Prior Prior Year or PPY

Now you may have heard those three magic words in recent times and filed them away in some portion of your brain to access later. Well, shockingly enough, it is now time to access those files and prepare yourself for the 2017/2018 FAFSA. Yes, you read that right.

About a year ago, President Obama made some small (aka large) changes to the FAFSA in terms of timeline and availability. Instead of the January 1^st launch day for FAFSA, the FAFSA will now be available October 1^st. Yes. October. 1^st. Instead of using prior year income (meaning for 2016 FAFSA you used 2015 income data) the FAFSA will now utilize income information from two years prior.

Now you see how we got the name Prior-Prior Year.

You may be wondering what the benefits are to using income information from two years prior, rather than one year. Well the top benefit (in our opinion) is that your taxes will already be filed when you go to do the FAFSA. You will no longer have to estimate your income information and then go back into the FAFSA after you’ve filed to update your information. Even better, is that for most people they should be able to use data retrieval and directly import their data into the FAFSA.

For the upcoming FAFSA year, there will be a bit of a unique situation where the same tax info is used for two years. This makes it even more important to update your FAFSA with the correct figures so you don’t run into any issues in October!!

Federal Student Aid made a handy little chart which will help you visualize what FAFSA you need to submit depending on when you plan on enrolling

It is important to note that here at Wentworth our timelines aren’t really going to be changing. We still have to wait on other information from the Department of Education before we are able to put awards available so even though FAFSA will be out in October students can still expect to receive their award info between March- June depending on if you are a new or returning student.

Want more info? We have a plethora of helpful resources provided below!

https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/about/announcements/fafsa-changes

https://community.saltmoney.org/community/paying-for-college/blog/2016/8/22

http://wit.financialaidtv.com/#playlist-13876:video-0

Until next time!

Mady

 

150%- Not Just A Grade To Strive For

If you have borrowed Stafford loans in in the past two years or are a new borrower you may have heard the term “150 percent” thrown around. This term refers to the time limit in which you can receive Subsidized loans.

If you are a first time borrower as of July 1, 2013 (meaning any loans as of that date or after) there is a limit to the maximum period of time- measured in academic years- that you can receive Subsidized Loans. If you only receive Unsubsidized loans or Direct PLUS loans then you can just move right along! (Unless you read this blog for fun- totally wouldn’t blame you)

Now if you do borrow Subsidized Loans then the maximum amount of time you can receive these loans is 150 percent of the published time for your program. Now you may be wondering what exactly this means. Think about it this way: if your program is scheduled to last for 4 years then the maximum amount of time you can receive Subsidized loans is 6 years. That’s four years (100%) plus two more (50%). Easy now, right?

If you are in a program that is scheduled to last two years the maximum you can receive the loans three years. (two years 100% one year 50%)

Now let’s say you started off in an associate’s degree program and decided to move up to a bachelor’s degree- that means that your eligibility would increase from three years to six years! But let’s say you move from a bachelor’s degree to an associates- your eligibility would then decrease down to three years. This means if you’ve used two years you would only have one remaining instead of four. Definitely something to consider!

It is also important to note that even if you change majors if both degrees still take the same amount of time your clock does not start over. This means if you decide to change your major in your- let’s say junior year- you would have already used upwards of three years of those six years available to you.

If you find yourself closing in on your 150% of your degree program please feel free to reach out to your counselor to discuss potential impacts! We also HIGHLY recommend checking out this great article from SALT Money for more information!!

As always reach out to us if you have questions!

Mady

Loan Repayment- it’s a thing

Graduation is an incredibly exciting time. The thought of walking across that stage and finally being finished with school is enough to push you through that final stretch of presentations, papers and extreme consumption of coffee. With your thoughts on the future and what your post-graduation plans are there is one thing to keep in mind- loan repayment (sorry buzzkill) For the purposes of financial aid we will focus on repayment options for the most common student loan debt- Stafford loans. However it is important to keep in mind that if you have borrowed Perkin’s, Mass No Interest Loans, or any private loans that those all have various repayment options as well.

Once you graduate your grace period will begin. For students who have not taken any time off between school years this will be 6 months. In these six months you will be contacted by your assigned loan servicer. The Department of Education uses several different servicers for billing and repayment for student loans and it is your responsivity to stay in touch with your servicer. Your servicer will be your main point of contact from here on out. You can look at your repayment options and even begin the consolidation process with them.

Now two questions may come to mind at the moment- what are the repayment options and what is consolidation? Great questions! I wanted you to ask those so that worked out well- didn’t it? There are various repayment options that you can look into with your loan servicer. There is the Standard Plan, Extended Plan, Graduated Plan, and Income- Based Plan.

The Standard repayment plan is the plan that your loan servicer will place you on automatically if you do not chose another plan. This plan will save you money over time because the payments are usually larger but you also pay the loan off in a shorter time, thus saving you money on interest. These loan payments are minimum $50 a month and are made for up to 10 years (for non-consolidated loans only).

The Extended repayment plan lowers your monthly payments but increases the amount of time you are paying off for your loans. Instead of payments over 10 years the payments are made for up to 25 years. In order to qualify for this plan you must have over $30,000 in outstanding Direct Loans.

The Graduated repayment plan begins your payments lower and gradually increases every two years. Payments are made for up to 10 years (for non-consolidated loans) and payments will never be less than the amount of interest accrued between payments. This plan is a good option if your income starts low but you expect to increase over time.

Income- based repayment are plans that are designed to make your debt manageable by decreasing your monthly payment amount to a certain percentage of your discretionary income annually. There are three different income based repayment plans and each have their own timeline and payment percentage differences.

Since we have reviewed the different repayment options for your loans it’s time to talk consolidation. Loan consolidation allows you to combine federal loans into one loan which results in one single monthly payment instead of multiple payments for each loan. There is no fee for applying to consolidate your loans but you should carefully consider whether or not it is the right option for you. You will be able to simplify your loan repayment process but centralizing your bill into one and give yourself up to 30 years to repay all the loans. Loan consolidation will also take your variable interest rates for each loan give you a fixed interest rate for all the consolidated loans. This is usually an average between all of your interest rates so for example let’s say you have three loans at 3.5%, 4.6% and 6.2% the average interest rate between the three is 4.7% so you lose that lower interest rate but also decrease the overall interest for some loans. For information about the pros and cons about consolidation check out this great article from SALT.

Hopefully this doesn’t dampen your spirits too much- remember that graduating college is a great accomplishment and an investment in your future. As always we are here to answer any questions you may have!

Until next time!!

-Mady

Hey ho lets FAFSA!

Every year on January 1^st we celebrate the beginning of a new FAFSA becoming available for students. It’s a time of new beginnings and resolutions to complete the FAFSA as early as possible. This post will help you in that resolution.

Now you may be thinking “Filing now?!- but I haven’t even started to think of my 2014 taxes!!!” but that’s okay because did you know you can file the FAFSA before you have done your taxes? That’s right. You can use estimations based on last year’s income and knowledge of your family’s situation to best represent your actual income and plug those numbers into the FAFSA. They don’t have to be perfect- but they should be as close to the actual figures as possible.

We highly recommend submitting the FAFSA as early as possible as some of our financial aid is awarded on a first come- first serve basis and we do award based on the initial FAFSA filing date.

Here is the information you will need before filing the FAFSA:

1. Your social security number
2. Your Alien Registration Number if you are not a US Citizen
3. Your federal income tax information
4. Bank statements/ records of investments (if applicable)
5. Records of untaxed income (if applicable)
6. Your Federal Student Aid PIN to sign electronically (If you forgot or do not have a Federal PIN please go to https://pin.ed.gov/PINWebApp/pinindex.jsp)

Please note if you are a dependent student you will need most if the information above for your parent(s) as well.

Now you probably woke up this morning eager and ready to file that FAFSA after a quiet night of celebrations and already have all this information ready. Well the next step is to go to www.fafsa.ed.gov and sign in with that pretty pin of yours and get started on next year’s FAFSA! When you are ready you will need to enter Wentworth’s school code to ensure that the FAFSA is sent to us. When that time comes please enter in 002225-00 and submit that. This will now automatically send us your FAFSA data.

In most cases your estimated family contribution will be calculated after you submit the FAFSA. This number will help the school determine your need and what financial aid you are eligible for.

Now you may be wondering what happens after you file your FAFSA. Well we don’t award students until later in the spring so you won’t be hearing anything from us regarding the actual financial aid award offer until later. We typically will award financial aid to new incoming students in March and returning students in June. However there are some other things you can do in the meantime.

• Once you and/or your parent(s) file taxes you can import that data directly into the FAFSA by using the data retrieval tool. We highly recommend that all families use this tool so that the information is as accurate as possible.
• If you are selected for verification you won’t be able to submit the documentation until later in the spring to the Student Service Center but you can make note and start gathering whatever documentation will be required. (Please note if you are a returning student selected for verification you cannot be awarded financial aid until you hand in all required verification documentation and it is processed)

If you have questions about the FAFSA we highly recommend visiting their FAQ at https://fafsa.ed.gov/help.htm as it should answer most of your questions. You can always contact them through a number of ways at https://fafsa.ed.gov/help.htm.

Until next time!

-Mady

Hey, why did my aid change?

If you are a returning student here at Wentworth you may have received an email informing you that your financial aid award for the 2014-2015 academic year is now available from Wentworth. If you did not receive such an email we recommend checking your L-Connect account to see if you were selected for verification or if there are any other missing requirements which may be holding up your financial aid package. If there are no missing requirements we ask that you be patient as the awards are still being generated.

If you are one of the over 1,300 students to receive that email you may or may not have noticed some changes in your financial aid between last year and this year. There are several reasons this change could occur and we hope to ease some of your questions/ concerns in this post!

The most common reason that your financial aid may change could be differences in the Estimated Family Contribution between last year and this year. As a reminder the Estimated Family Contribution (EFC) is a number generated by the FASFA that estimates how much you/ your family will be able to contribute to your education within a given year. Year to year it is common for the EFC to fluctuate and that fluctuation may change your eligibility for financial aid. Let’s say for example that you were eligible for a Pell Grant last year but this year you do not see it on your financial aid package. It is highly likely that your EFC has increased and taken you out of the threshold for the Pell Grant. Unless your EFC decreases then you would not be eligible for Pell this year.

Since we package students on a first come, first serve basis there may be financial aid that is exhausted before we package students with later FAFSA dates. The FAFSA  application for the next year becomes available on January 1st and you can start submitting your application as early as that date. You can use estimations on the initial FAFSA and after you file taxes make corrections based on the actual information later. We highly recommend student’s file as soon as possible as many need based funds such as Perkin’s or Gilbert Grants can be exhausted very quickly. If you had them last year and don’t see them on your package this year that may be the reason why in addition to the above mentioned EFC changes.

If you see an odd amount of Stafford loans on your account that isn’t in line with what you have been offered in the past you could be reaching the aggregate limit for Stafford loans. Dependent student’s have an aggregate lifetime limit of $31,000 and independent undergraduate students or students with prior PLUS loan denials have a limit of $57,500  for both Subsidized and Unsubsidized loans. Once you have reached the lifetime limit there is no increasing that amount and you would not see Stafford loans on your financial aid awards in the future.

These are just a few reasons that your award may vary year to year. There are many more reasons that can be far less common than the ones listed above. If you do have more in depth questions that this post can’t answer we recommend contacting your financial aid counselor or submit a question here! Until next time!

-Mady

Soooooo now what?

Are you officially a member of the Class of 2018? Well let’s start off by saying we are SO excited to have you join the Wentworth community (you may or may not be counting down the days till you arrive… its  102 by the way). You may be wondering where you go from here. What are your next action steps? Well, if you are this post will hopefully answer any questions you may have.

The good news is that until bills become available there is not a ton of things that can really happen. E-Bills for the Fall 2014 semester will be available on your L-Connect account beginning June 20th.

After the bills become available on June 20th then you and your family will have until July 31st to have a payment method in place for any remaining balance that financial aid is not covering. The bills are done on a semester basis so you will only see the balance for the fall but that does not mean you cannot apply for loans for the year’s balance. Basically just take that balance- multiply by two and viola- a pretty good estimate of your year’s balance. Please note that the housing deposits you made thus far are ONLY for the fall semester. There is an additional deposit for each semester you are attending.

There are a few different ways in which you can cover any remaining balance. First, there are Parent Plus or alternative loans. Parent Plus loans are taken out by the parent of dependent students and the loan is entirely on the parent and not the student. Check out our “Game of Loans” post to see the interest rates on Parent Plus loans for next year. If you don’t want to go that route we have a list of commonly used alternative loans by Wentworth students in the past three years. This is not an exhaustive list of potential lenders but just some options that other students have utilized.

If Parent Plus/ alternative loans are not the route you want to go Wentworth does offer a payment plan through Tuition Management System. Our website has plenty of information about the various plans you can create so we highly recommend checking it out here if your family decides to do that.

You can also pay your bill in its entirety without setting up a payment plan or seeking an alternative loan. We have several different methods of paying your bill outlined here that should prove helpful.

The other big item on your list should be deciding, if you have not done so already, what financial aid you plan to accept. Scholarships and grants are automatically accepted so you don’t have to worry about that but when it comes to the Stafford loans and the Work Study you have a decision to make. If you do decide to accept all the aid that was offered to you would need to do so on your L-Connect account. If you decided to accept the Stafford loans then you will need to sign onto http://www.studentloans.gov and complete the Master Promissory Note and Entrance Counseling for the loans. You will NOT be able to receive these loans until you complete these two items. They are very important and outline important points to know when borrowing these loans so don’t take it too lightly. While it may take upwards of an hour to complete it really is there to assist you.

If you were selected for verification and have not sent in the required paperwork you should definitely get the ball rolling on that. You can see any outstanding requirements on your L-Connect account and can find information regarding verification and what that means here.

Again, until the bills become available it’s really a waiting period for new students at this point. If you are a returning student then you are probably waiting on your financial aid package (which we will have ready for you shortly), completing verification requirements or just enjoying your summer/ taking courses. Enjoy the calm and quiet and as usual contact us if you have any questions!

Until next time!

-Mady

Game of Loans

If you are intending on accepting the Stafford loans offered by the federal government then you definitely need to read this. Each year the federal government powers that be meet and come up with the new interest rates for the Stafford loans for all different levels.

To review there are two different kinds of Stafford loans- subsidized and unsubsidized loans. Subsidized Stafford loans interest is paid by the federal government while the student is enrolled half time or more in school so it does not accrue interest for the student to pay while they are in school. Unsubsidized loans do accrue interest while in school. There are also Direct Plus (Parent and Grad) loans whose interest rates are also controlled by the feds.

Without further ado, here are the interest rates for Stafford and Direct Plus loans for 2014-2015 academic year.

Direct Subsidized loans for undergraduate students: 4.66% 

Direct Unsubsidized loans for undergraduate students: 4.66%

Direct Unsubsidized loans for graduate/ professional students: 6.21%

Direct Plus Loans: 7.21% 

Those are the interest rates you can expect to see for loans that are disbursed between July 1st, 2014 and July 1st, 2015. There will probably be new interest rates each year for the loans so it will be good to keep track of what loans are gaining what interest while you are in school.

Aside from the interest rate, Stafford and Plus loans also have something called an “origination fee.”  This is a fee that is withheld from every loan that is paid for by the federal government and is included in the total amount you borrow from the government. First let’s review what the origination fee percentages are and then what that means for your balance.

For Direct Stafford Subsidized and Unsubsidized Stafford loans the loan fee percent is going to be at 1.073% and for Plus loans it will be 4.292%.

So what does that mean for your balance? It means that if you have the full $5,500 Subsidized Stafford loan as a junior or senior then $59.01 of that amount is going to be withheld and $5,440.99 will pay to your account balance BUT it is important to remember that you are borrowing the full $5,500 and will have to pay that amount back instead of what actually pays to your account.

So that’s the important news going around in the world of student loans these days. If you have questions please let us know! We understand that student loans can be a complicated business and we financial aid counselors are more than happy to help clear those murky waters.

Until next time!

-Mady

#knowYOURaid The What’s What in Your Financial Aid Package

If you are an incoming undergraduate NEW student at Wentworth then you may have received a letter in the mail/email recently detailing your financial aid package for your first year (returning student’s receive theirs a little later). If not don’t fret I bet that letter is somewhere in the mail and should arrive shortly.

You may be asking yourself what do all of these numbers mean? What is a Perkin’s loan? How is that different from a Stafford loan? What are the different scholarships and grants listed here? Financial aid can be quite overwhelming at first but not to worry- this post will explain the various types of aid you could receive and what that all means.

Now before we get into the nitty gritty of financial awards I wanted to give a disclaimer. It’s pretty significant so bear with me. Every single student at Wentworth has a different financial aid package. Awards are generated by a number of factors and each student is different. Some of the items in this post you may not have listed in your award letter- and that’s okay. Don’t feel bad because you don’t have some grant, scholarship or loan that is featured here. This list is designed to give student’s and their families an idea of some of the more common types of aid awarded at Wentworth.

So how is financial aid need generated? Well each student that comes to Wentworth is assigned a budget group based on what year they are, whether or not they are on or off campus, what classification of student they fall under, etc. We then take that budget number and subtract the Estimated Family Contribution (EFC) and that gives us a student’s need. Simple, right? Well not really since each thing is based on a number of factor’s but it’s a simple math equation so that’s nice.

Budget- EFC= Need.

Now that we got those basics down let’s review some of the commonly awarded types of aid at Wentworth.

• Each student is considered for a Merit based scholarship. This scholarship is renewable for up to five years and is awarded by the admissions department. They come up with the “merit number” based on various factors such as high school GPA, SAT/ ACT scores, extracurricular activates, AP courses taken, essay, etc.  There are different tiers for these merit awards based on this number from admissions and each range has a different scholarship amount assigned to it. If you have specific questions about your amount and how that number was generated you can contact admissions!

 

• Wentworth also offers Federal Pell grants to student’s. Pell grants are need based grants based on a number of factors but most importantly the EFC. As these are grants they do not have to be paid off when a student graduates and are renewable for up to 6 years (12 payments). The unique aspect of Pell grants is that if you are awarded one and fall below full time status you can still receive a reduced portion of the grant.

 

• Stafford Loans are the most common type of loans found on a student’s award letter. They are loans from the federal government and come in two forms. The first is need based subsidized Stafford loans that DO NOT earn interest while the student is enrolled in school. The second is unsubsidized which does earn interest while the student is in school. Each student is eligible to receive a certain amount in total each year from these loans and it increases each year. The amount you get also varies on whether or not you are an independent or dependent student.

 

• Wentworth also offers Perkin’s Loans which are low interest loans for students with exceptional financial need. There is very limited amounts for this loan so they are not the most common form of aid.

 

• Student’s can also receive federal work study which allows student’s to work on campus and earn up to the amount they have been offered. This amount is not applied directly to a student’s balance but rather is available for a student to earn and assist with their charges.

 

• Student’s can apply for additional institutional scholarships and each of those types has their own set or parameters. For more click here! http://bit.ly/1qZgeab

 

• There is also the Wentworth Undergrad Fund Grant which is a need based grant. The amount varies for student’s that are Pell eligible and student’s that are not but it is designed to assist in meeting that need for students. It is a first come, first serve grant so once the funding is gone it is not possible to get it for that year.

 

• Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant (SEOG) are another need based grant that is funded by the federal government. The grants are also awarded on a first come first serve basis and if you receive SEOG one year doesn’t guarantee that you will receive it the next year.

 

• Gilbert Grants are need based Massachusetts state grants. To receive this grant both the student and their parent’s need to be MA residents and student’s have to be enrolled full time at Wentworth. There is a maximum amount for this award set by the state at $2,000 for the year.

 

• State Grants do not get awarded till later so they won’t show up on any award letters quite yet. The states that currently issue grants for student’s at Wentworth are Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.

This is not an exhaustive list of awards you could see. There may be other forms of financial aid that pop up on your letter. If you do have specific questions about your financial aid package we always recommend reaching out to your financial aid counselor for more information (see our first blog post for the alpha split of your counselor) and as always submit any questions you have to us here as well!

Until next time!

-Mady