Greider: all of those are updated prior to fall, beginning again. We, you know we we do a fairly good job on this campus of not having too many rogue pages that that are listing dates. Lauren Greider: dollar amounts things of that nature. I know there's been in recent years a a push to kind of house, all of that in one place, anyway. So this that Lauren Greider: helps our our efforts in our work. But we definitely need to make sure that we go out and get those cleaned up. One of the other pieces that the Feds have announced is they will be having secret shoppers, so they will have Federal employees who are going out and looking at Lauren Greider: various university web pages to make sure that we are doing all of those things. So again, if we have any fees listed that that we're listing all cost of attendance components, or at the very least we're we're pointing everyone to that same page so that they can get all of that information Lauren Greider: and and a variety of of other consumer disclosures and things like that that we're required to have. So there'll be secret shoppers out checking our web pages. So we definitely have our work cut out for us, but those should should be in place by fall 23. Lauren Greider: Are there any I know this is a lot of information at one time, and, as Lisa said, we, we will plan to have some additional trainings as we learn more and and get more details. Are there any other questions from the group Lauren Greider: in terms of how this may impact students impact the work that we are doing? Brandon Kuntz: I have a question. Brandon Kuntz: Was there a confirmation of whether or not a negative sai would affect or increase cost of attendance. Lauren Greider: That's a great question. So for those just a little background for folks who may not work closely with financial aid or awarding students do have a cost of attendance or a budget. We sometimes use those terms interchangeably, and a student can't receive aid over that dollar amount that's looking at the average cost for tuition fees. Lauren Greider: housing and food transportation, all of those items. And historically, when we've had a 0 Efc. That means that entire cost of attendance we can award in Lauren Greider: federal state and institutional or external scholarships. With the negative sai. There was a lot of kind of maybe excitement, but also curiosity around that in the financial aid world of If If that meant, then because we're we're looking at a negative number, Are we technically able to award folks over that cost of attendance? And they have come out and clarified that? No, that is not the case. Lauren Greider: So when we're looking at awarding, you still have to stay within the cost of attendance, and I believe some of the additional conversation about using the negative number is to have a mechanism for universities to Essentially. Lauren Greider: when we're looking at our own data, have a a Lauren Greider: broader scale to see where students fall. So we used to have a lot of students who would be clumped at that 0 Efc. And that lets us break. Break those students out a little bit more so. If we are looking at students with high need for institutional aid programs and supports, we can. Lauren Greider: we can better delineate where they fall in that. So which is still helpful. But no, we will not be able to award over their cost of attendance Lauren Greider: any other questions. Lauren Greider: Okay. Lauren Greider: The the only other plug I would give is again just a reminder around the the timing Megan mentioned. You know the the Fafsa will be released at some point in December. We will certainly communicate out once we have an official date. Lauren Greider: but I do want to highlight for any folks who may be involved with scholarship process anything of that nature that may, if it's a need based scholarship. That's relying on that Fafsa information. We're probably gonna be running into a pretty quick turnaround. You know this next cycle that as soon as we get those fafs was in Lauren Greider: we'll want to be able to hit the ground running in getting need based awards, put on students accounts, and then being able to get that information out to them. Lauren Greider: So that runway between when students here, what their financial aid awards are, and when they're likely aiming to make a decision, for where they'll be attending school is a a little bit shorter than than it has historically been, and the one. Lauren Greider: I guess, perhaps piece of comfort is that we're all in the same boat. You know all of all of the universities. We're all in that same boat, all the students, because we're all at the mercy of when that when that fafsa goes live, and how quickly our software developers can make sure Lauren Greider: that there aren't any hiccups, and can get all of that information loaded and into our systems to be able to use. So just just want to throw that out there. Lauren Greider: and aside from that, just thank you all very much for your time. Once we, Lisa, will you send out a link to the recording, or or let folks know how that's available, so they can share with anyone who who may need that. Lisa Bridgewater: All right. Well, thank you so much for coming today. I'm going to stop the recording.
