To highlight our commitment to transparency, MEFA has several web based tools for outreach, education and information. These tools are not intended to replace the channels currently in place for press and constituent communication. (Press inquiries should be directed to [email protected], public record requests should be directed to [email protected], and questions regarding services should be directed to [email protected].) Rather, these tools are meant to augment our ability to educate, empower, and inform.

Please note, that Records Retention Law of the Commonwealth requires MEFA to preserve records created or received by a MEFA employee. Pursuant to this retention requirement, comments posted or messages received via an official state agency page on a third-party website (such as an official agency profile on a social network) will be treated as state governmental records and may be permanently archived. Information that you submit voluntarily through third party social media sites where such sites are associated with MEFA and when such information is publically available, including your name, city or town, and the substance of anything that you post, may be disseminated further by being posted online at this website or be publicly discussed by a member of the administration.

MEFA on Facebook:

MEFA’s Facebook page, is the official Facebook page of MEFA. MEFA hopes to connect with families and students in Massachusetts, as well as those from out-of-state hoping to pursue a higher education in Massachusetts, in order to provide helpful and relevant information on planning, saving, and paying for college, and provide updates about MEFA events and news. We encourage you to visit this page often and participate by reviewing and commenting on the content. Please review our page and Facebook’s Participation Policy pages to learn more about how these pages are and are not used by MEFA.

X (formerly Twitter):

To view MEFA’s X page, visit twitter.com/mefatweets. While people use X in many different ways for both personal and professional reasons, as a matter of policy:

• MEFA’s use of X is intended as a means to provide announcements, commentary, and updates on current events or notices to any users who elect to watch or follow our X feed.
• We generally follow people back who follow us, and we may comment on user posts to the X site. If you would prefer that we do not follow you, please send us a direct message and we will comply with the request as soon as reasonably possible.
• X is one of the many means we’re using to connect MEFA and the community. We’ll review and update X as much as possible, just as we monitor and maintain many other channels of feedback, outreach, and engagement including feedback from public meetings, email, letters, phone calls, and in-person visits.
• Unless you protect your updates, messages you post on X that are received by MEFA may be public records and may also be publicly available.
• We may occasionally reach out to other X users that post information about financial aid, higher education, and college savings but don’t reference our account, MEFAtweets, in order to inform that user about our account.
• MEFA may respond via X to press inquiries, questions, or complaints, or other customer matters. For instructions on appropriate methods for contacting MEFA, please visit the Contact Us page of the MEFA’s website.

Also note that this micro-blog is hosted by X and is governed by X’s separate website policies, including its Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. These policies apply to your use of X For questions, please contact [email protected].

LinkedIn:

MEFA’s LinkedIn page, is the official LinkedIn page of MEFA. MEFA hopes to connect with families and students in Massachusetts, as well as those from out-of-state hoping to pursue a higher education in Massachusetts, in order to provide helpful and relevant information on planning, saving, and paying for college, and provide updates about MEFA events and news. We encourage you to visit this page often and participate by reviewing and commenting on the content. Please review the LinkedIn Participation Policy pages to learn more about how these pages are and are not used by MEFA.

YouTube™:

To both increase transparency and be cost efficient on video hosting and streaming, MEFA publishes all of our video content, including press releases, to our YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/MEFAcounselor. We also may embed these videos on our own site.

MEFA is responsible solely for the content uploaded to the official YouTube channels, and not for any related videos or linked videos linked from other users, nor for any advertising or other content contained on the YouTube website.

Also note that these video shares are hosted by YouTube and are governed by their website policies, including YouTube’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. These policies apply to your use of YouTube. For questions, please contact [email protected].

Instagram:

To increase awareness and further connect with students, families, and colleagues, MEFA publishes photo content to our Instagram account at https://instagram.com/mefa_ma.

MEFA is responsible solely for the content uploaded to the official Instagram account, and not for any related videos or linked photos linked from other users, nor for any advertising or other content contained on the Instagram application or website.

If you use any of our photos for another work, such as a story, blog post, printing, etc., we require that you provide credit by stating at or near the photo, “Photo courtesy of @mefa_ma.”

Also note that this photo share is hosted by Instagram and is governed by Instagram’s separate website policies, including its Terms of Use and Data Policy. These policies apply to your use of Instagram.

MEFA E-Communications

MEFA publishes e-communications that are a resource for school counselors, parents, students, and community-based organizations among other groups. Current non-Canadian customers will automatically receive these e-communications. All other interested parties are welcome to subscribe by registering here as a parent, here as a school counselor, or here as a college administrator.

Comments and suggestions on the content and design are welcome and should be emailed to [email protected]. If you are currently receiving e-communications and wish to unsubscribe, you may do so at any time by emailing [email protected] or clicking “unsubscribe” at the bottom of the emailed newsletter you received.

These electronic communications are distributed through Salesforce Marketing Cloud and are governed by their separate website policies, including its Privacy, Anti-Spam, and Cookie Policies. These policies apply to your use and receipt of these electronic communications. For questions, please contact [email protected].

Contents and Linking

Although we make this website freely accessible, the materials available through this website are the property of MEFA, and are protected by copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property laws. You are free to display and print for your personal, non-commercial use information you receive through this website, but you may not otherwise reproduce or modify any of the materials without our prior written consent. You may not distribute copies of materials found on this website in any form (including by email or other electronic means), without our prior written permission. Of course, you are free to encourage others to access the information themselves on this website and to tell them how to find it. Requests for permission to reproduce or distribute materials found on this website should be sent to [email protected]. We welcome you to link to our homepage and you are free to establish a hypertext link to the homepage of this site so long as the link does not state or imply any affiliation, connection, sponsorship, or approval of your site by MEFA.

MEFA’s Terms of Comment

The Terms of Comment provide guidelines in the facilitation of an ongoing dialogue between the public and MEFA. We encourage your comments, ideas, and concerns and hope that you find the information helpful. MEFA’s social media platforms are moderated. Comments may be reviewed for compliance with our policies before posting. We recognize that the web is a 24/7 medium, and your comments are welcome at any time, however, the moderating and posting of comments will only occur during regular business hours Monday through Friday Eastern Time. Comments submitted after hours or on weekends or holidays will be reviewed and posted as early as possible; in most cases, this means the next business day. MEFA’s social media platforms serve you in the following ways:

• These platforms are a place for exchanging and publishing new ideas where we encourage conversations between and among the public and MEFA.
• MEFA’s social media channels do not act as a substitute channel for services or general information. Additionally, you may not use these channels for the following reasons but rather, use MEFA’s email at [email protected] or by calling (800) 449-MEFA (6332) to reach a customer service representative.
• MEFA will not accept unsolicited proposals or other business ideas or inquiries to these sites. These sites are not to be used for contracting or commercial business.
• These sites may not be used for the submission of any claim, demand, informal or formal legal complaint, or any other form of legal and/or administrative notice or process, or for the exhaustion of any legal and/or administrative remedy or questions about your specific account.
• These sites are not to be used to report criminal activity. If you have information for law enforcement, please contact your local police agency.

Comment Policy

We expect conversations to follow the rules of polite discourse and we ask that participants treat each other, as well as our employees, with respect. The following comments will not be posted and/or removed:

• Items from above if posted
• Profanity and vulgar or abusive language
• Threats of physical or bodily harm
• Offensive terms that target protected classes, such as ethnic, racial, sexual orientation, transgendered, or religious groups.
• Sensitive information (for example, information regarding your specific accounts)

For the benefit of robust discussion, we ask that comments remain “on topic.” This means that comments must relate to the topic that is being discussed within these sites. Comments will not be posted or will be removed that include:

• Off-topic comments (If you have off-topic comments that are relevant to MEFA, please email them to [email protected])
• Questions from the media (please email [email protected])
• Identical posts by the same user (please don’t submit over and over expecting the post to show up faster) or multiple users (a group of people sending identical messages or one person submitting under different aliases). In the case of identical posts, MEFA may only post the first submission or remove subsequent submissions.

Privacy and Security Policies

With respect to content collected through these sites, MEFA follows its Privacy Policy, which can be accessed here. However, the technology supporting these sites is provided by the sites’ providers and these sites are also subject to website policies of those providers including their Privacy Policies. Please be sure to reference each site’s specific policies.

To protect your own privacy and the privacy of others, please do not include personally identifiable information, such as Social Security numbers, account numbers, or birth dates in the body of your comments or posts. If you do voluntarily include personally identifiable information in your comments or posts, they may or may not be posted on these sites. If your comment is posted or remains posted, your name will not be redacted or removed. You have the option of posting comments anonymously, but if you opt not to, any information, including your login name, may be displayed on our site.

Intellectual Property

Comments provided on pages are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. In addition, visitors to these pages agree to grant a non-exclusive, irrevocable, royalty-free license to the rest of the world for their submissions to this site under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. A copy of this license is available online at http://creativecommons.org/licenses.

Posted on October 11, 2021; effective for current users on October 14, 2021