Description of the video:

Elizabeth Connolly:

All right everyone, we're gonna go ahead and get started. First of all, good evening and welcome to IUPUC's Financial Aid 101 webinar. My name is Elizabeth Connolly and I am one of your hosts this evening. I am one of IUPUC's admissions counselors and I'm also a 2019 alumnus from our campus. Tonight we will not only be discussing things like state and federal financial aid but also subjects like scholarships, grants, important deadlines, and of course the FAFSA. At the end we'll have a Q&A session, and also if you have questions about how to apply, I have just a very, very short presentation on how to apply and things to consider, at the very end of our webinar tonight. If you have any questions throughout the event please feel free to type them in the chat box and we will make sure your question is answered at the end during the Q&A session. I remember when I was a student just a couple of years ago, working through financial aid could sometimes be intimidating, however that prompted me to seek help and I found just that by getting to know the folks in students student financial services, they helped me so much with answering my questions, guiding me through the process, and taking time to explain the "how and the why" behind the "what" that is financial aid. Now as an admissions counselor from our campus, I'm very proud to present to you my good friend and colleague Angee Leeds from the office of student financial services. Angee take it away.

Angee Leeds:

Thanks so much Elizabeth and on behalf of the office of student financial services we are so glad to welcome you to tonight's webinar, financial aid 101. as Elizabeth said I'm Angee Leeds and I've been part of the IUPUC team for right at two years. I feel like IUPUC is a hidden gem and I'm so excited to be sharing with you tonight. I believe you're going to find that IUPUC is a great investment as you seek your IU or your Purdue degree. While what I'm going to be sharing tonight is information that is applicable to any college or university you may be considering, I'm going to be sharing tonight some specific details about IUPUC, the financial aid perspective that we have here. If you think of any questions like Elizabeth said as we're going along please feel free to type them in the chat and she's going to be monitoring that for me and we'll get to the Q&A section at the very end here, so let's go ahead and get started.

I'm sure that you have already found out that there are so many things that you need to be considering when you're looking to find out what is the right school for you. How much is it going to cost? Where am I going to live when I'm in school? How am I going to pay for books each semester? How much do books even cost and where do I get them? How am I going to go back and forth to school? How do I pay for gas? What am I going to do if I have to have a car repair? And then we need to even consider more things like do I want to go to a private college, which tends to be more expensive, or do I want to look at a public college? Do I want to drive to school every day and go to a commuter campus like here at IUPUC, or do I want to live on campus or stay in a dorm. These are all different things that you have to consider as you're looking at a school. Tonight, I want to provide you with some things to think about. These are things I don't want you to worry about, things I don't want you to stress about, these are just things that I want you to be informed. People tend to get all kinds of cranked up whenever they're talking about money, but I found that if you prepare and if you gain knowledge beforehand, it doesn't have to be so scary or so daunting. So, let's go through each of these on different ways to pay for college.

First off, we have loans and everybody knows about loans. Obviously a loan is money that you have to borrow but then you have to pay back. At the college level, there's a variety of kinds of loans. You have a federal government loan. The federal government provides student loans. You have private loans from varying lenders -- either local lenders, lenders that you find online, professional lenders that deal with just student aid. We also have parent plus loans, which are loans that a parent takes out to pay for their child's education, to help pay for their child's education, it's in the parent's name. Loans are an investment in your education and I want you to know that I'm not about putting people in debt, rather I think there's a smart way, a responsible way, to take out loans if a person needs to do that. Scholarships are free money. Everybody likes free money. Often people compete to get scholarships. There's applications to fill out. There's essays to write. There are so many different places that you can look for scholarships and we're going to cover some of the specifics here in a bit. I want to remind you to never, never, never pay for a scholarship search. There are plenty of ways to find scholarships, plenty of tools to use to help you find scholarships, and so I never want anybody to waste their money on a scholarship search.

Grants are money that is typically awarded based on the household income. Grants are money that you don't have to pay back. It's money provided by either the federal government or the state government. It's based on household income, and what that means, it's primarily based on the parents' jobs, also the student's jobs are counted in that as well, but primarily they're looking at the parent's income.

Personal savings. A student may have been saving their money over the years to pay towards their college expenses and that's amazing. A lot of students have a part-time job. They use that money to help pay for upcoming college expenses. If you don't have a job, we know lots of students who get who get jobs during the summer and they can apply those funds towards their tuition and fees come August. Many times we have students that have parents that have saved money for their children's college expenses, however, that's not always the case. We have lots of students who have parents who don't help pay for college. We found that most parents want what's best for their student's future and they're willing to help provide sound advice and loving guidance when students are navigating their college finances.

Above all, I always want to encourage students to be sure they're talking to a trusted adult in their life about your future, about your career goals. Talk about money. Talk about the cost that it's going to, that you're going to incur whenever you're going to be going to college. Talk about ways to finance it. I find that the more communication that happens at the front-end of your college experience, as you begin your educational journey, the better. There is a way that you can get a head start, and by attending tonight's webinar you are well on your way to getting a head start for your college career. As we go through these, you're going to see the first one, continue to do your best in school and make good grades. That's so important. You want to keep developing those study habits. You want to make sure that you're making the best grades that you can. Be sure to check with your local high school guidance office or the high school website to become familiar with their scholarship opportunities. I have lived in Jennings County my whole life. The Jennings County high school has a website that their guidance office has a link to. When you go to that link, they have listed all their different scholarships opportunities on there, so make sure you're checking with your local high school to see if they have those listed for you. Finally, make sure that you're completing your FAFSA. You're going to want to make sure to complete the 2021-2022 FAFSA. If you go to the FAFSA site tonight, you're going to see that they offer two different FAFSAs to complete. For the school year that starts in August, that's going to be 2021-2022. You're going to use 2019 tax data and the portal for filing your FAFSA opened, actually, October 1st and you're going to want to make sure you have your FAFSA filed as soon as possible. The cut off date for receiving state aid is April 15th and they don't really waiver on that, so you certainly want to make sure you do everything you can to get your FAFSA completed by April 15th.

Well here at the office of student financial services we share with students all different kinds of new terms that you learn when you're in college. I think you've already learned that when you hear "financial aid," we're talking about things like grants and loans and scholarships, but when you hear the word "bursar"--that was a new word for me whenever I came--that's where you take care of your bill and you make your payments, or if you have any questions about your bill you want to go talk to the bursar. Here at IUPUC, the Office of Student Financial Services does both. We handle both financial aid and the bursar. We're kind of a one-stop shop when it comes to student finances.

So we've talked a little bit already about the FAFSA but you're going to want to go to www.fafsa.gov to complete your FAFSA, and what the FAFSA does is determines your household's financial need when it comes to getting financial aid for college. And just like any website, you're going to want to set up your FSA, your Federal Student Aid ID, and a password. And if you forget your FSA ID, please don't go in and make a whole new account. You don't want to do that. You just want to go through the steps to get the reminders so that you know how to get back to your original FSA ID. Both the student and the parent are going to need to make separate individual FSA IDs on the FAFSA website. You're going to need this to sign your FAFSA electronically, and to be able to submit your FAFSA. Also, once you're in your FAFSA and you're filling in all your information, you're going to want to use what's called the "data retrieval tool." What that is, it's a link to the IRS website that pulls over the taxes that were filed in 2019, and it pulls it over to the FAFSA website, and so that helps with accuracy and you don't have to worry about any errors in maybe entering in data as you're going along, so you certainly want to use that very safe tool.

Let's talk a little bit about specific IUPUC scholarships. We offer two kinds of scholarships: admission-based, and donor-funded. To be considered for the admission-based scholarship, you need to have applied to IUPUC by February 15th. Elizabeth's going to talk to you here in a little bit about something special that we're doing tonight about getting your application in, but to be considered for these scholarships you certainly have to have applied to IUPUC by February 15th. For donor-funded scholarships--these are funds that are provided to IUPUC by local organizations and people who want to help students out, they want to assist students in furthering their education so they donate money for scholarships. There's a variety of scholarships that are offered here at IUPUC. They may range from nursing to engineering to education to business. There may be some that are based on your geography, whether you live in Bartholomew County, whether you live in Jennings County or Decatur county. Some are need-based. So in order to apply for these donor-funded scholarships, you have to be accepted and admitted to IUPUC by February 15th, and you also have to have completed the application process for the scholarships by February 15th. (If I said April 15th, I meant February 15th for the donor-funded scholarships). All of our deadlines for the scholarships are in February, so one bit of advice that I want to have about completing the scholarships is make sure that you're taking your time as you're completing the scholarship application. If it asks for a sentence or two, please go ahead and do a whole sentence or two for the information. We have lots of people who review every application that comes in and those who take their time and are purposeful in their application tend to receive more attention from the reviewer, so I want to encourage you to take those really seriously so that you have a greater opportunity at earning a scholarship.

There's also additional scholarships that you may not even realize are being offered. Check with your local community foundation. Bartholomew County has what's called "The Heritage Fund." Jennings county has a community foundation. Decatur County has a community foundation. So, certainly you want to check to see if your community foundation is offering scholarships. Maybe you can learn of contests that are being held. There are speech contests, art contests, vocal contests that offer scholarships. One of the best things that I've learned in this job are some of the scholarships that come to our students from local employers: McDonald's, Chick-Fil-A, Cummins, the hospitals. Chick-Fil-A pays $2,500 on some of these scholarships, so this isn't like a little baby scholarship. Certainly, I want you to make sure you're checking with your employers to see what kind of scholarships they may offer. So, you may want to go ahead and start inquiring about that now. Many organizations, I'm sorry, many communities offer "dollars for scholars." You'll want to check out that program. You also may want to check with your parents' employers. A lot of those companies offer scholarships for the employee's children as well, so definitely there are so many places to check, don't hold off on checking scholarships. You want to make sure that you look into that starting now.

Let's talk about some deadlines. Like we've already talked about, the FAFSA deadline is April 15th to be considered for state funding, that's if you're a 21st century scholar, or if you perhaps qualify for the frank O'Bannon funds. If you don't apply by April 15th, then you will not be privy to those funds. Admission-based scholarships, like we've talked, you've got to be applied to IUPUC by February 15th. If you want the donor-based scholarships, again that's February 15th. Early college scholarships, maybe you know some juniors who are thinking about doing early college next year, certainly we offer scholarships for that as well and you'd want to get a hold of our admissions department to tell you more about that.

Here at IUPUC, we want to be very transparent about our costs. I tell people for the first semester for a new student you can expect to pay about $5,300 that first semester. For the remaining semesters it would cost about $5,100. The costs vary depending upon the classes that you take and the lab fees that may be associated with each class. If you take a math class, there's going to be a lab fee associated with that. If you take a biology class, there's going to be a lab fee associated with that. So that's why the costs aren't all exactly the same. Nursing and engineering students are a bit different. They have additional programming fees. This is a part that I want to interject about student loans. As a freshman, if a student is looking to take out federal student loans that are offered to them. This year students are offered $5,500 for their whole year. Now, if I tell you that our first semester is going to cost $5,300, if you take that $5,500, you have to understand that that is split between the two semesters evenly, so now you're talking about $2,750 for each semester. So if it's $5,300, you're gonna take out a student loan for $5,500 split evenly it's $2,750 for the first semester, you're still going to have a couple thousand dollars that you're going to have to come up with in order to pay for your education for that first semester. Maybe that'll come from Pell grant that you've applied for through your FAFSA. Maybe that'll come through your 21st century scholars. Maybe that'll come from scholarships. Maybe that's going to come from private funds that you've saved up for, but I always want students to know that student loans just don't blanket cover the cost of everybody's education. The federal government offers the $5,500 in student loans to every college in the united states, so if whether you go to Indiana University, you go to Franklin College, you go to Wabash, it's still you're offered the same $5,500 that's split evenly between the two semesters. And if anybody has any more questions on that, certainly throw something in the chat and Elizabeth and I will be glad to cover that here in a little bit.

Once you're admitted to IUPUC, you're going to want to make sure that you create your IU email address and then frequently check your email. Email is the official form of communication here at IU and if you need any help with setting up your IU email account we have an amazing IT department here that would be glad to help you with that.

Some students get selected for a process called “verification” and if you're receiving emails asking for documents asking you to provide a tax return or fill out this form, I don't want anybody to get excited because thousands of students get chosen for verification each year. It's just the federal government's way of making sure that the right people get the right amount of money that they're supposed to get each year for their education. It's not a big deal, the quicker that you set up your email, the quicker that you are responding to the emails and providing the documentation that's needed, the quicker you'll be able to know what kind of financial aid you are eligible for each year.

So, as we're wrapping up our presentation, I just want to thank you so much for attending tonight. Our office is open on campus and we're ready to serve you. We can be reached at the email address that's on the screen (financialaid@iupuc.edu), or by the phone numbers 812-348-7231 or 348-7385. We meet with families and students both on campus and via zoom. We'd be glad to set up an appointment to do that. Elizabeth, let's go through any questions that we may have.

Elizabeth Connolly:

All right, so we had a few come in over the presentation. If anyone has any more please feel free to put them in the chat and we'll make sure that we get those addressed too. The first question that we got was “if I need help with my FAFSA, where can I go to get help?”

Angee Leeds:

Right now we are on campus Monday through Thursday from 9 a.m. to 3 30 p.m. in the afternoon, and even today I had a student bring their laptop, sit with me at the window, and we went through any questions that she had. So certainly you are welcome to do that, and I would be glad to walk you through that. When you come, you want to make sure that you have your 2019 tax information for your parents and for you.

Elizabeth Connolly:

A person had a question about our FAFSA code and if they applied to multiple IU campuses do they have to submit the FAFSA to multiple IU campuses.

Angee Leeds:

It’s just a great question. You can put up to 10 different colleges on the FAFSA our code is E01033. and each IU campus has their own school code, so if you are applying to IU Bloomington you'll need to put their school code; if you're applying to IUPUC you'll need to put ours; if you're applying to IUPUI, you need to put theirs. Like I said, you can have up to 10 on your FAFSA.

Elizabeth Connolly:

We got a question about someone whose daughter applied for the direct admit nursing program and she won't be notified until March if she got into the direct admit. Can she still apply for the donor-based scholarship?

Angee Leeds:

If she is admitted as an IUPUC student, then yes you can definitely apply for the donor-based, donor-funded scholarships. You just have to have it done by February 15th. Go to one.iu.edu and search for “scholarships” to find the application.

Elizabeth Connolly:

We got another question about enrollment deposits. Some people you know have an enrollment deposit if they want to save their seat at IUPUC. Does that count toward their fall tuition bill or is it a separate fee?

Angee Leeds:

It counts towards their fall tuition bill.

Elizabeth Connolly:

When is tuition due for the fall?

Angee Leeds:

That's a great question. As students are getting ready to come to school, you will receive your initial cost, your initial tuition bill. At the end of July, you'll be able to access that and then you'll receive an official bill on the third Thursday of August, and then bills are due on the 10th of each month, so your first bill is going to be due September 10th. And I'm glad that we're talking about this because some people, maybe they don't qualify for any financial aid, maybe they don't have any money saved, and they're like “oh my goodness there's no way I'm going to be able to have five grand saved up by the 10th of September.”  Well, there are a couple different options. We can set up a payment plan, and what it does is divides what you owe by four and it will automatically take it out of your account. Also, if you don't make the whole payment after the 10th of September, you're going to receive a 1.5 percent late fee charge, but we don't kick students out of class. What will happen is when it comes time for you to enroll for next semester your balance has to be under $5,000 before you can enroll in the next semester. You won't be able to print off a transcript or you wouldn't be able to receive your diploma if you have a balance due, but I wanted to be sure and share that we don't kick students out of class and certainly we try to work with students about how to make their payments. But they're due on the 10th of each month with a 1.5 percent one-time late fee based on each balance each month.

Elizabeth Connolly:

We did get another question. If the bills arrive in late July/early August, when does financial aid hit the account?

Angee Leeds:

Financial aid hits the accounts 10 days before classes start ,so it would be the early part of August. The money would hit the accounts and then if a student had too much financial aid--sometimes we find this with students who qualify for 21st century scholars and then they have pell grant and then maybe they've received scholarships from other places--they may get a refund. The refund, you'll set up direct deposit and that will come probably five days after the money hits the account.

Elizabeth Connolly:

We have another question. Do I have to submit the FAFSA in order to see if I am eligible for federal student work study program?

Angee Leeds:

Yes, federal work study is money that the federal government pays for you to work on campus, so in order to find out if you're eligible for federal work study you have to fill out the FAFSA form.

Elizabeth Connolly:

We got a question about eligibility for work study. Are there eligibility criteria for that?

Angee Leeds:

It's all based on your income for your household, so I can't give a cut and dry answer as to what the threshold is, but certainly whenever you fill out your FAFSA, you're going to receive a confirmation email and it's going to give you what's called an EFC (Expected Family Contribution). The lower the EFC, the more likely you're going to be receiving things like a Pell grant , Frank O'Bannon funds, or federal work study,

Elizabeth Connolly:

For students who don't know where to begin looking for scholarships, where can they get started or what's a good starting point or logic for starting?

Angee Leeds:

Excellent! If you are still in high school certainly the first place I would go is to the guidance office and find out what kind of scholarships they have available for students to apply to. The next place I would check would be a local community foundation. Like I said, in Columbus it's called the Heritage Fund. Jennings County has a community foundation, Decatur County has a community foundation. You can go online. You can do general searches just be careful make sure that it's a reputable company. If it's a place that you've never heard of, some obscure place, I would be careful putting out any kind of specific data because you want to protect your privacy. If it's about writing an essay that's one thing, but if it's asking for all your kinds of specific data, I would be careful with that. Certainly, I would check with employers as well.

Elizabeth Connolly:

I see one more question: Where can I go if I have questions about 21st century scholars?

Angee Leeds:

Depending on what the question is, I am able to answer those questions. Certainly our University College office --we have a representative here that is able to answer those questions. So if you want to email me: financialaid@IUPUC.edu. If I'm not able to answer that, I will find the answer for you and connect you with the person who might be able to provide that answer.

Elizabeth Connolly:

That was all the questions we have so far. What we'll do is transition to a very, very, brief presentation that I have on how to apply. If you still need to apply to IUPUC before that February 15 deadline, if you have questions about financial aid or the application ,please feel free to leave them in the chat and we will get to those at the very end, but otherwise that will conclude the financial aid portion of this but we will still monitor the chat during my section of the presentation

If you have yet to apply to IUPUC, it's a very simple application process. First of all, you'll go to apply.IU.edu and fill out an application and select IUPUC or Indiana University in Columbus as one of the campuses that you want to submit an application for. If you are a freshman student you will want to apply as either “test optional” or “test inclusive,” and I'll talk more about what those mean on the next slide. On the last page of the application you can use the code COSFA21 to waive the $65 application fee, and then either if you apply as test optional or test inclusive, you will have to submit an official high school transcript in order for your application to be semi-complete. That is absolutely required either with test optional or as test inclusive. You can do this by going to parchment.com or you can contact your high school guidance counselor and have them send us a transcript on your behalf directly.

So, when you get to the section of the application, you're going to be asked if you want to apply as test optional or test inclusive. Test optional means that you undergo a holistic review with your application and your high school transcript. Upon the first holistic review, we may reach out to acquire additional materials such as completing a short, informal interview, and/or a letter of recommendation from a teacher or high school guidance counselor. You are still eligible for admissions-based scholarships though, as long as you submit your application by February 15th. With test inclusive, this means that you want your test scores to be considered as a part of your application and just your test scores and your gpa are considered, along with your application. Only your transcript and test scores are required. We can use self-reported test scores, but you can also send them officially through the testing agencies. You'll have to send them officially through the testing agent prior to enrolling, though, to verify those scores. Again you are still eligible for admissions-based scholarships if you apply as test inclusive and so either way is fine, it just depends on if you want to submit your test scores or not, or want to undergo holistic review. If you are scheduled to take a standardized test and then you apply, and then are going to take your test later, and you receive your test scores and decide that you don't want them considered, you can change your status up to the time of admission. So, if you get your scores back and you say I actually want to go under a holistic review, you can let us know and we will change it to a test optional review, and undergo a holistic review. After admission it can't be changed, but up until admission you can.

As I said February 15th is our deadline for applying to IUPUC to be considered for admissions-based scholarships. For donor-based scholarships, as Agnee said, you need to be admitted to IUPUC and submit that separate IU scholarships application.

Our priority admission date is July 15th--that means that any application that is submitted prior to July 15th will have priority over those who are after July 15th. That does not mean that we won't admit after July 15th, we will still continue to review applications, accept applications, and do holistic reviews and test inclusive reviews after the 15th, but the ones before the 15th of July will get priority.

If you have any questions at all about how to apply or what your next steps are, or if you are already admitted, please feel free to call our office or text or email us our contact information is at the bottom

• Scott McIntyre, Director of Enrollment Management
• Elizabeth Connolly, Admissions Counselor
• Jayne Morris, Admissions Counselor
• Anna Sofia Rios, Admissions Specialist

Phone/Text: 812-348-7390
Email: admissions@iupuc.edu