ESS 508: Financial aid FAQ

Laura Vogt:
Hello, and welcome to The (Not So) Secret Guide to Being a Berkeley Engineer. My name is Laura Vogt. I’m the Associate Director for marketing and communications for the College of Engineering and your podcast host. This week we have Joseph Sell, Counseling Projects Coordinator from the financial aid and scholarships office. Hi, Joe, welcome to the podcast.

Joseph Sell:
Hi Laura, so glad to be back. Thanks so much for having me.

Laura Vogt:
And can you tell us a little bit more about yourself and what your role is at UC Berkeley?

Joseph Sell:
Sure. So again, my name is Joe Sell, I use he/him pronouns. I’m the Counseling Projects Coordinator here in the financial aid and scholarships office at UC Berkeley. I’ve been at Berkeley for a little over six years now. My role primarily is to counsel students on all matters related to financial aid. So that could be navigating the application process, reviewing or breaking down different types of awards, or just having a conversation to answer all of the questions that could come up through the financial aid process.

Joseph Sell:
So along with providing counseling, I review verifications, appeals, all different types of financial aid documents that students are asked to submit, but also I coordinate a lot of the processes and procedures in our office, as well, such as SAP or satisfactory academic progress, as well as the summer aid financial aid programs as well.

Laura Vogt:
Excellent. The first thing that I know we’re going to have a lot of students have questions with is, can they still apply for financial aid or fill out the FAFSA or anything along those lines?

Joseph Sell:
Absolutely. Yeah. So, students can still submit the financial applications. The priority deadline for both the FAFSA and the California Dream Act application is generally March 2, of each year, but students can still submit their applications after those deadlines. So, yeah, so again, students can submit either the FAFSA, which is the free application for federal student aid or the California Dream Act application.

Joseph Sell:
If students are wanting to apply for aid for the current summer 2021 semester, they still want to make sure they complete the 2020 and 2021 applications, when we’re still finishing up that last academic year. Otherwise, for aid for the upcoming fall and the year afterwards, students want to complete their 21, 22 aid applications.

Laura Vogt:
And can you tell us a little bit more about the Dream Act?

Joseph Sell:
Sure. So the California Dream Act application actually mirrors the FAFSA. And I guess to discuss a little bit of both the applications, both financial aid applications are used for the purpose of determining how much and what types of aid we can offer a student, particularly what types of need-based financial aid programs students are eligible for. So both applications will ask students about their household size, how many siblings are in college, some questions about theirs and their family’s income.

Joseph Sell:
The difference between these two applications is that the FAFSA is eligible for students who are either US citizen, aa permanent resident or another eligible non citizen, such as a student, who’s been granted asylum or parole, some of these immigration statuses. The California Dream Act application is for a student who does not meet those criteria, but do meet the criteria for the AB 540 non-resident tuition exemption.

Joseph Sell:
So typically this would be undocumented students or just any other student that does not meet the FAFSA citizenship requirements. As long as they also are eligible for the AB 540 non-resident waiver, they should then instead apply using the California Dream Act application. That’s located at dream.csac.ca.gov. But again, these applications ask identical questions and really the purpose is strictly for determining what types and how much need-based financial aid we can offer students.

Joseph Sell:
Students who file a FAFSA will be eligible for federal, state and university aid. The other difference here is that students who file a California dream act application are only eligible for state and university aid. So they may not have access to programs like the federal Pell Grant or federal student loans, but they do have access to other programs, such as the California Dream Loan, that FAFSA filers do not.

Laura Vogt:
Oh, okay. And if a student has already billed out their FAFSA or the Dream Act, and they’ve had a change in their family circumstances since they filled it out, is there a way to adjust the needs?

Joseph Sell:
There certainly is. And I would say that’s something we may see a lot this year, because I will say, both applications are using income from two years ago. So this current upcoming year is looking at income information from 2019. I know we’ve all seen a lot of changes since 2019. And so in the case where there has been any change in the family’s income or their other sorts of circumstances, that impact the family’s ability to contribute based on information that we’re seeing from 2019, that’s no longer applicable.

Joseph Sell:
They could do what’s called a family contribution appeal. That’s located at our Berkeley forms page, which is berkeley.verifymyfafsa.com. Even though THAT says FAFSA in the name, that’s for both FAFSA and Dream Act Application filers. So either student can apply or submit this appeal through this website.

Joseph Sell:
The family contribution appeal basically allows families to give us an update on what their circumstances are, allows the opportunity to just share what circumstances have impacted their ability to contribute, what kinds of changes they might have seen in their family income. And so typically, we’ll ask for documentation such as a 2019 and 2020 tax return, just so we can see if there’s been any initial changes, like decreases in income from the tax year.

Joseph Sell:
And otherwise, if there has been any more recent changes, we would ask the family to submit any other documentation that supports that, so unemployment documentation or something like a layoff notice, just something where we can see there’s been a change in income. Otherwise, things we can approve or review or things such as out-of-pocket medical expenses that may be significant and impacting the income that can be used for education purposes. Any of those of extenuating circumstances that come up, we want to look at those through the appeal. And so I would say, if that resonates at all with students, to submit the family contribution appeal. And again, that’s done at berkeley.verifymyfafsa.com.

Laura Vogt:
And how long does it usually take to find out or for the appeal to go through?

Joseph Sell:
We opened up the appeals starting on May 1, so they are available now. I will say, we get a lot of appeals at the same time, very quickly. And so I would say, generally around a four to six week turn-around for appeals, just because we try to review them in the order they’re received. So I think my advice would just be to start gathering documentation as soon as possible, if you think there are circumstances you’d like to appeal based on, and to submit that as soon as you’re able. All incoming, so new students, continuing students, this is available to all students. And so I would just say, submitting as soon as possible would be the best option, just to give us enough to turn around time, to have a result prior to the fall semester.

Laura Vogt:
And so what if one of the things that’s offered to them through the financial aid process is a loan, do you have any ideas or advice for students that are trying to decide if they should take out that loan?

Joseph Sell:
Sure. And I think maybe before answering that, I’ll just give a brief overview of how our aid disbursement works. I think that goes into that decision making process.

Laura Vogt:
Oh, definitely.

Joseph Sell:
So just for starters, what I’ll say is that I think it’s easiest when you’re looking at awards in CalCentral, to look at it via term by term basis because we disperse aid on a semester by semester basis. So if students are looking in CalCentral, there’s a term view link they can use for both their cost of attendance and for their award package. And I just like to use that as a suggestion, an easier way to kind of break awards down term by term, to see what you’re looking at on a semester basis.

Joseph Sell:
The way we disperse aid is we disperse all grants and any accepted loans, 10 days before the start of the semester, as long as the student’s file is complete. So of all verification requirements, anything that we’ve asked to do over the summer, if it’s all complete, we should be disbursing any grants or gift aid, scholarships, any gift aid automatically, and any accepted loans, 10 days before the start of the semester.

Joseph Sell:
At that point, it disperses to the student’s account and pays any billable expenses that are posted on their bill. So generally when we’re referring to billable expenses, we’re referring to things like tuition and fees, housing, if a student’s living on campus, health insurance, any items that you’re being directly charged for.

Joseph Sell:
In that cost of attendance, they’re also non-billable expenses. Those are things like books and supplies, transportation, personal expenses, which is just a more miscellaneous category. So other expenses that you still have as a student, but we’re not charging you for them at Berkeley. And so you’re still being offered aid to cover those costs, but that may be some of that gift aid and that could be some of the loans or work study that you’re being offered as well.

Joseph Sell:
So to answer your question, when we disperse aid, I think the easiest way to get an idea of, are loans a useful option, would be, see what you’re left with after your gift aid has dispersed, if you’re eligible for gift aid for the semester. After any grant scholarships you’re receiving have dispersed to your student account, then start to see what your remaining billable expenses are. So do you have any remaining tuition and fees? Do you have any remaining housing on your bill. Or otherwise, if your tuition and fees were paid in full, did you get a refund from your gift aid, maybe that’s intended for your off-campus rent, which you’re not being billed for. Is that refund enough?

Joseph Sell:
Since we’re dispersing on a semester by semester basis, you’re looking at about four to five months of living expenses. So for example, if you’re living off campus and your rent is like $800 a month, then do you have that $4,000 to cover five months of rent from that refund? If not, then you may want to start looking at borrowing some of the loan or applying for work study positions or applying for outside scholarships, other ways to supplement that gift aid. Or let’s get, if you have a remaining balance, if you have tuition and fees still due or housing still due for on-campus, at that point, then maybe alone might be a good short-term option.

Joseph Sell:
So then, when deciding whether or not you want to use a loan, I think maybe one of the first questions would be, what kinds of loans are you being offered? There are two different types of, well, there are multiple, but the two primary types of students are offered are federal subsidized and are federal unsubsidized loan. And again, this is particular for federal aid. This is for students to file a FAFSA.

Joseph Sell:
But the federal subsidized loan and the unsubsidized loan, the primary difference between the two is that the subsidized loan does not accrue any interest, while the student is enrolled in school. They still have an interest rate. Both of them typically have the same interest rate, but the subsidized loan is not accruing any interest. So that could be a really good short term option, if you have just a little bit of rent that you need to pay, and maybe you might be able to pay that loan off before you graduate. A subsidized loan might be a good option because you’re not going to be paying any additional interest on top of what you’ve already borrowed, unless you’re repaying that after school.

Joseph Sell:
So all that to say is there’s a lot of pieces to it, but I would say first off, do you have enough of your gift aid resources to cover your expenses? If not, then loans are a good short-term option. And otherwise, do you want to apply for other outside scholarships to try to supplement those loans? Do you want to use work study, et cetera? There are other options there as well.

Laura Vogt:
So let’s talk a little bit about those scholarships. Where would be a good place to start if they want to start looking up what other scholarships might be available?

Joseph Sell:
Absolutely. One website I like to suggest is scholarships.berkeley.edu. That links to our scholarship connection. And one reason I really like this website is it has a filtering system. So it has different check boxes you can select out to say like, I’m a freshman, I’m studying engineering, I’m a US citizen or whatever the case might be. It’ll filter out, I’m an international student, there’s other options there as well. It’ll filter out scholarships that pertain just to those criteria. And then each scholarship will have a link to it’s own website.

Joseph Sell:
Now, scholarships are going to have their own application process. So a lot of the work will be the applications and going to each individual donor and checking out what their requirements are. But the scholarships.berkeley.edu is just really good, just collective resource for gathering all those scholarships in one place. Definitely not exhaustive, by any means.

Joseph Sell:
If you just go to the financial aid website and type in scholarships, it’ll give you some other general links as well. The link to some more federal resources or more just international resources, things like fast web and those other sorts of websites. But I really like to suggest scholarships.berkeley.edu first. It’s just a good landing place and a good starting place.

Laura Vogt:
And we had talked a little, or you had mentioned work study amongst some of the options that students might have. So what is work study and how do you find a work-study position?

Joseph Sell:
Sure. So work-study actually functions very much like a regular position. The main difference here is that a lot of employers, both on and off-campus, will hire only from students who have work study eligibility. So it basically opens up your pool of jobs that you can apply for. But in a sense, it works the same way as a regular job. You’re paid a paycheck, like a standard job. It doesn’t pay through your account, like other financial aid resources. You get that pay in hand.

Joseph Sell:
You still have to go through the hiring process. You have to apply for the job. You still have to interview and get hired, whatever the employer requires, all that’s still very much the same. For work study. Students will typically have a maximum work study award that they can earn during that year. The typical standard we would offer is about $4,000. That can vary depending on the student’s eligibility. But if, for example, you have a $4,000 work-study offer, that means that you can earn up to 4,000 from your work study position or positions, if you have multiple positions, that’s a possibility as well, up to that $4,000 amount.

Joseph Sell:
In some cases there’s even room to increase that further. So if that’s the case, definitely feel free to reach out to us and see if that’s an option. But in general, like I said, it really works like a regular job. It’s just, you have more opportunities because there are more employers that hire specifically from work study.

Laura Vogt:
And so it sounds like when you’re doing the payout for the financial aid, that it happens once a semester. So, that means students are going to have to know budgeting to make sure that those funds last those four to five months. Do you have any resources or know of any way that students can learn more about budgeting?

Joseph Sell:
Yeah, that’s absolutely correct. And so there are two really good resources I like to suggest it. And the first are Bears for Financial Success or BFFs. Bears for Financial Success are a peer mentoring group. They are students, who will help other students in advising with those exact sort of topics, like budgeting, credit, debt management, those sorts of things. Any of the, after financial aid has dispersed you, what do you do from there? What are the things you need to know what, from a strictly financial perspective, right?

Joseph Sell:
Bears for Financial Success help with exactly that. And they’re fellow students, so they have gone through all of this from the lens of a student. They understand this from the same perspective as other students, and they’re great at being able to work through and explain that. And so that’s just one option. They have walk-in options, as well as appointments. Just going on the financial website, just typing in BFFs, you should get right to their website.

Joseph Sell:
I’m going to also say the other resource I would like to suggest is called iGrad. This is more of just a personal financing tool that’s available to students as well. It’s more of a self-steering software you can use, but that’s another option as well. Both of those are linked from CalCentral. If you’re in CalCentral on the right side of the, my finances page, there is a tab that says financial planning and literacy. You can find the links to both the Bears for Financial Success, as well as iGrad located there.

Laura Vogt:
And since we’re talking a little bit now about CalCentral, in CalCentral, they have this task list of all the different things that they have to do. Financial aid and the aspects of financial aid are going to be part of that task list, right?

Joseph Sell:
Absolutely. Yeah. And there’s going to be a lot different tasks you might see there. So you might see financial aid related tasks, you might see admissions related tasks or residency. Everything’s posted there. The, my finances tab is really the key for any financial aid requirements that you might need. And some things that you might see there could be, I guess I’ll say the major task that many students are required is the verification.

Joseph Sell:
That’s a very common one and verification can mean a lot of different things. I think when students think of verification, we think a lot about the standard income verification, requesting copies of a tax return. There’s a form you would complete, that’s the standard verification, but that could include all sorts of other things. We might have to verify other sorts of elements that determine eligibility, such as selective service or citizenship status, those sorts of things.

Joseph Sell:
So there’s a host of things we might have to verify. All I would say is if you see that verification tasks on CalCentral, definitely go back to that berkeley.verifymyfafsa.com website we mentioned. It’ll link right there from your CalCentral, but that’s where any of these requirements where you would actually take action and complete those through that portal. But verification is a big one you might see.

Joseph Sell:
Some other tasks that could show up, SAP, satisfactory, academic progress. That’s particularly going to be for continuing students who’ve already been here usually a year or more. Students have to make sure they’re meeting SAP requirements. If students have submitted an appeal, any appeals that are on file, they’ll be listed there as a task as well.

Joseph Sell:
Sometimes Cal Grant has requirements over the summer. So things like verifying your high school graduation or if you’re transferring from another school, there may be Cal Grant requirements that need to be done through the web grants website. But yeah, in general, just making sure all of your missions, residency, financial aid, making sure all those tasks are complete, that way we can disperse on time in the fall.

Laura Vogt:
And when we get closer to the beginning of the semester, they might see something that says CNP. What’s that mean and is that something that they need to worry about?

Joseph Sell:
That’s correct. So CNP is an office of the registrar policy. It stands for cancellation for non-payment. So what that means is that if students have not paid at least 20% of their tuition and fees for the upcoming semester, they’re at risk of being canceled for nonpayment of their tuition fees. Now that said, financial aid recipients who have enough gift aid or enough financial aid resources to cover that 20% or more, generally should not be too concerned about this message because we’ll disperse aid, like we mentioned, 10 days prior to the start of the semester, which is well before the deadline for fees.

Joseph Sell:
So if you know, all of these verification or any other tasks requirements are complete, like we’ve mentioned, and there is at least enough gift, kind of like we mentioned earlier, going back through your CalCentral, looking at that term view, looking at your gift aid for this semester to say, okay, is this more than enough to cover my tuition and fees for the term? If it is, and your file is complete, then very likely, you’re not going to be concerned about the CNP message because you are going to have that aid to cover your tuition and fees in full, or at least enough to cover that 20%.

Joseph Sell:
If you don’t have the resources to cover that, you may have loans offered, that might be an option to meet that 20%. Or if not, another option that there is, is the co-payable emergency loan for fees. That is a short-term loan, basically borrowing against your student account. All it really does is it’s paying 20% of your fees with another type of, basically another type of loan that you still have to pay back in the end anyway.

Joseph Sell:
It doesn’t change the amount of fees you owe. You actually end up owing the same amount of money. It just puts off that 20% to a later date. So that’s another option for students, a last term option if they don’t have aid to cover that 20%. What I will say is there has been some flexibility with this in the past, but I would still just suggest students to plan moving forward with this. This policy will still be in effect in future terms.

Laura Vogt:
And you talked about the satisfactory academic progress, so the SAP. What does that mean? What do you have to do to show your SAP?

Joseph Sell:
Yeah. So SAP requires, there are three main requirements to SAP. The first is that you must complete at least 67% of all of your cumulatively attempted units. You have to maintain a GP of a 2.0 or higher if you are an undergraduate student, or a 3.0 or higher if you’re a graduate student and you can’t attempt more than 180 cumulative units as an undergraduate student.

Joseph Sell:
And so generally, the 67% requirement and the 2.0 are the main pieces. 180 is a lot of units. Some students do get there eventually with double majors, that sort of thing, but the primary two are the percentage and the GPA. And so we measure SAP at the beginning of each year, typically it’s before each fall. We’re going to start doing it before each summer, but it’s still going to be for the capturing your coursework from the summer, fall, and the spring.

Joseph Sell:
And so we’re looking at a cumulative host of course works. That also include any transfer units that you’ve brought in. Students who are transfers, any units that are accepted count as both completed and attempted, so helps maybe boost that percentage a little bit. But in general, we measure this prior to each year. If you are meeting all three of those requirements, then your eligibility for financial aid continues on into the next year. If you’re not meeting any of these three requirements, then students would be asked to submit an SAP appeal, in order to appeal for aid eligibility for the upcoming academic year.

Laura Vogt:
And is there any financial aid if you need to buy a computer or does that need to be worked into your overall program?

Joseph Sell:
Yeah. So we have what’s called a cost of attendance adjustment request. This is an option for students, if there are any other educational expenses that are not currently listed in their cost of attendance, or if any of these items that are currently in the cost of attendance, they’re spending more than what we’ve budgeted for. A computer is a great example of this. So we don’t automatically budget for a computer each year, because we don’t really know when during the student’s career, they’re going to want to purchase a computer.

Joseph Sell:
So students can make this request, we’ll add the computer purchase into their cost of attendance, through the cost of attendance adjustment request. Now, what that does is increases the cost of attendance, which then increases the amount of aid we can offer. But in general, the additional aid we offer comes from either usually additional loans or work study. It generally does not increase the gift aid that a student receives.

Joseph Sell:
So if you’re interested in borrowing, say additional subsidized loan or using work study, or in some cases, you may have a lot of outside scholarship that could be maybe impacting a gift that you’re getting from the university, or you want to try to utilize some of these other outside scholarships that you have. The cost of attendance adjustment is an option to build that computer purchase into your budget, so we can offer more aid to cover that cost. So that would be really an option, I would suggest. If students are needing to purchase a computer, the cost of attendance adjustment is a good option.

Joseph Sell:
I will say too, is that last year we had some additional funds that were allocated for computer purchases that were non loan funds. I don’t know how that will continue in future years, but I would still say, if you are in need of that resource, definitely still feel free to submit your request. And then we’ll take a look and then we’ll offer whatever aid resources we can. But in general, it’s typically going to be loans or work-study.

Laura Vogt:
And what happens if during the academic year, a student needs emergency funds, is there more emergency financial aid?

Joseph Sell:
Yeah. And I think just to expand a bit more on the adjustment request is, that can cover the computer, but that could also be for rent. So say for example, your rent is greater than what you’re budgeted for. That could be another way to get access to more aid, to help meet those costs and try to reduce those circumstances. But for more emergency perspective, one thing I’d like to suggest is the basic needs holistic support application.

Joseph Sell:
So we partner very closely with the basic needs office. If students are going through any circumstances where they need assistance with food or shelter or medical expenses, those sorts of things, my first suggestion would be to refer to the basic needs office. And we have, again, the application’s called the basic needs holistic support application. It basically looks through all the different categories of basic needs, does an entire review of what the student’s needs are. And then we look at that to see if there are any additional programs we can either get the student in touch with, or if there’s other emergency funding that we can provide to help address some of those needs.

Joseph Sell:
So that would be my first suggestion if any students are encountering any issues with meeting their basic needs, definitely to refer to that application or just to reach out to us as well. And we also have counselors that work specifically with the basic needs office and can tune into some of those more specific questions. But also, we mentioned the emergency loan program. That’s another resource as well. There is emergency loan for fees.

Joseph Sell:
There’s also a living expenses emergency loan. What this would be is it’s basically again, borrowing against your student account. Say for example, that you needed a short term loan of $700 to cover the remainder of rent or something like that. You can borrow the $700, it would then be refunded to you, but you would also have a $700 charge on your student account. So basically you would get a refund, but you would still have to pay that back within 60 days, to your student account.

Joseph Sell:
There’s no interest or it’s an interest free loan. Really the only impact is that if it’s not paid, it can, of course cause holds on your account that could impact registration in future terms. But in general, this is a good last term, short term option, if you need that as well to receive any additional emergency funding, if needed.

Laura Vogt:
And if students want to make an appointment because they’re having problems figuring out the paperwork, or they’re just feeling insecure about what they need to do about it, what’s the best way for them to actually be able to talk to someone?

Joseph Sell:
Yeah. So I would say, if I didn’t have any questions to definitely connect with us through Cal Student Central first. So studentcentral.berkeley.edu is the website for Cal Student Central. So we see students through phone calls, there are online cases, and there’s also a callback advising. So it mirrors what we were doing with in-person advising while we were on campus.

Joseph Sell:
So Call Student Central advisors can answer questions, not only about financial aid, but also billing, registrar, admissions. And so a lot of times, those questions intersect. Cal Student Central advisors are great about being able to answer all of those from a very holistic perspective. That said, there are often more in-depth conversations that need to happen about financial aid.

Joseph Sell:
And in that case, Cal Student Central can also refer you to a financial aid counselor and we can have those more in-depth conversations, more specialized advising sessions about any, may say a specific appeal circumstance or something else, that may just be impacting your ability to cover your fees, or does any other questions you have. We can always have those more in-depth conversations at the counseling level as well. So from a starting place, I would just say studentcentral.berkeley.edu, and that will show all the different options for getting in contact with an advisor or a counselor.

Laura Vogt:
What’s Your biggest piece of advice for students about financial aid and scholarships?

Joseph Sell:
I think my biggest piece of advice right now is read your emails, which sounds a little goofy. But I say that it’s very important because financial aid communicates a lot through email. We send out a lot of communications. We’re reaching out to students all the time and electronic communication is simply the most effective way to do that. And so we send a lot of emails. My suggestion is to read them. If you see anything from financial aid, just take a look at it and see what it is.

Joseph Sell:
And if you don’t know what it means, ask us because a lot of times, there could be important nuggets of information out there that you need to see. And we just want to make sure you’re not missing any communications or anything like that. So definitely checking emails, monitoring CalCentral for any additional messages, tasks, changes in your awards, that sort of thing. But in general, any emails and if you have any questions about it at all, definitely feel free to let us know so we can look at it further.

Laura Vogt:
Well, thank you so much, Joe, for stopping by today and joining us again. I know financial aid, it’s such an important part of college planning, and there’s often a lot of questions about aid packages and what’s going on, so your time, I really appreciate it.

Joseph Sell:
Absolutely, so glad to be here again. Thanks for having me.

Laura Vogt:
And thank you everyone for tuning in today. If you’ve got any more questions, make sure you check out the financial aid website and we’re going to have links to everything that we talked about on our podcast page, coesandbox.berkeley.edu/esspodcast. And I look forward to podcasting with you again next week. Thank you.