All right, welcome everyone.
We will just give you all just a few minutes to get drawn in before we get started.
While we wait, feel free to introduce yourself in the chat. Tell us where your tuning in from what's your name. We would love to just see where everyone tuning in from today.
Maggie
06:00:49 PM
Maggie Barker / Milan, Tennessee
Arthur
06:00:50 PM
Arthur West from Cloudcroft, NM
Harrison
06:00:51 PM
Emory and Harrison Millirons
Emma
06:00:52 PM
Howlett Family - Linden, New Jersey
Hunter-Nicole
06:00:56 PM
Hunter-Nicole Jolley- Gallatin, TN
So why we got some people from all over?
Nicole
06:00:58 PM
Mike and Michelle Radford Nashville Tn
Aydah
06:01:02 PM
Aydah Daniel - Geneseo NY
Stephen
06:01:04 PM
Stephanie Ferreira Memphis TN
Jack
06:01:04 PM
Jack Hardy from Chattanooga TN
Emma
06:01:08 PM
Emma Belton/ Indianola, MS
Harrison
06:01:09 PM
Lookout Mountain GA
Jonah
06:01:09 PM
Hi! Jonah Brauer, Cincinnati, OH
Lexi
06:01:10 PM
Hi I'm Lexi! Im from Atlanta, Ga
Khush
06:01:10 PM
Khush from India!
Abigail
06:01:13 PM
Hi, my name is Abigail and I am from Bentonville, AR
06:01:14 PM
Heather Woodward from Nashville, TN
Montse
06:01:18 PM
Montse Pacheco. Knoxville
Chapel
06:01:19 PM
chapel barker/charleston sc
Ben
06:01:19 PM
Ben Pollock - Huntsville, AL
Leah
06:01:21 PM
Chris, Misti and Leah Smith / Decherd, TN
Ty
06:01:21 PM
Ty Cosse from Marietta, GA
Asha
06:01:34 PM
Asha Tharakan from Springfield, MO
Isabella
06:01:55 PM
Isabella from Lake Zurich, IL
Alright, so we have quite a few people tuned in already continue to introduce yourselves in the chat if you haven't already, but for the sake of time and for the sake of being able to ask questions, I think we could go ahead and get started. So my name is Latisha. I am one of the assistant directors of admission here in the Office of admission at Suwannee, so we're so happy that you all are tuned in and we today. We also have Beth Kregor. She is the associate Dean of admission for financial aid and so.
Valley
06:01:58 PM
Valley Hayes...Thomasville Ga
But if you wanna go ahead and take over, she is our resident. You know person that is knows everything that has to do with financial aid. I would say an expert on financial aid here in the office. So she's gonna give you a lot of great information today.
Thank you for that Leticia expert. Maybe I've just been here longer than everyone else so I hope that what we were able to provide for you tonight gives you a little bit more understanding about the information that most of you have already received. And as Leticia mentioned, we're going to leave plenty of time for questions I want to go over the basics with you, but also leave you time for some, not necessarily.
Very, very specific personal questions, but questions in general and we will certainly leave you contact information as she mentioned. Please use the chat. It is moderated so we're not going to let you write well, my mom and dad make X number of dollars and post that out to everyone. So while you don't necessarily see your question immediately, please know that Leticia is monitoring this for us behind the scenes and we will get to everything that we can online.
If we can't get to it online, we'll reach out to you personally. If it's a little bit more in depth question.
So what we'd like to cover today, and I was really excited. I asked for a list of who all was registered, and because I'm a little crazy, I looked everyone up, and 99% of you have completed everything that you're supposed to for the financial aid process. So way to go guys. That makes my job so much easier.
And there were a couple of you that yours came in and we were able to finish those up and I sent them out this afternoon, but 90.
8% of you should have received the information via email. It does go out via email and this is what it looks like. It's coming from the office of financial aid.
This is actually the email address. It's fine aid, and it's got an extra FA in there, so this is the email that you received. It has a length that takes you to a PDF of that award information. I refer to it as a comprehensive.
Financial aid notification because if you've applied for need based aid, we've incorporated any academic award and all of the need based funding that we can provide for you through federal, state, and institutional sources.
For some of you, if you have already deposited.
You now have a Swanee email address.
And if you deposited before your notification went out, the notification went to your swany email address. So if you haven't activated that, you'll want to do so. You can do that through your applicant status page.
And that's where you'll find your information. If for any reason it got lost in a spam folder and you do not have it, we can always resend it. So we'll ask you later if you need us to do that, and you can send us an email and we'll take care of it tomorrow. But this does have a link to the information that you received, and I'm going to break this out a little bit in pieces and not show you the full thing right away, but I want to cover part of the details.
That makes sense to me because this is what I do for a living, but they may not necessarily be, you know, something that you're like. Oh sure, I know what that is.
So the first thing that you'll see.
List cost of attendance and we refer to these in two separate pieces. There's direct costs, so those are the things that you will actually see on a student bill. Tuition are standard fees and room and board. Those will be billed to you and your family, but beyond that we know for a fact.
That you have to have funding for other items. It's not just tuition, fees, room and board that encompass your total cost of attendance.
I know we have some international students that registered, and if you're on the call or on the program tonight.
This information will look significantly different for you because some of those indirect costs are different for our international students one transportation it's going to cost you more to get here than it is a student who says potentially lives in Chattanooga, TN. So there are other items here. Your student visa, things like that. That would be different and these are unique to each and every student.
Estimated travels different for a student from California than it is that student right here in our backyard, but we do know you're going to have to buy books. You're going to have some supplies you're going to need toothpaste, shampoo. The standard things that you can't, you know. Just go run and grab out of mom and dads bathroom. So this is what we refer to as indirect costs. And we've used this total amount when we have determined your full financial aid.
So again, we have direct costs, indirect costs, your build direct costs, but we do know that you will have other expenses while you're here.
If perchance you applied for an academic scholarship and you knew you were not going to apply for need based aid.
You're going to see a scholarship in Grant.
And in all of our information, you're going to see these wonderful little information buttons. They are helped text you can click on that once you've opened up your actual notification and get more information. So one of the questions. Believe it or not, that we've received over the years is.
With regard to a grant or a scholarship, and sometimes we get asked, do I have to pay this back? No, not at all. This is what we refer to as Gift Aid, so this is a scholarship. It may be a different type of grant, but under this heading you will find all of what we refer to as free money. It's money you do not have to pay back, and it is available to help you with your costs. You'll also see.
That this is broken out by semester, so you have to go all the way to the right hand side to see that total. Every so often students might look at it and not see the total and think they're only getting half of what they receive.
But if you're only receiving one of those academic awards through the Admissions Office, this may be the only thing on your notification.
Solomon
06:09:29 PM
Solomon Vawter - Chapel Hill, NC
If you applied for need based aid and by doing that you needed to fill out for our domestic students the FAFSA and the CSS profile for our international students, you completed the CSS profile.
This will encompass all of what we can offer you, whether it is again from state, federal or institutional dollars. So this example shows us a student who received an E QB award through the merit process.
They also have a need based grant.
They also are eligible to borrow a student loan from the federal government. There are two types of student loans and we will use the maximum amount in each need base package. These are optional. You do not have to use those if you have outside scholarships. If you have summer savings. If you're planning on working this summer, you do not have to take out those loans, but we do use those as a vehicle to help cover your expenses.
Charlie
06:10:30 PM
Ed Cloaninger - Wellesley Mass
This one does not accrue interest while you are enrolled in school, so as long as you're in a degree seeking.
Doing that program and enrolled at least half time, a subsidized loan does not accrue interest. The unsubsidized does, so just be aware of that again, the loans are optional.
If you had needed in your calculation, once we did all the math.
The first thing we did was we took into consideration that merit award. Then we added in work study. If you still had need, we added in the loan for domestic students because those aren't unfortunately available for international students.
After that, if you still had remaining need, that's where our institutional need based grants come in. They're basically a last dollar in, and we use those after any of what we call self help aid, which would be your loan and your work study. If you were a Tennessee resident and had hope scholarship, we used that before we use our dollars. If you were eligible for Pell Grant, we use the Federal Pell Grant before our dollars. So our.
Emma Carlisle
06:11:49 PM
Catherine Niebauer - High Point, NC
Need based aid is a last dollar in.
Lateishia Spencer
06:11:56 PM
Feel free to send in any questions you have as we're going along and we'll answer them at the end!
The work study is also optional, but it does give you an opportunity to earn some spending money while you're here on campus.
If you visited campus and you thought our dining hall was amazing, it is. But I can promise you, you will get tired of going there every single day for every meal. So if you have work study, you may very well want to go someplace else to eat on occasion.
Our students actually apply for these jobs. They go through an application process and our faculty and staff interview them over the course of the summer and students can work in a wide variety of places on campus, either academic or in administrative office. Typically, those jobs are approximately 8 to 10 hours a week, mostly 8.
So those are options for you to have some additional funding while you're here on campus.
At the very bottom of the document, you're going to see an estimated balance.
This balance reflects those direct costs.
So what we've done here is we have subtracted any scholarship and grant.
And shown you what the balance would be for each semester. Again, it's an estimate you may bring in outside scholarships. Something could change, but this is what we anticipate at this moment that you potentially would see on your student bill.
Families will sometimes do the math.
And then they'll call us and say, but but you didn't subtract the work study. And no, we did not because you're paid monthly. If you have work study so that is not subtracted from your bill, you get paid just like any other employee for the hours that you work. So that part is not subtracted.
For our domestic students at the bottom of your notification, you're going to see some options to pay your balance.
The monthly payment plan is available. We don't show this on international mainly because of the fact that they cannot access this federal parent plus loan option.
So we don't want to mislead you and think that that's available.
And we also have an option as families choose to. These are very very very personal decisions here and over the years I've watched families use multiple options. Sometimes if Sony turns out to be the right place for their student, they may have very well as a parent identified. OK, I'm prepared to write a check for X.
And when all said and done, we may be a little bit more than X, so sometimes families. The first thing I would recommend is apparent is the payment plan, because this gives you an option to pay literally as you go, it's four or five payments over the course of each semester. There's no credit check. There's no interest. There is an application fee. This is not up and running, it's it's out there, but you can't start it just yet because.
It's not quite time for those bills to be in this system, but this is the first option I recommend to parents.
After that, if parents need a longer term option, the federal government, as long as you filled out a FAFSA so the students filled out that FAFSA, parents can borrow under the parent plus loan. This does have a credit check, but it is a longer repayment term if families choose to do that.
In some instances there are some and we did not use this for a long time because of the interest rates, but on the private loan side, some of our lenders are loaning to parents, not necessarily just students.
And in those cases we found a few lenders do not have the same origination fee that the federal government withholds. And depending upon a parent's credit score, they may actually get a better interest rate on the private loan. But there's links for all the places you need to go. All of this is pretty early in the process, but we want to make sure you know that's out there so that there are options for our parents to be able to.
Finance or make adjustments to pay over a shorter period of time. Their portion of your educational expenses.
At the very top, we're going to go all the way back to the top.
And these are a little bit specific. Some of you have already received a revised notification, and you won't necessarily see all the same buttons and your emails different, because technology will let us do that.
At the very first button you will see.
That one, if you haven't deposited, will take you to this great slide here that's let you go in and pay your deposit. If you've chosen Swanee as your college home.
We go back here and you haven't visited yet and you want to do that.
This will take you to the visit page 4.
All of the options that my colleagues in admissions have available for you.
And I'm going to tell you honestly, I know I'm going through this quickly and I'm doing it so you have time for those questions. I do hope that this information allows you to see this a little bit clearer than you know just looking at it without anyone to guide you through it. But I do want to leave you anytime that we need to to cover other specifics.
Three other buttons up here learn more is going to take you to an actual PDF that is a guide to some of the terms FAQ. It's actually 4 pages. I didn't try to condense it and put it on this one slide and make it really tiny.
There's another button that talks to you about keeping your aid.
This one's really important and back before the pandemic, when we could actually meet in person and talk to our students, we had an orientation.
At the beginning of each semester for our first year students and what I found was that as I tried to explain this part.
Students would snicker a little bit. There would be some giggles in the room because we were explaining that at the end of the first year to keep your aid.
You must have a cumulative.
After that first year, it's a 2.0 and when I said 1.85, that's when we got the laughter in the back of the room. And what I typically say to students is. That's correct. You've never seen a 1.85.
Our Leticia wouldn't have admitted you in the first place.
Unfortunately, some of our students.
I have a little bit too much fun when they get to campus. I guess I I don't know what happens because I've asked them for 30 years not to put me in a position where I have to write those letters at the end of the year that's say.
Hope you enjoyed the first year, but we can't give you any financial aid for next year based on your GPA and we have always always always had 6 to 12 students that unfortunately received those letters. So I'm telling you this now, in the hopes that.
You guys will be the class, but.
Does not make me write those letters next spring. That would be awesome. I'd love to celebrate with you when we do that, but this is a really important piece. It does talk to you about satisfactory academic progress. This applies to all funds here at Swanee. So even a student who is a dependent of a faculty member and they're getting a faculty staff remission if they get a 1.7.
At the end of their freshman year, they no longer are eligible for their faculty, staff, or mission, so it applies to everything. There's also a very small section in here that we do want to call out for our Tennessee residents because the Tennessee Hope Scholarship has a totally different.
And that one is measured based on state regulations. It's not something that we can change. So if you're a Tennessee resident, please go to that. Keep your aid button.
And read that piece about Swanee and how we do things and then how the state does it for the hope scholarship.
The last button is a great piece. It talks to you about some of our outcomes. It tells you about our pledge and it also tells you the next steps that you need to take to enroll here at swimming. Because of course we're expecting. See all you here in August.
If you've opened this information, I'm going to show you it breaks a little funny on the page, but this should be pretty much what you've seen. Here's the bottom of it, but again, our buttons at the top.
Information about costs, indirect costs, your comprehensive package, and an estimate of what we think your bill will look like. Again, this is not the bill. This is most certainly just a financial aid notification. You get a separate piece of information, separate log on all sorts of fun portals to be able to take care of all your business. Here at on campus when you enroll. But this is the piece.
And if you have not found that in your email, again 9899% of you guys have done what you're supposed to, and I only found a very small portion that still need to turn some things in.
And to that end, let me just explain why you may not have received your notification already. So everything that has gone out is a student who has completed their FAFSA and done everything before January 1. Actually, at this moment I am working on students who have completed their information in the past four days, so that's how caught up we are mainly because you all did your part. There's no way I could be this.
Far along without you guys doing your part.
Your application is incomplete and we may need some additional documents that might be why you don't have your your actual notification.
Please, if you don't one of the places you need to go to isswaney.verifymyfafsa.com. This is our financial aid standalone portal.
This is the piece where you can upload any other documents. If we need actual signatures that allows you to isign everything comes to us electronically. It's awesome, it's quick, it's fast, it's user friendly. I love it. You guys can be doing stuff at 2:00 AM if you need to. It's wonderful. So if you have not created that portal account. And again, most of you have or you wouldn't have your notifications from us, but it's at swanee.verifymyfafsa.com.
You're going to use the demographic information from your FAFSA so the only students that go to this site have completed a FAFSA. Are international students don't have to do anything with this page. If you did not apply for new pay, stay nothing to do here.
Make sure your information matches so.
I live on 1276B mine Rd and if when I filled out the FAFSA, I've spelled Rd Rd period.
If when I go to complete this and create my account, I spell it out roadi it will not let me create my account.
Think of it this way, what you're doing is we're allowing you to access some very personal financial aid information you can.
Upload tax data and it is linking you to your FAFSA with your parents financials.
It's not going to do that unless all those demographics match. So if you transpose a number in your Social Security number, it won't let you create an account. Make sure your data matches.
There are a handful of families that we're still working with because potentially there were a few discrepancies. We do ask for both that fasten CSS profile.
And I like to explain it this way. Think of all the times that you have to create a password someplace.
And they don't let you just enter it once you have to enter it again to confirm it. So by filling out the FAFSA and the CSS profile.
You're basically confirming your data.
And that helps us identify errors that in many times are detrimental to families actual eligibility. You know, we found errors where a family went from having what the feds would call an $85,000 expected family contribution.
To Zero family contribution. So by asking you to submit both of those documents, it allows us to compare the information and confirm that your data is accurate and that what we're giving you is something very accurate. We also have some situations that we recognize that FAFSA does not capture every nuances of each individual family situation. Another reason for the CSS profile because you have.
An actual question that let's you.
Give us some narrative you can actually write words and not just put numbers in that form. So for a few of those families, we're reaching out to get more information again, what we want to go out with is the most comprehensive, most accurate notification for you so that you can make an informed decision. I want you to have all of the information when this spring you're sitting around the dining room table with your family going OK.
Where am I going and does this make a good financial fit for us as a family?
So those might be the reasons that a handful of you do not have a notification.
Want to give you like I said I know I'm going through it fast but there will be plenty of time for questions.
If you did not get your notification in, it needs to be reset.
And that is monitored by the entire team here in the financial aid office. So it doesn't matter who's out who's sick.
What's taking place? This week, we have three people at a conference, so there's just two of us here, but this is monitored constantly during business hours.
If you need more information and just want to learn some more about loans.
Loans at swanee.edu and our loan administrator will get back to you and let you know anything you need to know about it. If you want to know about work study.
Work study at swanee.edu and our phone number there 931598.
So that's financial aid. 101 in a nutshell. Very quickly, and I'm going to trust that Leticia has heard from some of you, surely because I'm confident I didn't answer every question. But we are here until your questions are answered tonight, and if we can't do it online, reach out to us at that email, and one of us will get back to you tomorrow.
Isabella
06:29:03 PM
Hello, is the link to the financial aid only available via the email?
Absolutely thanks Beth. We definitely have a couple of questions in the chat so I will start to approve these questions. If you have other questions please feel free to pop those in there and we'll just kind of read them off in the order that they were received. So the first question is, is the link to the financial aid only available?
Via the email that you mentioned earlier.
Correct, we sent it to you and it is embedded in that email. I do know that some of your high schools, those spam filters, can cause a problem. So we've gone through and we've double checked to make sure nothing bounced. If you need it resent. We can do that, and if you would like to, you know.
Emma
06:30:09 PM
Do you recommend taking the Federal loans, no matter what the amount is .. in the hope that they will get "forgiven" by the government in the next few years? and what is you opinion on this developing situation ..
I tell folks honestly I'm the poster child in my family for anything that could be different about the FAFSA, blended family, stepchildren, all that stuff. I know all about it, I promise. So if you need to send your notification to another family member if you need to share that, you can simply forward that email and they would have the link to your information, but just let us know if you need us to resend that tomorrow and we'll be happy to take care of it.
Alright, so the next question is, do you recommend taking the federal loans no matter what the amount is in the hope that they will get forgiven by the government in the next few years? What's your opinion on this?
Thank you for noting that this is my opinion. It reflects my personal opinion and no one else is.
A student loan can be an investment in your future and this is the mom talking. My son would tell me not to do a presentation this way. He's an awesome critic. I love when he watches my stuff and helps me.
For my students, my son, my stepchildren. It's for me personally all about responsible borrowing.
A reasonable loan could most certainly be an investment in your future.
I do not advocate for someone in an undergraduate degree borrowing $100,000 to go to school, that's.
This mom would draw the line there.
I can see my children having some ownership of the cost of their education and would not have a problem with them borrowing $5500 a year for their own undergrad education if they were going to school. You know, if they're going to Community College and it doesn't cost that much, they don't need to borrow that. There's no need to go into debt if you can cover the cost, but if if we're looking at something that that extra $2000 is going to get.
I personally can live with that. I also would never borrow.
Thinking that maybe it would be forgiven, I'm borrowing alone. I need to understand that and I need to recognize it's kind of like when family borrows money, you go into it. Going this is a gift and I'm just going to give it to them. And if they give me a dime of it back, yay. But I'm not going to have any misconceptions and.
Misunderstandings and hard feelings down the road. Because I've made that.
That it's a very personal decision on what you're comfortable borrowing, what your family is comfortable borrowing.
We have some parents over the years who've had their students take out the unsubsidized loan.
And to manage that debt burden at graduation, Mom dad. Someone has paid the interest on the loan while the student is in school.
So and the other thing, it's a little difficult to visualize.
The maximum student loan for a first year student is $5500 and the loan limits are set by the government, so the maximum subsidized. If you qualify, we can give you is 3500.
While your sophomore year, the maximum subsidized if you qualify, we can give you is 4500.
So you could technically borrow 55 this year, 55 next year and only have $3000 in unsubsidized loans at the end of that time period.
Maximum sub goes up to $5500, so the unsubsidized loan would still be an option, but you might not necessarily want to use it because.
The loan limits for the subsidized increase. It's easier to see once you.
Gone to your sophomore year and you see the difference in the package but very, very personal decisions. Sit down with your family. Know how comfortable you are with that investment in your future, and what those payments will be moving forward.
Harrison
06:34:20 PM
If our family has completed the FAFSA and we complete the CSS profile for our boy, would we then be expecting to receive the email that Mrs. Gregar explained ?
So our next question says if our family has completed the fasfa and we complete the CSS profile for our son, would we then be expecting to receive that email that you explained? So basically it sounds like do they need to submit the fasfa and the CSS profile to get that email?
If you are applying for institutional need based aid here at Swanee, we ask you one to do the FAFSA for federal and state aid, especially for Tennessee residents. The CSS profile is our institutional aid application. So yes, you would need to do that and then the other piece is going to swanee.verifymyfafsa.com.
And make sure I know that.
Think of it this way, at the end of the day, I'm probably going to spend.
Easy come a $45 million of Swanee Resources on financial aid. Now admissions has helped me list some merit awards.
But in addition to the merit and the need based aid, there's a commitment for all four of our classes that is significant. And because of that we have to be good stewards of those funds. So we're going to ask for tax returns, W2 forms, even if you've used IRS data retrieval on the FAFSA.
Parents on the call. You may have an IR A or pension rollover, and IRS data retrieval doesn't capture that correctly. So if you didn't note it and I don't get a tax return that inflates your ability to pay, and the only way I can find it is with that tax return, so those are the other pieces of the puzzle that we have to have to complete.
And get you that notification and we'll get everything in our system. Run our process. It shoots out the email with the link and that's when you would get the documents that you've been seeing on on the screen.
Jonah
06:36:36 PM
We are having trouble creating a financial aid portal and can not see the financial aid package. Are you someone who can help with that?
OK, next question says we're having trouble creating a financial aid portal and cannot see the financial aid package. I know we've mentioned kind of how to go about that. Do you mean just reiterating how someone would go about getting help with that?
So I recommend first and foremost, email us with your full name.
You can do it tonight, will check on it tomorrow. The portal is just to submit your documents.
Getting your actual notification is completely separate from the portal because at the very first we talked about those students who might not even apply for need based aid. So they received their notification that email with the link and it's separate from the portal. The portals for the need based documents we need, but we are happy to do that. We did find a glitch in the system that's taking place behind the scenes, so it's possible.
I think we found about five people with that problem, but email us your full name and we will get on that first thing in the morning.
Nahuel
06:37:46 PM
what does the amount next to work-study on my financial aid package mean? Is it the maximum amount I can earn monthly?
Next, what does the amount next to the work study on my financial aid package mean exactly? Is that the maximum amount that I can earn monthly?
No, that is all of our incoming students can earn up to $1850 for the year.
So that it's $925 per semester.
And you do get paid monthly. It is based on the number of hours that you work. You cannot work over that amount because that's part of our budget we've budgeted for.
That many hours for our students who enroll but that does give you some spending money while you're on campus. It's not going to.
You know, buy airfare home necessarily, but it will keep you in some pocket change while you're here.
George Thomas
06:38:42 PM
We received a hard copy of financial aid in the mail - was that not final?
So when I said we received a hard copy of financial aid in the mail, was that not final?
You received a hard copy because of the fact that you weren't early decision applicant and there were a handful of things that just were not falling into place electronically for us. Today I had this thing.
A little financial aid induced OCD, and we promised.
That for our early decision families, we would get that information to you before the holiday break.
And because nothing else was falling into place, we printed one. So your information most certainly should be accurate. Be happy to double check that for you, but for our early decision students, until we could get everything in electronically. And we did turn around and resend that information because the paper copy looks nothing like the pretty one online.
But I'll double check that for you. Be happy too.
Ty
06:39:48 PM
can work study be applied toward tuition or is it just spending money?
All right, we have another work study question. So the question is, can work study be applied towards tuition or is it just spending money?
You can apply it toward anything you need to do the challenges that you're going to be earning that over the course of the semester and your bill is going to be due for first semester. Excuse me.
July 31st and for second semester it will be due December 1st or I'm sorry December 31st.
So you would not have earned enough of that to put it towards your tuition at that point.
Sher Shah
06:40:30 PM
If you've been offered a scholarship, there is a scholarship tax in the indirect costs. How does the payment of that work exactly?
Nets it said, if you've been offered a scholarship, is there a scholarship tax in the indirect cost? How does the payment of that work exactly?
So for a handful of our students.
And it's not just it, it applies to both international and domestic students.
The United States Internal Revenue Service does consider some of scholarships taxable.
So if your scholarship exceeds tuition, required fees and books.
The portion over those amounts, so it's always great if if you're one of our students who gets one of our full scholarships. I know admissions is still working on those benedicts and Vice Chancellor applications. Those cover tuition, fees, room and board.
So even for a domestic student with one of those.
A portion of that is going to be taxable.
Keep your receipts for your books because you can take those to your tax professional and that would be taken into consideration.
For our international students who might have taxable scholarship dollars, so you have to be receiving something over $50,874.00 and books.
What Swanee does is they actually run a process.
So that they calculate those taxes for you.
And they run it through our system and pay the tax to the Internal Revenue Service.
And you actually end up owing Swanee.
Then you can file your taxes with the IRS and potentially get part of the refund back, but.
They've done this for over 30 years. The entire time I've been in financial aid.
And in my opinion one more time. Yes, I have opinions.
What this does is ensures that our international students do not run into any problems with the IRS because we've made the payment to the IRS and you now owe Swanee. Additionally, and for some of you, you would have seen an additional line item and estimated tax because it's 14% and we've tried to make sure that's very evident to you on the front end.
Men are nice friends and student accounts do work with you. It's not something that you have to pay immediately, and they're happy to work with students over that because it is. It's different than it's most certainly different for an international student.
John
06:43:38 PM
Will there be any updates to aid package as prospective students accept or decline offers?
Perfect thank you. OK, so next question.
Will there be any updates to financial aid packages as prospective students accept or decline offers?
So I think I threw out a number of about 45 million total for all four classes.
Close to that right now for just our first year students.
We don't know who's going to enroll.
We have historical data that gives us an idea of this. Many students may enroll, but we over commit those funds on the front end significantly, so it's not something that we're able to recycle those dollars. We've gone out with our very best information for you. You've received the best scholarship offer that admissions could provide, and based on your FAFSA information with swanning meeting full need including.
Work and loan piece. We've given you our very best offer. It's a waste of your time for us to, you know.
Say it very bluntly for us to lowball you on the front end and and wait to see if you really like us and go back and forth. That's just not the way we operate.
Solomon
06:45:02 PM
Can scholarship/grant money applied to food/housing, or must it be applied to tuition. My mother has a tuition benefit with her employer. It will not cover food/housing. Ideally, I will be able to take advantage of it.
Right next question says can scholarship Slash grant money be applied to food or housing or must it be applied to tuition? My mother has a tuition benefit with her employer. It will not cover food or housing. Ideally I will be able to take advantage of it.
Most certainly we work with a number of schools that have those benefits and our scholarships are not restricted to tuition only. So Vanderbilt Swan Duke has one.
I'm trying to think of some other schools off the top of my head, but.
They will send us a notification and we'll have to fill out a form, but we show them now if you're getting.
Benedict and we're covering tuition, fees, room, and board. That would be a different thing, but if you're getting a $22,000 merit scholarship.
That could just as easily be covering your room, your board, your books, your personal expenses, and your travel as opposed to covering tuition.
Sofia
06:46:10 PM
How does Financial Aid work if you choose to study abroad? Are there other requirements or applications? Would you get more or less support? How soon does a student need to connect with the office about this?
Right, so this next question is about study abroad. How does financial aid work if you choose to study abroad? Are there other requirements or applications? Would you need more? Would you get more or less support? How does a student connect with the office of purpose?
So currently, the way our study abroad program works, our students are guaranteed a semester abroad.
We do have what is referred to as a home billing model.
So if I want to spend a semester in Paris.
And I found my program. It's an approved program and you do go through an approval process with our Global Studies office. They want to make sure that the coursework you're taking is going to transfer back to Swanee that you're not going to find yourself in a position where you can't graduate on time because of, you know.
You can't take a semester of wine tasting in Paris and have that transfer back. We're looking for real live classes here, so we want to make sure you're on target and you're moving through your program, but you would be billed exactly as if you were here on campus.
So whatever that program costs, you're going to pay Swanee Swanee tuition if they provide room and board, you're going to pay us room and board just as if you were here, and we're going to turn around and pay that program in the event that this is really in the weeds and you would be looking into this in late of your sophomore year, potentially planning for some time of your junior year and global studies does much of this with you? Uh, we can look at your cost of attendance.
Because we know that potentially.
Obviously you're going to have expenses that are a little bit more. Travel will be more, and in those instances what we would do is we would increase your loan options before we would be looking at any type of additional grant.
Our Global Citizenship Office does have some funding to help students with that, but again, you're not going to be looking at.
Different price points for different programs. We're going to bill you, just as if you were here on campus.
Stephen
06:48:35 PM
How does Fafsa/CSS effect aid when there are multiple siblings in college
OK, so next question says how does NASPA CSS aid when there are multiple siblings in college?
This is a trick question, right? Somebody has read ahead.
Let me tell you, give me just a second, sorry.
Let me tell you how it works currently.
Because we're doing a lot of research right now into how the fastest simplification act is going to impact our students and our families. In 2020, four 25. Because that does change.
All things remaining equal.
And my family contribution was $15,000 and I have one student in school.
Next year, nothing else has changed my income, my assets, everything is the same, but now the twins.
Are going to be freshman along with my sophomore.
Currently that $15,000 expected family contribution gets divided between the three students, so they would all qualify for more aid depending upon how their schools, packaging policies and budgets and all those things played into.
The end equation here, but it would be a $5000 five thousand dollar $5000.
Contribution for those three students.
Now, along with that, some of our preliminary research shows that the income protection allowance built into the FAFSA is increasing. Some of the current.
Elements that they collect. They will no longer collect and will not be part of the formula so.
There's a little bit of a shift there.
But number and college will no longer be part of that formula as of 2425.
So what we're doing on our end and one more time I get into the weeds, I find this fun. My team says I don't know what fun means, but.
We're taking all of the data from our current students, putting into some modeling. We can only do so much because, again, some of the data elements are totally different and the Department of Education has not released all of that information just yet. So we're going to be looking at that to see what shifts for our families. I know what I've proposed to.
Part of our upper administration so that our families are not necessarily.
A shell shocked when all of that changes. I don't think it's going to be as dramatic as it sounds, but I don't know exactly just yet. I also don't know that anyone is going to approve my proposal just yet, so I can't quite tell you what that is, but right now the number in college. It literally is divided across your students that will take place again next year.
The next year is when this changes and we will be doing our part especially. You know if your student comes here and we know this is going to be a major change for you in that junior year.
We will have notified you and given you everything you need to know and then what we can on our end to mitigate those changes for you.
Harrison
06:52:30 PM
What tax year return and W2"s do you need for the CSS?
OK, so we have a tax question. What tax year return in W twos do you need for the CSS profile?
For both of the CSS profile and the FAFSA for the 2223 academic year. A year.
They're both looking at the 2020.
so you will submit the data based on 2020. The shift for that was to assist families in being able to collect that information because previously the FASA would have opened January 1 and it would have asked for that tax year that had just ended December 31st. So this gives families an opportunity to make sure that they have that day to vote for this upcoming year.
The 2020 federal tax return and any W twos that your parents would have received.
Emma
06:53:27 PM
Do you have to fill out both FAFSA and CSS every year?
So let's see do you have to fill out both the fasfa and the CSS profile every year?
So this is one of the great reasons to go ahead and just deposit it Swanee. No, I'm not going to ask you for the CSS profile again. It gives us a good baseline. It lets us again identify those discrepancies. Another one of those weeds things. But it's also why we ask for the W2 forms, because what we see consistently is if families are reporting their untaxed income from their W2.
I see a tremendous amount of families that are including their employers.
Health insurance contribution that is not supposed to be on the FAFSA and it's another thing that inflates their ability to pay. We don't know unless we collect that W2 form. If a family reported it accurately. So what I'm finding is that's a common mistake and it is detrimental, so we want to make sure again that you have the right information, but.
FAFSA, FAFSA, FAFSA. Just FAFSA moving forward.
Ty
06:54:45 PM
Is need based aid and the university grant funds the same thing?
So is need based aid and the University university grant funds the same thing?
Yes, if you have a university, it's going to say university Grant that is most definitely a need based grant. Those can fluctuate.
Certainly, if your family circumstances change in your sophomore year, I hope we do not go through some of the things we've seen in the past two years.
Again, I dealt with this in 2009, 2010. Your parents would understand what that was like.
And we're we're over this now we need things to settle down and we need our families to feel confident and secure. But we do have you fill out that FAFSA annually because things do change and life happens and we want to make sure that each year we are evaluating to the best of our ability. What your family can contribute towards your education.
Emma
06:55:48 PM
Will all future emails be sent to our Sewanee email?
Emma Carlisle
06:55:49 PM
Does the parent and/or student receive the email.
So two questions coming up about the email you mentioned, so one is will all future emails be sent to a student Suwanee email and then also does the parent as well as the student received the email with Android?
So once you've deposited, you have to activate that Swanee account so your swaney email and that becomes active in our system as the current email and our program does pull your current email. So if you have not deposited, it's whatever email you had on file with my dear colleagues in admission.
Our system that does all of this is standalone. It is not linked to admission. A lot of this has to do with privacy and the data that we collect so it is not linked to all those parent emails, so it's just going to the student email. You can most certainly call us if if for some reason you know you're using a school email that you know for a fact is.
Not going to let this come through because of a spam filter. Let us know there were.
Out of our first major release, there were six students that it bounced and we went back in and we looked at your FAFSA and we looked at everything else we could find and we found emails for four students. We resent those and then we picked up the phone and we called the other two because we couldn't find anything else. So we will track you down and make sure you get it, but it does go to you.
Sofia
06:57:30 PM
iIf you are accepted into a The Bonner Leaders Program does that impact the Fin AId for future years?
This one says if you are accepted into the Bonner leaders program, does that impact financial aid for future years?
So admissions has two things going right now. The Arts fellowship.
And they have the Bonner program applications. I believe both of those are open. I honestly don't look at that every day. I apologize, Leticia.
So if you're applying as an arts fellow.
I'll go into that one first. There is an additional $2000.
and for students who are eligible for work study, we're going to. You won't actually go through the process the way the rest of the students do. If you're an art fellow in theater and you have work study eligibility, you're going to go work in the theater.
So that could be the $2000 that covers part of that loan and you don't borrow an unsubsidized loan.
For the Bonner program it's $1000 stipend.
Whether or not you have work study, let's say that you are just getting an academic award and you're selected as a Bonner leader. You will get an additional $1000 and you will be put on work, scholarship and with the Bonner leader program. These are all community service projects within our area, so this is I think we probably have 40 or 50 students doing that each year and they are doing some amazing.
Things in our community, but it is. Regardless of your eligibility for work study, if you're not eligible for federal work, we're going to provide you with institutional work because that's core of the Bonner program. The community service piece.
Nicole
06:59:25 PM
Does FASFA money have to be paid back
Next is does facile money need to be paid back, so I know we've touched on this a little bit. Could you reiterate what needs to be paid back and what does not when it comes to financial aid?
So if we go back and look at maybe we should go back just a little bit further to see.
At the very top of the award, if it says scholarships and grants, whether that is institutional grants, whether it is a Pell Grant from the federal government, whether it is the Tennessee Hope Scholarship for Tennessee residents.
Anything in that section does not have to be repaid. That is what we call Gift Aid.
If you have a need based package that includes loans and you choose to use those loans, the loans do have to be repaid workstudy it's a job you get paid for the hours that you work, you're not repaying any of that, it is your employee like the rest of us. When you're on the clock.
Ty
07:00:47 PM
when are the Benedict scholarship and vice chancellor scholarships awarded? how do you apply?
And let's see. So there's one question in here about Benedict and Vice Chancellor scholarships. And when they're awarded, and I'm happy to jump in on there so.
No, I get to answer questions. So basically Benedict and Vice Chancellor. These are our top scholarships, merit based scholarships that we give through the admission process. So the question does say how do you apply? There is no application process to be considered. What we do on our end is we are automatically reviewing applications as we are admitting students and we are nominating students for these for the Benedict and Vice Chancellor Awards. And So what happens is if you are nominated.
We will receive a notification and then be invited to submit an application for one of those awards. That nomination process is currently underway and we will be sending out notifications soon, so there's nothing that you can necessarily do to apply or to be nominated. It's something that we are doing as we're awarding merit aid through the process. So if you are nominated again, those will be going out shortly and then you will be able to submit an application and then you'll get more information.
In the timeline and things like that. So that's how the the Benedict and Vice Chancellor scholarships work. So even if you've already received a scholarship from us, it is possible that you've still been nominated for those awards as well. So again, you'll be will reach out to you if that is the case, so.
Harrison
07:02:19 PM
Are there any other missing pieces to the process. This is is our first admissions process.
Let's see, UM, and then I think a great.
Place to come. This is one of our last questions that we have is, you know, is there any missing pieces to the process? This is our first admissions process. Is there any missing pieces? Is there any last pieces of advice you can give to families that are going through this process for the first time?
I'm just saying the first name, but I do think that might be one of the students that I was checking to see if we had everything and we are missing a few pieces. What I'm going to do is double check that for you tomorrow morning and I'll reach out via email with specifics.
The most important thing for me, and it's been this way for years, is to make sure that whether it's Swanee or any other school. If that is your top choice. If it's one of your top five choices, finish the process with them.
Make sure that at the end of the day, you're not sitting there going well, I only have my 8 information from two schools and my top school. I haven't heard from them do you haven't heard pick up the phone, find out why and we've been really blessed this year. I have some new people on staff and they are rock stars and they've been really, really helpful in making me successful in getting information out to you guys.
This is the first year that I have been pretty much just kind of beating bushes right now to go. Are these people really interested? I would like to have award notifications to 100% of our students. I know it's not realistic, but I want you to make the best decision for you. So for those top schools, if you haven't heard, reach out, reach out to us again. I think I know who this is and.
They were one of the people that I saw and I thought, OK, great, they're gonna be here. I wanna make sure they get their information so we're.
Sofia
07:04:30 PM
Thank you so much for your time this evening. This was very informative and helpful.
Emma
07:04:32 PM
thank you, Ms. Spencer, for monitoring the chat! we appreciate you!
We're resending portal emails through the admission site to remind you to create that financial aid portal. We're making phone calls. We're doing all sorts of things, so we're here for you and just make sure you finish the process with your schools so you can make the best decision.
Stephen
07:04:48 PM
Thank you for your time this evening!
Right, if there's any last questions, please feel free to pop them in the chat. We're getting a couple. Thank you, so thank you Sophia. Thanks Emma. Thanks Stephen.
Solomon
07:05:02 PM
Thank you for taking the time to go through all of this with us.
Arthur
07:05:10 PM
Thank you!
Leah
07:05:19 PM
Thank you for your time this evening!
Let's see, yeah, just a few thank yous again. If there's any questions we will be on for just a few more minutes, we're happy to answer those, but anything else you have, there's contact information here you can reach out to your mission counselor as well. We are happy to help and kind of help you navigate this to the best of our ability, and then also you can reach out to the folks over in the financial aid office as well.
So Beth, any other? Any last words you wanna add in?
Hunter-Nicole
07:05:34 PM
Thank you very much!
Asha
07:05:35 PM
Thank you!
So you guys here on campus it's a beautiful place to be if you haven't visited. If if me being here as an employee for.
Maggie
07:05:47 PM
Thank You!
Emma
07:06:02 PM
Thank you for the seminar
Absolutely. So yes, we have tons of visit options available this spring. In person. We do have some additional virtual options as well. You can find all of those on our website at visit.suwannee.edu. Also, like I mentioned, reach out to your mission counselor. We will be hosting zoom calls and phone calls for you throughout the spring. If you just have any last minute questions about life on campus.
Financial aid anything like that. You can always reach out to your mission counselor so we look forward to chatting with you all and hopefully you found this really helpful and definitely feel free to reach out to us if you have any additional questions, so we'll stick around for just a few more minutes, and if not, no more questions. I hope you all have a great evening.
And definitely if there's something specific Finn Ayd at swanee.edu.
My team will be back tomorrow, so we'll be back fully staffed. They should be invigor eisden ready to do all sorts of things after their training seminars, so we'll be looking forward to having them with us and we'll get any specific questions you have answered then.
Greta
07:07:00 PM
I apologize if this has already been covered, but I wasn't able to make it in time for the first half of this session. Is it recorded and available to watch after tonight?
Emma Carlisle
07:07:01 PM
tell us about EQB award day.
Perfect OK, so we do have just a couple things so this question is will it be recorded and it will? So we have recorded this session. It will be posted on our website for you to check out at a later date, so you'll be able to have access to that and all of the information that we've covered tonight. And we're also going to do another session. We also will have another financial aid session this spring. I can look up the date and if you guys give me just one second.
But the next question that says tell us about a QB awards day. This is an invite only award ceremony that we are having on campus so it's a campus event for our scholarship recipients and so you will get more information if you've been invited to that event and so you can find information about that online. About tentative schedule of what the day would look like, but even outside of that we do have some other events that are open to all admitted students and so you can check those out on our website as well.
Greta
07:08:07 PM
Thank you!
No problem, OK, I'm not seeing any other questions. Again, feel free to pop any others that you have in there. I will look up that second financial aid session.
It's sometime in April but I don't remember the exact date.
Initially they were doing the April date and since so many of you had completed your.
Application, it just seemed like.
Harrison
07:08:53 PM
Thank you so much!
Waiting till April to provide this to you was a little bit of a lag time, so we do hope that doing it earlier was useful.
And if you have any suggestions or other information.
Send us that as well and we can incorporate it into the next session.
Yes, and I did find the date. It's April 6th, so the evening of April 6 at the same time we will be having another one of these sessions. But again, if you have any more specific questions you can always reach out to your mission counselor, reach out to the financial aid office and we'd be happy to help you.
Why don't think we have any other questions? I thank you all for tuning in so I'm going to go ahead and log us off and close the session. So like we mentioned, the recording will be available online. Thank you so much, Beth. And thanks to all of you that did.