Shawn Morrissey: [00:00:00] Good afternoon. Thank you for joining us, um, for Understanding the FAFSA. My name is Shaun Morrissey. I am the director of college relations here at MEFA, and I have my colleagues Stephanie, Jennifer, and Meredith with me to answer questions behind the scenes. We’re gonna be going through the FAFSA in quite a bit of detail, so, um, hopefully, most of the questions will be answered for you as we go through.

But if you have specific questions about what we’re covering, feel free to put those in the Q&A, and we’ll answer those as we go through. We are recording this webinar, and we’ll be sending out a link to the recording and the slides to everyone who registered, so you will have access to the recording and the slides with all the links in the slides, um, within a day of, um, this webinar.

Just a little bit about how to participate. So the chat is disabled today, but the Q&A is open. [00:01:00] If you do have questions, you can put that in the Q&A, and we’ll try to answer those for you. You can also use the live transcript option if you would like to see closed captioning.

A little bit about MEFA, um, before we get started. MEFA is a state authority created by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1982. Um, and we were started at the behest of several colleges in Massachusetts. They petitioned the state legislature in Massachusetts to create a, um, entity to provide low-cost loans to families in Massachusetts.

Since then, we’ve expanded to, um, provide loans nationwide to families, as well as providing information on planning, saving, and paying for college. We do have, um, several savings plans, as well as some great [00:02:00] information about planning and paying for college. If you go to our website at mefa.org, there is a wealth of information there, and we have many webinars such as this that are recorded on our website, and you can register for, um, live webinars as well, and we’ll have links to that later on in the presentation.

So a little bit abou- of information about the FAFSA. The FAFSA is the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. Um, that’s a free form. It’s available at fafsa.gov. You can go onto fafsa.gov or studentaid.gov in order to, um, access the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. That first F in FAFSA is very important.

Um, it is a free application. Um, if you are on a different site and it may ask you for a fee to fill out the FAFSA, please know that that is a scam site. Um, the FAFSA is a free [00:03:00] application, and no one should be asking you for any type of fee to fill out the FAFSA. The FAFSA is required by all colleges and universities for federal and state aid and some institutional aid as well.

Some schools do have additional applications in addition to the FAFSA to determine your eligibility for institutional aid, but all colleges will require the FAFSA. It must be completed each year, it’s an annual form, and for every child that you may have in college. So you do have to complete the process every year that the child is in school.

Um, so that is not, it’s not a one and done. You have to do that each year while the school is in there. And as I said, there may be other financial aid applications required by the school, so you wanna check the website of every school that the, um, student is attending and see what applications they require.

Um, [00:04:00] because in addition to the FAFSA, they may require the CSS Profile. They may have an institutional application as well. So you wanna check with their website, and you also wanna check to see what their deadlines are for filling out the FAFSA and other financial aid applications, and make sure that you meet that deadline.

So when you are completing the FAFSA, there are a few, um, terms that you should know. One of those is contributor, and a contributor is anyone who needs to provide information. So the student is always a contributor on the FAFSA, and, um, any parent that needs their information on there would be a contributor as well.

And we’ll talk about the situation if there is a family that is divorced or separated, who would be the contributor on there. But each contributor has their own section to complete, and once, um, a contributor gives [00:05:00] consent, all of the information will pull from the IRS to pull in your federal tax return information.

Every contributor must provide consent in order for the FAFSA to be a valid FAFSA. So if a parent or a student does not give consent, then the student is not eligible for federal aid. So everyone must give consent to have the information pulled from the IRS. Even those that did not file a tax return, they do have to give consent in order for the IRS to return the information that they did not file a tax return.

There is online skip logic throughout the FAFSA, so they remove questions that are not applicable, and this makes the FAFSA quicker and easier for students. Um, they do say the FAFSA takes under an hour for most families, but in a lot of cases, we’ve heard it taking less than [00:06:00] fifteen minutes for a family now to fill out the FAFSA.

So it’s much quicker than it was in the past. Um, they’ve really streamlined the process for families, and, um, we’ll be going through and looking at what that looks like in just a minute. So because that skip logic is used, you must answer all the questions in order, in order for that skip logic to, um, work properly And if an answer is zero, um, or the question does not apply, you would enter zero in that question.

Also, um, all questions are in full dollars only. You do not enter cents at any time on the FAFSA. You just enter full dollars. Incomplete FAFSAs are deleted after 45 days, and reminders are sent every seven days, um, for FAFSAs that aren’t complete, and those are sent both to the student and any contributors that they may invite.

So information and, [00:07:00] um, items needed to complete the FAFSA. For the students and parents, they would need a Social Security number in order to create their initial login. If you do not have a Social Security number, there is a process to create, um, an, an account without a Social Security number. In addition to the Social Security number, you need the date of birth.

Um, your current bank statements and investment records are helpful to complete the FAFSA because they’re going to ask information about your assets. Um, other families may need 2025 federal income tax returns, but for most families, that’s going to pull directly from the IRS. Um, but f- if information is asked for you manually, you would have to refer to your 2025 federal tax return information because for the ’27/’28 FAFSA, it’s using prior prior year tax information, and so that’s looking at the 2025 federal income tax [00:08:00] information.

Here’s some information about calling, um, FAFSA customer service. If you have issues while you’re filling out your FAFSA, you can call them via for- um, phone. There’s an email there located in their help center. They also have a live chat available that you can, um, use if you have questions. Also, as you’re going through the FAFSA, there’s going to be, and we’ll show these in some of the slides with, um, screenshots of there, there’s more information available on most of the questions.

If you click on the question mark or the i next to, um, most of the items, it’s going to give you more information on what is required for that item if you’re not sure exactly what they’re asking for, and I’ll show you when we get to the screenshots what that looks like. Their hours for customer service are listed here, and there’s also a help link at the top of each page that leads to, [00:09:00] um, more information about chatting, the help center, contacting us, and submitting FAF, um, feedback if you need to contact the FAFSA for assistance.

So when you do get to fafsa.gov and you get to the homepage, you will first hit Start New Form, and that will bring you to the FAFSA process. You’re going to, um, choose the school year that you need. Right now they’ll have the 2027-’28 and 2026-’27 years active. So for students that are beginning in fall of ’27-’28, you want to make sure that you are choosing the ’27-’28 FAFSA

Then you must log in in order to, um, access your account, and if you do not already have a studentaid.gov account, [00:10:00] or what, um, previously was called an FSA ID, you can create an account at that point by clicking create your account. If you already have a studentaid.gov account or an FSA ID, you would log in using that information.

And, um, there is only one studentaid.gov account allowed per, um, person or social security number, so if you already have an account that you’ve used either for another child in school or to fill out, um, FAFSA or to pay your or look at information about your student loans, you would use that studentaid.gov account that you already have, um, in place.

You would not create a new account, um, as a parent for each student. You could only have one account, but, um, each student would have their own account as well So for account creation, who needs an account? The student needs that, [00:11:00] and every parent listed on the FAFSA. So if parents file their taxes jointly, only one parent needs a, um, studentaid.gov account.

If parents file separately or one of the parents doesn’t file, then, um, you would need both parents’ information on there. And we’ll talk about how you determine which parent is on the FAFSA in cases of divorced or separated in just one moment. Um, but you can choose your language there between English and Spanish, um, and click create an account, get started to get started.

And there you would enter your email address. Um, there does need to be a, um… The email address has to be, um, only one email address per studentaid.gov account. And you would g- then get a secure code that’s sent to your email, [00:12:00] and you would put your name, date of birth, and your Social Security number if you have that.

Parents without a Social Security number will need to answer some knowledge-based questions based on the credit history. Um, if those questions are answered properly, then the studentaid.gov account will be verified in real time, and you can use that to fill out the FAFSA. If the questions are not answered properly, you can still use that studentaid.gov account to complete your portion of the FAFSA.

However, you may have to provide additional information to ident- to verify your identity with the schools that you are listing on the FAFSA. They’re also going to ask a phone number for account rec- recovery and for s- two-step verification. That process is optional, but that does give you an easy way to recover that account if you were to forget your [00:13:00] password.

It will send a text to your phone with, um, a code that you can use in order to recover your account if you do forget your password. So it is helpful to have that if you do have a phone number available. Um, then if you do do that two-step verification, a secure code is sent to your phone that you then enter in, um, to verify that that is your phone number.

They’re also going to ask your mailing address, and you create a username and password. Make sure that you maintain what that username and password is because you’ll have to use that each year when you fill out the FAFSA, as well as, um, once the student graduates, if they have any type of student loans, they would use that to access that information as well And you’ll need to verify your identity via phone or email every time you log in, so they are going to ask either to use your email address or your phone number in order to do s- two-step [00:14:00] verification.

And each time you enter your username and password, you’re also going to be asked to enter a code that’s sent to you either via the phone or email each time you log in So then, um, once you log in, it’s going to ask again that username and your password. If you forgot that, there is a link there to say you forgot your email address or password, and they will help you through that process.

Once you get through the login, it’s going to ask you to choose the student or parent role. Um, it’s strongly recommended that the student start the FAFSA, and the reason being for that is the way that the parent is invited is a lot easier for the student to start the process and invite the parent to be a contributor on the FAFSA rather than the parent starting for the student and then sending an invitation to the student to complete.

There’s also some [00:15:00] duplication of information if the, it’s started as the parent, so the process is a lot quicker if it’s started as the student. So you can log in with the student’s, um, studentaid.gov account information and start it that way. Um, it’s a lot easier. If you do, if you are logging as the parent because you’ve received an invitation code from the student, it, you will be asked there to enter the code in order for them to match you up with the s- proper student in order to complete that FAFSA.

For this webinar, we’re going to assume that the student is starting the FAFSA, um, since that is the recommended route to go. So first, um, once you log in and say you started as the student, the student’s information from their studentaid.gov account will be pre-populated. You want to review that information, make sure it’s all correct.

If that’s not correct, you must go up to account settings on studentaid.gov and correct that under account settings. [00:16:00] You can’t correct that in the FAFSA since that all lives within, um, the studentaid.gov account information. That has to be changed on the account level. Um, and you can easily make those changes, then come back to the FAFSA and review that everything is correct on there Next, it’s going to ask for the student’s state of legal residence.

If that is their date of birth, they would enter their date of birth there. Um, if they moved to the state after the date of birth, it’s the month and year where they moved to that state to become a legal residence. And you’ll see that throughout the application, there’s this little I mark, um, with a circle around it next to each of the questions, and that gives you more information and more details about what they’re looking for on there.

So if you ever have questions about what data is being asked for there, you can, um, click on that [00:17:00] little I w- with the circle around it, and it will give you more information Next, it will be asking you to provide consent in order for information to come directly from the IRS into the FAFSA, and every contributor must provide consent in order for the student to have a valid FAFSA and qualify for federal aid.

So if any of the contributors says they are not providing consent, you will not … the student will not be eligible for financ- federal financial aid. So you must, um, agree to and provide consent in order for that to happen. And again, even if someone did not file taxes, they must provide consent in order for the IRS to, um, retrieve information that the student or parent did not file tax [00:18:00] returns.

So once you hit Approve, um, that will provide consent. A screen will then show that the IRS information is being imported securely into the FAFSA. No information from IRS is displayed on the website, and it also isn’t displayed in the, um, financial aid summary that is received from the student, the FAFSA summary that’s received when the student completes the FAFSA.

So you will not be able to see the information that is being provided from the IRS, and that is on purpose so that it is very secure, that someone, um, who is going in fraudulently will not be able to ever see your IRS tax information from the website, um, and again, through the FAFSA Submission Summary or FSS.

Um, that information is sent to the schools that you list on the [00:19:00] FAFSA as well as to the state of legal residence that the, um, student lists on the FAFSA, and that’s sent very securely to the schools and to the state agencies. Um, and they have very strict guidelines on how they can use that tax information.

So just know that your tax information is very, um, securely protected through this process Non-tax filers will receive a message that no IRS tax data was found. Um, you’ll- it’ll look like this. “Sorry, no data could be retrieved. Um, select Continue to proceed.” Um, and that will just tell you that you did not file a tax return, and it may ask for additional information, um, about your employment and, um, income for that year.

Then the student is asked for information about their background, [00:20:00] and this is used to determine if a student is considered dependent, which means that they need to report parental information on the FAFSA, or independent, where they would not need to provide, um, parental data So questions that are asked, um, the student’s current marital status.

If a student is married, they are considered independent. However, if a student was married but is now separated, they are not considered independent automatically, um, because of their marital status. So single students, separated students, um, and students that are, um, divorced are not considered automatically, um, independent, but married students are considered independent.

Then they would an- answer information about what year in school they are, um, during [00:21:00] ’27, ’28, and it gives them the year in school, and it will also ask them if they already have a bachelor’s degree. Um, and students should make sure they answer no when asked if they have a bachelor’s degree if they are, um, starting to pursue their bachelor’s degree and don’t already have one.

If a student does already have a bachelor’s degree and are going into graduate school, graduate students are considered independent and will not have to provide parental information Then it’s going to ask other qual- factors that may qualify a student as independent. Um, if the student is over 23, if they have other dependents who receive more than 50% of the support from them, they are considered independent.

If they are an active duty m- military or are a veteran, then they are also considered independent. Or if since the age of 13 they were considered orphaned, a [00:22:00] fos- in foster care, or a ward of the court, they are also considered independent. If they are an emancipated minor, they’re considered independent, and also students in legal guardianship are considered independent.

They do not have to provide any information about their guardians. They, um, just if they’re in legal guardianship, they are considered independent and only have to provide their own information.

There’s also a question that asks us if the student is homeless or self-supporting and at risk of being homeless. If they answer yes to either of those questions, they are also considered independent, and the school may follow up with i- additional information to verify that. Um, but if they do answer yes to one of those questions, they are considered independent and will not have to provide parental information [00:23:00] And the last question to d- determine if the student is, um, independent, they are asked if they have any unusual circumstances that prevent them from contacting their parents.

Um, and if they do meet those criteria, since they, if they left their home due to an abuse or threatening environment, they’re abandoned or estranged from their parents, they have certain refugee or asylee statuses, um, they’re a victim of human trafficking, or are incarcerated, um, or their parents are incarcerated, or they’re otherwise unable to contact their parents, then they would answer yes to that, and they would be considered independent.

But colleges will follow up to require more information or documentation to verify that information as well Then once that all goes through, if they answer all those questions and they are considered dependent, [00:24:00] um, they will get a message that they are considered a dependent student, and then they’re provided one additional question that if the student par- student’s parent is refusing to provide their information on there, they do have the opportunity to not provide the parent’s, um, information and to be considered for only the direct unsubsidized loan.

Um, so they would not qualify for any other type of federal aid, and they may not qualify for other types of state aid or institutional aid if they answer this, um, question as yes as well. But they would become, um, eligible to receive unsubsidized loans only, and those are, um, subject to annual loan limits, um, as well.

So if they say yes to that, then they do not provide parental information, but they can get that direct unsubsidized loan only. This question defaults to no for all [00:25:00] students, and for most students, um, the answer is no to that Then they’re asked some information about demographics. It’s going to ask for the student’s sex.

Um, this information is not provided to schools and is only collected, um, for research purposes, um, by the Federal Processing Center. Um, it does not affect the eligibility for student aids. It’s not used in any aid calculations, and it’s not shared with the school or the state that the student is providing.

But the students must answer, um, the question, so they must answer male or female

Also, um, with student race and e-ethnicity, this information again is not shared with colleges and does not affect age eligibil- aid eligibility. It’s only collected by, um, the Federal Processing Center. However, for, [00:26:00] um, race and ethnicity, they do have the option of saying prefer not to answer. With the sex question, they do have to answer that.

Then they’re asked their, um, US citizenship status. This question is important and does, um, is used to determine if they’re eligible for federal aid or not. So if a student is a US or national– US citizen or national, they would say yes to the US citizen or national. There’s also eligible non-citizen category, which includes US nationals, permanent residents, carriers of arrival-departure records like an I-94, holders of certain T visas, battered immigrant or qualified alien status, and citizens of the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of the Marshall Isle- Islands, and the Republic of Palau.

Um, if you are not a US citizen or eligible non-citizen, you are not eligible [00:27:00] for federal aid and, um, in most cases you shouldn’t fill out the FAFSA unless the school, um, instructs you to fill out the FAFSA. If you are neither a US citizen or eligible non-citizen, then check that box. You are not eligible for federal aid.

Um, the citizenship status is verified by the Social Security Administration for, um, citizens and the Department of Homeland Security for eligible non-citizens It’s going to ask you information about the parents’ education status, um, whether the parents attended college, either one or both of the parents attended college but didn’t complete, um, one or both completed colleges or don’t know.

Um, you can answer those questions as well And it also asks if the parents w- one of the parents may have been killed in the line of duty, um, and this is while [00:28:00] serving on active duty as a member of the US Armed Forces on or after the events of 9/11 or by performing official duties as a public service, public safety officer.

And the reason that this question is asked, if a student does answer yes to that question, there may be some federal grants that they qualify for It’s going to ask the student’s high school completion status as of the start of their classes for the ’27, ’28 years. So students may, um, be filling this out before they complete their high school diploma, but they, um, are anticipating completing their high school diploma.

They should answer yes to that, uh, because at the beginning of the ’27, ’28 year, they will have received their high school diploma at that point. Um, they also have the option of saying yes to a GED or a state recognized high school equivalent, or yes to homeschooling, [00:29:00] or no to none of the above Students who select high school diploma will then need to report their high school.

The student enters the school city and state, and then selects the school from the search results

Um, the student was also asked about their tax filings status. Did the student file a US federal tax return, or will they? Um, or did they file a 2025 income tax return in Puerto Rico or another US territory? They’re asked that question as well And then they’re asked a few questions about the federal tax return, um, what their filing status was, any rollovers or grants or scholarships or AmeriCorps benefit that was reported as income to the IRS.

So that’s an important thing when they’re asked about the scholarships, AmeriCorps benefits. That’s only information about, [00:30:00] um, scholarships or benefits that were reported to income for the IRS. And remember, this is for prior prior year. So for students that are going into their first year of school, that should always be zero for them because, um, this is prior prior year.

And for, in a lot of cases, most scholarships or benefits are not reported as income unless they are above, um, the tuition and fees at the school, and then the school will send information about what is taxable, um, to put on their taxes. But that won’t be for, um, show on the taxes for several years since it’s prior prior year information that’s used on the tax return.

Also, any foreign income, um, is asked for, and most other tax return data is going to be pulled in automatically from the IRS through that consent process. The student is also asked [00:31:00] for their current balance of cash shavings, savings and checking accounts, and they want to enter that in there, and also the net value of any investments that they have, um, including real estate.

The primary home is not included on the FAFSA, but if there are, uh, there’s a second home or, um, any rental property, then that information is reported on there. And to value the amount of the second home or any, any rental real estate that may be owned, you do sub- subtract any mortgage, um, that’s due on that against the value of the home when you reported the net worth of that investment.

That is the only time that any type of debt is reported on the FAFSA is subtracting it from that asset to determine the net worth. And, um, net worth of any business and farm is also listed [00:32:00] there, and that’s any business that is above a hundred employees, um, or, um, larger farms. Then the student can select up to twenty schools to list on there.

If there are more than twenty schools that the student needs to select, they can go in, um, once that FAFSA is submitted and make a correction to add additional schools on there. Um, they can search by entering a state, city, and/or the school name, and, um, that will give them a list of schools to choose from.

The student can also reorder the school if the school’s state requires it to be on the list. There are certain, for scholarship eligibility in certain states, um, that state does need to be listed first on the FAFSA, so a school in that state needs to be listed first on the FAFSA. For certain residents, it will tell you based on your state of legal [00:33:00] residence what those requirements are in the state.

Um, for Massachusetts, you’re not required to have a Massachusetts school fir- in the first slot. However, whatever school the student has in the first slot for, um, Massachusetts residents, that will be what the Massachusetts State Award is initially based upon, um, when you receive information about state aid from the state of Massachusetts.

However, if the student chooses to go to another school that isn’t the one listed first on the FAFSA, that information can be corrected with the state of Massachusetts, and then the, um, award for the state can be corrected to reflect the school that the student is attending So then the student is asked to invite, um, the parent on the FAFSA.

The student only has to invite one parent, and again, if, um, the parents [00:34:00] are married, um, filing jointly, only one parent s- has to be, um, provide consent as well. Um, but then once that parent goes in and fills out their invitation, they’ll be asked to, um, invite the second parent. So the student only has to invite one parent.

They just have to provide an email address. That email address does not need to be the same as the one that the parent may use for their, um, studentaid.gov account, but, um, they just have to enter an email address. And if the student isn’t sure who should be invited, there is a link there for who should I invite as a parent on the FAFSA form, and they can choose that link.

So who are the parents on the FAFSA? In the case of biological or adoptive parents, you would include both parents if the parents are married or are not married but living in the same household. [00:35:00] That includes married parents, includes same-sex couples that are married as well. Um, if the biological or adoptive parents are separated but living together, um, then both parents are still have to be on that FAFSA if they are living in the same household.

In the case of divorce or separation, you use the parent that provided more than fifty percent of the support in the last twelve months, and if that parent is remarried, the stepparent’s information has to be on there as well. If the financial support was equal, you would select the parent with the higher income and assets to be on the FAFSA.

Um, however, um, the FAFSA processing center, the, and the Department of Education has said that there’s really no real-world, um, situation where a family would give exactly fifty-fifty, that if one parent [00:36:00] provides an extra cup of coffee to that student, that would be, um, the parent that provides more than fifty percent of the support, and the family can make that determination on which one that is.

If no s- financial support was given to the student in the past twelve months, you select the parent who provided the most support in the year when the student last received support from a parent if the student is considered dependent still.

So the student would, um, send that invitation with the email that they provide. They’re going to be then shown a code that can also be shared with the parent if the parent does not receive that email, and that code shows here on the screen in real time when the student is sending that invitation. And the student can also access that if they log back into their FAFSA and look at the information in that section.

They’ll be able to access [00:37:00] that code later on if for some reason the parent can’t locate that. But that code will also be sent via email to the email that the student provides, and the parent will use that code in order for the parent’s information to link up to the student’s FAFSA

Then the student will be able to review each of the sections that they, um, filled out. Again, no tax information is going to be, um, displayed here, but it will show all the information that the student did fill out. And to edit a response, the student can just select the questions hyperlink to be taken to that corresponding page

The student will then agree to the terms and conditions. They have to click on View Terms and Conditions and have that displayed to them before they can say that they agree [00:38:00] to those. And then they can check that box that says that they agree and submit that form. The FAFSA is not considered complete or processed until all sections are complete, including the parent’s information.

Um, so the parent will– I mean, the student will receive, uh, this screen here showing that their section is complete, but it’s still pending submission because the parent’s contributors need to complete their steps. It will show all the steps that are needed in order to complete that FAFSA So then the parent will get that email with the information, and there’ll be a link in there for them to use that will bring them right to the FAFSA.

If you use that link, once you sign in with your, um, sunya.gov account and password, then the code should be pre-populated for you, or you can [00:39:00] copy and paste that from the email. Um, the text does stress in there that completing the FAFSA does not make the parent financially responsible, um, to pay for college expenses.

It’s just going to be able to, um, determine the eligibility for the student to be eligible for federal, state, and some institutional aid as well

So the parent should click Log In to accept the invitation. Once they log in, again, with their, um, studentaid.gov account and password, or if you don’t have an account, you can create an account at that point, and then use that code that was sent to you in order to link, um, your information to the student’s FAFSA.

The invitation code from the parent’s email will be, will, um, fill the text box if you [00:40:00] use the link from the email. However, if you didn’t use that link or, um, you came in some other way, you can copy and paste that into there. Or if the student just wrote that down for you, just type that in there and use Accept Invitation.

Again, the student can retrieve that code at any time by logging into their account in the FAFSA, going back in to review their FAFSA, and they can see that code and provide that to the parent if the parent lost the code Then once the student, the parent logs in with their studentaid.gov account, it’s going to show them information from their studentaid.gov account.

And again, they, you can review that, make sure it’s all correct. However, if there are changes with that, you have to go into your account settings on studentaid.gov to make those changes to identity information [00:41:00] Then the parent is asked to provide consent for their information to be pulled from the IRS, just like the student was asked to provide consent.

Again, if the parent does not provide consent, then the student will not be eligible for federal, um, aid, so they must provide consent in order for the student to be eligible. A screen again will show saying that your information is being imported from the IRS, and then the parent is going to be asked for their marital status.

So, um, this is important in order for the process to determine if there is another, um, parent that needs to be asked for their information as well The parent is also asked for their state of legal residence. Again, if that’s the date of birth, that would be the date of birth to put in there. If you moved to the state some other time, um, you would put [00:42:00] the month and year that you moved to the state And then, um, the parent is asked if they qualified for certain types of federal benefits, including, um, medical SNAP benefits, um, free school lunch, earned income credit, um, Social Security benefits, um, supplemental Social Security, um, TNF.

There– And if the parent did receive any of those types of benefits, there may be some federal grant eligibility for, um, the student. So you would answer those questions accordingly The parent would also, um, answer questions about their tax filing status and if they filed, um, an income tax return in Puerto Rico or a US territory, and did the parents file their tax return jointly with [00:43:00] their current spouse or will they?

That last question is very important because if the parent filed jointly, then, um, you do not have to invite the spouse in onto the FAFSA. Only one parent is needed to provide the consent. If you did not file jointly, then the other parent needs to be invited to provide consent in order for their tax information to, um, be pulled through as well So information about the family size is going to be pulled automatically from the IRS.

However, if the information that was filed on the tax return in 2025 is different from the family size currently, um, then you can override that information here manually. You would just say no and provide, um, information about what the family size is here. And you do not [00:44:00] include the student in this count.

It’s just including, um, people other than the student in the family size. Um, how many people will be in college between July 1st and July 30th? You would enter the number in college here. Um, you do not include parents in here. That would just be other dependents that are in school. This information is not used in the calculation for federal aid, um, but colleges may choose to use that in order to award institutional funds There’s a couple of questions about tax return information.

They ask for any rollovers, um, on the IRA, um, retirement and pension rollovers, and the amount of college grants, scholarships, and AmeriCorps benefits reported as income to the IRS. So again, just like the student question, [00:45:00] these are scholarships that were reported as income on the tax return that you filed in 2025.

Um, so it’s … You would only list that if you had any income from scholarships or AmeriCorps reported on your tax returns. Um, also, any foreign income, earned income exclusion amounts would be listed on there, and all the other tax return data is going to be pulled in automatically. Then you’re also asked for information about parent assets.

Annual child support received is listed here as an asset. Also, um, current balance of cash, savings, and checking accounts are on there. Net value of investments includes real estate, but again, the primary home is not listed as an asset on there, but if you do have a second home or, um, investment property, you would list that on there.

If there are any five hund- 529 college savings plans for [00:46:00] the student, um, you list only the ones that are for the student here as a parent asset. If, um, other siblings have 529 college savings accounts, you do not list those siblings’ 529 college savings accounts as, um, an asset for the parent. You only list the student that is filing f- the FAFSA.

So you would, again, exclude your primary home, any life insurance or retirement accounts when you are, um, providing asset information. And for the net value of all businesses and farms, you would exclude any small or family-owned businesses with 100 or less employees, any farms where the family resides, and any family-owned commercial fishing businesses you do not include there as well.

If the parents’ income is less than 60,000, you won’t be presented with the asset questions at all, um, so you won’t even see these questions if your income [00:47:00] is less than $60,000. And if you do, again, have a second home or, um, a rental property in addition to your primary home, when you are reporting that amount, you can subtract the amount that you owe from your mortgage from the value of that when you are, um, giving the net value of that property.

And there’s nowhere on the FAFSA that is going to ask for debt information Um, parent would provide information from the other parent if they are married or living together or current spouse. If they did not file, um, joint tax returns, they’ll be asked to send information about that. But the– all, um, families will be asked if the parent is married or living together, about their current spouse.

They’ll be asked their date of birth information on there. Um, and then the parent would [00:48:00] review and sign that information. And to edit a response, again, you can select that hyperlink. Data displayed from the IRS will not display on this page. You must, um W- click on that View Terms and Conditions and expand that in order for you to be able to check the box that says you agree to the, um, terms and conditions, and then you can sign.

And if you are the last contributor, you would be able to sign and submit that And if the parent completed the last required section, the FAFSA’s going to be submitted for processing. Um, the page provides information on tracking the FAFSA and what the next steps, and the student will receive an email with detailed confirmation information as well.

If the parent were to start the FAFSA first, um, they can click start the FAFSA form on the FAFSA page and then log [00:49:00] in, and then the parent would be asked, um, information about the student, including their name, date of birth, um, Social Security number, a- and address. The email address does not have to match the one used for the student’s studentaid.gov account, but the parent is asked to answer the questions about the student’s dependency, and they also answer all their own FAFSA questions.

And then the student will receive an email with notification that a FAFSA has been started and an invitation for them to go in and complete their section of the FAFSA. They will have to go back and provide consent, um, in order for the IRS data transfer to happen, and they may, uh, they’ll be able to have to answer some additional questions as well.

So that is the process for the parent starting the FAFSA Once the FAFSA is completed, the student will receive an FSS, a FAFSA Submission Summary, and this is a list of all the information that was [00:50:00] reported on the FAFSA. Again, IRS data is not going to be displayed on that. It also lists all of the schools that the student listed on there with some information about those schools as well.

It also lists when the FAFSA was received in process, and it’s going to give them four tabs, their eligibility overview, FAFSA form answers, school information, and what their next steps are. So the eligibility overview is going to list all the federal aid they may receive, including estimates on their Pell Grant and direct loans.

Again, these are only estimates. The school will, um, send information to the student once they receive and review that and the student has been admitted to the school. They’ll send, um, a financial aid offer with exact details on what the student is eligible for. But this will give them estimates on what they may be eligible for based on [00:51:00] their FAFSA.

It’s also going to list what’s called the student aid index. The student aid index is what is used by schools to determine the, uh, financial need of the students in order to determine what they’re eligible for in financial aid. That student aid index can be as low as a negative fifteen hundred. However, in the financial aid formula, um, that any negative number is used as zero in the financial aid formula.

Um, and the student aid index isn’t going to be necessarily what you have to pay in order to go to college. That’s just an index number to determine the financial need for the student when the f- school is determining their eligibility for aid. It’s also going to show them what they may be eligible for in Pell Grants, direct loans in, um, eligibility for work study.

Then on the tab for [00:52:00] FAFSA answers, again, that will review everything that was listed as answers on the FAFSA, and data transfer from the IRS will not display anywhere on the FAFSA submission summary. On the school information tab, there’ll be information there about graduation rate, retention rate, transfer rate, default rate, uh, median debt upon completion, and average annual costs for each of the school.

There’s also gonna be information on each school that if, um, the median income for the students upon graduation from their programs, um, is higher than the high school graduates in their area as well Um, how that will be displayed is with schools with a low earnings will get this low earnings message, which means that graduates from the schools don’t make an [00:53:00] average, on average higher than those with a high school diploma in their area.

And that’s just for informational pro- purposes, um, that, that may be displayed for some schools that, that are in that situation. So next step, it will tell you if there’s any additional information that’s needed in order to either complete the FAFSA or make corrections to the FAFSA. If they do have to make corrections to the FAFSA, once they receive that federal, the, the FSS, then they are el- eligible to make those corrections immediately.

Um, and they can go in and with their login at studentaid.gov, which they’re already logged in, and make those corrections right away. They’ll also, um, may be told that they have to give additional documentation to schools. It will tell them what documentation is needed, and they can connect with the schools to make sure that they’re sending in the proper documentation.[00:54:00]

So what happens after this FAFSA is submitted? The colleges and states will receive that data electronically. Um, sometimes it takes a few days for the school and the state to receive that information, but, um, once they receive that electronically, they upload that to their systems, and they may request additional documentation or additional information through a process called verification.

If a student is selected for what’s called verification, it doesn’t mean that you filled out anything incorrectly on the FAFSA, but the school may just need additional information in order to verify information that was reported on the FAFSA. And you must comply with these verification requests from the school.

Make sure that the student is checking their email if to get any correspondence from the school. Also, if they have a login for a portal at the school, once they, um, apply for admissions, they may get information about logging into a school portal. Make sure they do that in case [00:55:00] any communication, um, comes through that portal about asking for additional information through verification.

And then colleges usually send out their financial aid offers typically in March or April after the student receives their admissions, um, decision. And sometimes they’re sent along with their admissions letters, but a lot of times they’re sent separately after, um, the student receives their admissions letter as well Um, you, what you should do now is research those deadlines on the required applications, um, that FAFSA and the CSS profile are available starting October 1st.

The FAFSA’s actually available now in beta testing, so if you wanna get an early te- um, start on that, you can go onto fafsa.gov and say that you want to be part of the early testing on that and fill that out now if you’d like to. If you fill that out during the beta testing, that [00:56:00] is a full and valid FAFSA.

Um, but it will become available to the greater public starting on October 1st without needing to ask, um, to be sent an email and be part of the beta testing process. It- it’s really important that you check the deadlines at each school, uh, because each school may have different deadlines for their financial aid applications, so make sure you know what the deadlines are at each of the school that the student’s applying to.

You can use the QR codes here to register for other MEFA webinars, as well as, um, signing up for our email curriculum in order to find information about, um, other webinars that we do have coming up. We do have one on the CSS Profile coming up if your school requires that in additional to the FAFSA. We also will have, um, webinars about paying the college bill [00:57:00] and for, um, comparing different student award, um, offers from colleges, um, in the spring.

So if you sign up for our emails, you’ll find information about that as well. And we also have that QR code to use the timeline for college admissions and financial aid. There’s some great information there about what you should be doing throughout junior and senior year of the student in high school.

These are different ways that you can connect with MEFA, and, um, we’re answering those questions behind the scenes, and I’ll ask for live questions in just a moment. But if you have additional questions as you’re going through the process, you can always call our 800 number, which is listed here, or send an email to [email protected].

And we also have a QA- a QR code here to, um, complete a little bit [00:58:00] of a survey about our webinar as well. So I’ll now open it up to live questions, if there’s anything that, um, I should answer now.

Stephanie Wells: Yeah, Shaun, there was a lot of questions about 529 plans and how they should be reported. Can you just clarify, uh, who the owner is and who the beneficiary is, including if a grandparent owns the account?

Shawn Morrissey: Yeah, so if a grandparent owns the account, then the account does not need to be, um, reported on the FAFSA. If the parent owns the account, then they would only be reporting the account for the student that is filing the FAFSA

Stephanie Wells: Great. And there were also some questions about the order of the schools and how you should list them, especially if it’s a state school.

Can you just repeat the reasoning behind that?

Shawn Morrissey: Yeah, so that’s only used to determine, um, state aid a- [00:59:00] eligibility. For Massachusetts residents, it, again, it doesn’t really matter which school is listed first. That’s only going to be used to determine the initial offer that’s sent from, um, the Office of Student Financial Assistance in Massachusetts.

The student is able to go in and tell the Office of Student Financial Assistance what school they’re actually attending, and that can be updated at any time. So the, the order of schools is not important in Massachusetts, um, because each school will send out their financial aid offer letter with what the actual amount that the student qualifies for, including Massachusetts state aid.

Um, so it’s not going to make a difference in Massachusetts. There are some states in the country that require that the first school listed on there be a school in their state in order for them to qualify [01:00:00] at all for, um, state aid. And if you are a resident of one of those states, the message will come up and tell you that the first school listed has to be a school in that state.

Stephanie Wells: Great. And, and real quick, uh, I know we’re out of time, one follow-up question on the 529 plan. I just wanted to clarify ’cause the, um, parent had asked about the prepaid plan, so the UPlan prepaid tuition plan and how that’s reported. And we just want to clarify that the UPlan will be reported just like a UFund or any other 529 plan as an asset of the owner.

So it will be reported just the same way as the, uh, all the other 529 plans.

Shawn Morrissey: Thank you. And again, we’ll be sending out a copy of the slides and the recording to everyone who registered, um, within the next couple of days. Thank you for [01:01:00] attending