Financial Aid Chat

Hello, this is the UCI financial aid office question and answer session we're hosting today. I'm again, I'm just going to give one more minute for people to load in. I see some of the participants disappeared and now we're adding more, so I just want to give one more minute for people to load in and then we will start answering the questions that we've received. And if we have time at the end we will leave room for some questions to be submitted. So just one more minute.

OK, well we're going to go ahead and get started. Um again, my name is Andrew. I work in the UCI financial aid office and a lot of families, students and parents have submitted questions they would like answered. So what we're going to do is I'm going to go through a lot of the questions that have been submitted and I'm going to give as much information as I can if we have time. At the end, we will leave room for people to submit questions and we can answer some of those again as we have time to, I would be covering a large range of topics.

Um, so hopefully, uh, just take notes and anything you have at the end. If we have time, feel free to ask questions.

And I want to add a quick disclaimer. I know some of the overall questions regarding the quarantine, an COVID-19 we don't. Our office is not aware yet what the final plans are. If there are final plans yet for what fall is going to look like. So questions about.

You know how things are going to work? Fall quarter in terms of work, study or housing? We don't have the answers to those questions yet. So as I go through, I will discuss how things I guess normally work and then just with the caveat in mind that it it may not be that way this fall given everything going on right now so.

I just want to put that out there and with that I will get started. So the first question we have, let's see let me load my list. So one question we got our what are the steps we need to do in order to officially receive our financial aid award and when can I accept my offer of financial aid?

You will be able to review your Ward once it is available on your my eight account. You can see from the slide here you go to our website and you can log on to my aid freshmen and transfer. Students should already be able to view the reward if they have completed verification and will talk about verification a little later, but basically freshmen and transfer students coming in for fall of 2020. You need to have completed that process before you can see your award.

Uh, if you are required to do so, continuing students you rewards will be ready in late July or early August. There is once you're logged in, you can go to the my aid award tab an you can view your award. You can accept or decline loans if you'd like, and then you can accept the terms and conditions of your award and that will that will be you accepting your award.

We have, uh, there are no. There's no deadline to accept your financial aid award. However, the fee deadline for fall quarter in which you must pay the University the fees to attend for fall is September 15th, 2020. And if you plan on taking loans or accepting your grants and everything we recommend you do that at least two to three weeks prior because you want to have time to complete the loan requirements and get your grants in place to pay your fees so that you're not.

I'm worried about the fee deadline as it approaches so again there's no deadline you can accept your ate at any point during the academic year as before the end of the year but we recommend the sooner the better make your decision so that you're prepared for your fees to pay in fall.

And we'll talk about loans shortly to, um, another. Let's see, um?

This one question was when can we officially expect to see how much aid we're going to receive?

Again, once your file review is complete, UM, one of my request documents has been under review for awhile now, so the our financial aid counselors are reviewing documents throughout the summer. Once verification, you can see right here on the slide documents showing up as needed. We are working diligently to at least review that you've turned something into. Mark it as received under review. How long that remains received under review depends.

Spiky spaces our staff is working diligently to review files as fast as we can. Obviously there are significantly more students than there are staff, so it does take some time and some files are more complicated than others, but just keep in mind that we will on the date that you upload the document, we will be able to review that date, and that's what date we will honor even if it takes us a little longer to actually process. So and then once your files complete again, freshman transfer students will have their awards now.

Or once they finish verification and then continuing, students will receive their awards in late July early August once their files are also complete.

Um, someone asked how to submit files for support of other household member, so this slide is perfect. This is exactly how for documents for fall of 20 there's instructions under click here. There's an online process. You create an account now at uci.verifymyfasa.com and you can upload documents to our office directly from your home or your phone or computer. Then we can review them and we we can request more information if we need it. So not just.

Other household documentation, but W twos tax returns, tax return transcripts, whatever you may be requested to submit. You can submit everything following the instructions on your my eight account here and then again, it shouldn't stay needed. Once you've uploaded something, it should switch from needed to under review within a weeks worth of business days, and then it will stay under review until the counselor can review it.

Let's see, uh, one question, what do I do if my 2018 tax returns aren't a reflection of my parents? Current unemployment status? OK, so obviously COVID-19 has affected families and unemployment is is kind of rampant right now. One of the things we recommend we have just started doing an appeals process for the upcoming year. So if your family has been affected by COVID-19.

A parent lost a job. It's something along those lines. You can email our office and.

It kind of explain your situation briefly in an email. Uh, what we do is when we review our emails, we take that information and we can open an appeal for you in that same portal that you upload documents the UCI dot verify my fasa portal. So send us an email if you have a situation like that. We will open it. The appeal for you and then you will be able to be able to submit your appeal and supporting documentation. There will be more steps obviously, but once you get to that point there will be steps and instructions for how to complete that appeal.

Uhm, I do want to mention real quick that four special circumstance appeals we tend because of the volume of students we have in the workload we have. In the summer we usually start reviewing these appeals in October, so my recommendation is even if you have a situation that's affected, your families income or well being, it's recommended that you at least make plans to pay for fall with your current aid award that you're offered.

And or out of pocket. Uhm. And then, if your appeal is approved once, we can finally review it then then you may be eligible for more aid, but there's no guarantee on the timeline for when we can review. Obviously, the sooner we can review them, the better, but we can't guarantee that. So I recommend highly recommend reviewing your current award once it's available, and then at least making plans for fall quarter even if you plan on submitting an appeal, because there's no guarantee it will be reviewed before the start of fall quarter.

Uh, so I wanted to touch on a student asked the question about parents admitting therefore in income taxes.

So for and in in the case of your parents work and live in a different country and earn taxes in that or an income and pay taxes in that country. They you can upload their copy of their foreign tax return to our office. You can see for this sample student the parent tax information is required to submit a copy of their foreign taxes, upload it through the portal like you would anything else. A couple of notes for foreign taxes you want to make sure that it's 2018.

Uh, because that's the year we are reviewing for the upcoming fall as required by the federal government, so make sure it's there 4 and 2018 taxes. If the country uses attacks here, that does not correlate with the calendar year. I know I believe I think India, for example, uses April to April. You need to use the parent tax return in which the most months of the year take place in 2018. So, for example, if your parents tax return is the 2018 to 2019 taxes?

And most of those months are in 2018. You want to use that tax return.

Uh, you also want to make sure you, uh, convert it into US dollars and make sure you translate it into English so that we can. We can understand where the total income is, how much tax they paid, and all that information, but you can upload it just like any other parent tax information.

Um?

A student asked the question if we are required to submit verification to receive aid and we submit documents late. Do we get financial aid still? And when will we know if you so? If you submit your FAFSA or dream application after the deadline or you submit a verification requested document after the deadline, you may not be eligible for.

Institutional aid, but you will still be eligible for financial aid. Overall, you'll be able to see on this status page right here under my aid portal when everything's done in under review, it'll say received on time or received late, and this when everything is done. You'll be able to view your late or on time status here.

So you will still be eligible based on your fasa application if you're eligible for Pell grants or loans or whatever, you still get that no matter what. But if you're late, you may not qualify for, say, UCI grant for example, in other institutional aid.

So I just want to make sure people know that that there still eight options available even if you're late.

Um?

See soon I asked about the data retrieval tool showing tact. They use the data retrieval tool on the FAFSA, but the tax returns are still showing is needed. It's possible to Data Transfer Tool did not work or it transferred the data, but there was something wrong with it to where it's not something that fast that could read properly, so you may have to check with. You may have to double check on that on the fast side of things, but I would recommend just submitting uploading a cop, a signed copy of your parents 2018 tax returns.

As well as their 2018 W Twos if they worked, just upload that instead. That can satisfy the data retrieval tool.

Component or a copy of the 2018 IRS tax return transcript. If you can get that as well, any of those would supplement instead of the data retrieval tool.

Um, let's see another question. The question asked. I submitted documents before the deadline, but I'm not sure I did it right. We will again. We will honor the date of submission when you uploaded it. We will honor that date if we need something else then that that other item may have its own due date and you still need to follow up within the required time limit, but the original date of submission will be honored and we can see the date you uploaded documents online.

Soon it asked why does it say my parents tax information is needed if I already submitted my FAFSA, which contains tax information. So there's a process called federal verification. The Department of Education selects students passes for verification every year. Traditionally, it's usually around one in three students are selected. The Department does not disclose their selection process or how they do it, but we know it's about 1/3 or so every year when you're selected for verification were required to further verify.

Certain information on your FAFSA, such as the members of your household, how many people are going to college, and then your parents tax information, your tax information assets, all those things so.

When you get selected we have we have. That's why we request tax information in a verification worksheet is because that's the information we are required to collect for the Department of Education to verify that your FAFSA is correct. So just a little background information. If you are selected and you don't know why, we don't always know either. The Department sends us the information and we just we honor it and we asked for documents to verify.

A student asked UM before I saw a Pell Grant and alone and work study on my account, but now it doesn't show up anymore. This is related to verification incoming students freshmans and transfer students you what if you were selected for verification? We did not show you that we wanted to give you a preliminary Ward so that you can make your decision on whether or not to attend UCI. Once you've committed to UCI, we take we and if you are selected for verification, we remove your award.

While you go through the verification process, so once you complete verification, as I mentioned earlier, you'll be able to see your award again. And obviously if the information during verification has changed your FAFSA. If you change your estimated family contribution or FC, it's possible that the award you get after verification may be different than the award you got before verification, so keep that in mind that that's why we verify the facet for some families as the information does change.

And it may change your award eligibility, so please keep that in mind, um.

Let's see.

Uh-huh

student asked questions, emailing questions about tax return transcripts, and they haven't gotten an answer back. Um, I just want to point out real quick. I we have a very limited staff to answer email so I know there may be those of you who are frustrated with lack of response, and I apologize for that. We do have we normally rely on a large peer advising staff to help with our public inquiries. Student inquiries, phone calls, all that we don't have that staff during this quarantine, so.

We have very few people to answer emails and our advisors do a great job and we get to several hundreds and hundreds of emails a week. But we're, you know, we may get over 1000 emails a week, so we're doing the best we can, but unfortunately we will get to you when we can, but unfortunately we can't always get to everybody in a timely manner, and that's unfortunately just the way it is right now. So we're trying to do things like this to help.

Um, let's see.

Uh, already asked about verification review were reviewing documents. One common question we get is students ask about why do I have to submit my taxes when I filed under my parents or my parents claimed me when you're selected for verification, the system automatically asks for student tax information. The system does not know whether or not you, the student, file taxes for 2018. So what you need to do if you see that student requested?

A tax information if you complete the verification worksheet requirement with your parents and throughout that verification process on that form, you answer that. Yes, I did not file taxes or or income in 2018.

Uh, then what happens is once you complete that form, the request for student tax information goes away, and then you won't see it anymore, because then the system once you complete the verification worksheet, the system will know if you didn't file taxes, in which case it will. It will remove that for you.

Uhm, let me see real quick, um.

Does the verification process cause you to lose financial aid money again? That just depends if the information that we get during verification changes your family contribution based on the FAFSA, then unfortunately we don't have any control over that. We have to be were required to award based on the family contribution, so if that does change during verification it can change your eligibility for financial aid.

Um?

They entered that how long?

Hey.

Provided.

I received a request for financial aid information, but I'm not sure what's being asked. Provide a signed statement from parents regarding support of other household members, provide proof of their residence and employment so one of the things we ask is when you fill out the verification worksheet. If your selected for verification, it's that you report who lives in your household. We oftentimes will see students they report their parents and their siblings, but if you report someone other than a pair assembling.

Um, our policy is to perhaps question it if we see something that we're not sure that person lives in that house sold, or maybe that person is not being supported. The federal government requires that any person listed in your household who is not a sibling. If you're a dependant student living with your parents, then any other member of the household who is not a sibling must also be a dependent of your parents, so they not only have to live with you throughout the upcoming year, but they also have your parents also have to provide more support to that person.

Then they support themselves so, uhm, you know common theme is will see grandparents who are elderly and live with their parents and they don't have any income anymore. That would make sense that your parents are supporting them. Unfortunately we see times where maybe grandma and grandpa live in Mexico or Spain or Canada and they and they send money to help support those would not be considered household members 'cause they do not actually live in your household. So this is information that we look into an we.

And we try to make sure that we're following and being in compliance with federal regulations for who can be considered a member of your household.

Uh.

So, and I I've touched on a lot of verification. Uhm, the last verification I want to mention. So if you have any questions you can email us. But again that the main components were asking for our parent taxes, parent tax information and they can collect, they can request an IRS transcript. It's called the tax return transcript for 2018. They can request that from the IRS. I know with kovid right now there's been challenges getting transcripts, so if they are.

Are having difficulties obtaining a transcript from the IRS or you are the student 'cause you perhaps filed in 2018? Then you can submit a signed copy of your 2018 tax return along with any W twos you may have for that year. You can upload those instead of a transcript or the data retrieval tool because not everyone can use the data retrieval tool as well for various reasons. So if you can't do that, you can in this case use a signed copy 2018 tax return.

With 2018 W Twos.

Another common question we get is sometimes the system or the FAFSA will ask for W twos for students or parents who are self-employed and do not have W twos. If the system is asking for W twos or the counselor or whoever is asking you, and you know you're self employed and all of your income is on Schedule C of your tax return, please just submit a signed copy of your tax return. We can see from that that you then don't have any wages and tax return with all of your schedules attached, including Schedule C.

Uh, will help clear that information and then we know we don't need a W2, so that can that can stand in for that.

Uh, OK, uh. Someone asked about a B540 the AB 540 waiver is is going to be submitted through the registrar's office and any questions about the 8540 waiver can be directed towards the registrars. You can see the website he is here on the slide for important links. So and again anything 8540 related questions about your status? Or do you qualify that is determined by the registrar's office?

Um?

How can I request a financial aid appeal? Uhm, I touched on this earlier. Um, we just recently opened up the process for fall of 2020 through spring of 2021. We open up the process for families to appeal their current status. So again, if you I mentioned earlier, if you have a status or a reason why your faxes income from 2018 or anything that's on your FAFSA currently does not reflect your family's current situation, you can email us.

And just tell us a little bit about your situation and request an appeal a counselor or want myself may review that and then we can open up an appeal for you through your UCI dot. Verify my FAFSA Portal and then you'll get a text in an email once your account is set up it you will be able to be able to communicate throughout the process with you. Again, I want to emphasize we will try to work on these as soon as we can. We have thousands of files we still have to verify.

And summer tends to be our busiest time, so we usually do not review these until October 1 or later. But we will do the best we can and again, please, please plan on whatever your financial aid award is. Please plan on using that or out of pocket to help pay for fall as there's no guarantee or appeal one will be approved and two will be improved. Approved in time to pay for fall fees because even if it is approved, it may not give you as much granted as you're thinking potentially so. It just depends. It's all a case by case basis.

These appeals take a lot of time to review, so Please be patient with us, but but that's the start of the processes email. Us will look for those emails. Will try to open an appeal for you and then just make sure you're keeping on top of your communication with us about the appeals.

Students have doubts about blue and gold. Blue and gold is posted at. As for students on their mind account, it's posted about how you can qualify. It is awarded later in October, so you won't see it at the start of the year and I want to emphasize this 'cause I feel like this is a point that a lot of people miss. Blue and gold is not a common award, and if you get Cal Grant you won't receive blue and gold, blue and gold and Cal Grant come from the same fund.

And they are intended to pay towards tuition or a systemwide fees or tuition at UCI, but the Cal Grant is the I would say, quote Unquote, better award. It 100% coverage are tuition, which is $12,570. The blue and gold is a supplemental grant which takes what you already have in grant aid and then adds to it up to combined 12,570. So the Cal Grant covers it, and then you get all your other aid. On top of that.

On that you may qualify for blue and gold is supplemental, so for every dollar of UCI grant you get more of you get less of blue and gold. So basically it's not a common award. There are students who qualify for every year, but the vast majority of our students would qualify for Cal Grant instead. So just keep that in mind. It's Cal Grant or blue and gold, and not both. They are mutual, mutually exclusive awards.

Our students had asked about Cal Grant getting confirmed in the summer. Cal grant does get confirmed in the later this summer when we get the roster from the California student aid Commission or Csac. The only important thing that new students need to worry bout for now is making sure that they self certify that they graduated high school and then they need to log into web grants. You can see from the slide and make sure that the school of attendance listed is UCI. We have students every year who wonder why they don't get their Cal Grant.

In September, and it's because they've listed us not first. They've maybe chosen a different school back when they were applying and they listed another school first, so make sure that if you want now that you know you're coming to UCI, please log into web web grants account list. UCI is your school of attendance and then just certify that you graduated high school. Once that's done as well. And then again, the roster usually comes in in late July or August I believe and we start confirming Calgarians at that time.

Uh, let's see.

Uh, this is.

Are you do not need to wait for your call Cal grant to be confirmed before accepting your award? Uh, I encourage you. If you have your award already, at least accept the terms and conditions.

So get your grant aid ready to go. You don't have to make decisions on loans yet, and again, I'll get to loans in a few minutes here, but you can always accept the terms and conditions of your award earlier, and then once the Calgary is confirmed it will then be ready to help pay your fees.

Uh.

And let's see. And again you log into your back on the first slide, you log into your my eight account and you accept. You can review your award and then you accept the terms and conditions and it'll tell you once you've done all of that.

Um?

A couple of questions about costs. Um, someone asked what are the 2020 slash 2021 estimated cost for the year, um.

So I believe we have a breakdown.

Is there a slide that breaks down the?

Uh, let's see.

OK.

OK, sorry about that. Um, OK, so there's a breakdown for here's a breakdown for the estimated cost for the 2020-2021 year.

You can see that the there are three different budgets based on cost of attendance and where you're going to be living. The books and supplies do not change their set for every set wherever you are, but the other costs can change depending on which budget you have. The fees are set down there at the bottom you can see systemwide fees. Is the 12,570 figure I mentioned earlier? That's the system fees and the campus fees are below that. Total fees are there at the bottom as well.

Um?

The the total fees right here at the bottom, highlighted in orange. Um, that's what you owe the University to attend UCI throughout the year, so it's kind of discussing how this works. Is that cost of attendance is broken down?

Into into quarters. It's not exactly always divided into thirds, because there's other costs that may come up little tiny fees, but basically roughly 1/3 of that is paid each quarter, and then your other costs up here in the top half. These are these are set costs based on your budget, but what they are is there set cost. So basically your books and supplies. We estimate what it's going to cost your individual costs may be different than these, but this is what your award is based on regardless.

So if your transportation costs more than 1900 year than it does. Unfortunately for you, if it costs less than $1900 a year, then maybe you save a little money, have to take out a little less loan. That's great, but these are all this is how every single student is awarded the same, and we the University. Just research and establish as these guidelines for everybody and the awarding policies are set that way. So the biggest thing to the other takeaway is to make sure that.

Uh, so these costs are set, but uhm.

Um?

Yeah, so let me see what the start. Let me go back to the question real quick. Yeah, so these are the set costs. And then when you accept your financial aid, these fees each quarter are assessed, usually about five weeks before the deadline. The fee deadline so fall fees will probably be assessed in early August, and that's when you'll be able to. Once your award is available, you'll be able to accept the terms and then you will see that. See that money. Go to your zod account and pay it. I suppose since we're talking about it, I'll mention it.

2 right here is odd account. Is the student billing account. We called this odd account at UCI. This is where you will. This is the student billing account, so all of your fees and all of the charges you receive while you're you see I go to this account and then similarly all your financial aid that you accept also goes to this account and then the money you have will pay down the money you owe. If you end up with more more financially then your costs then you get a disbursement back. If you have less aid.

And what it costs you will owe the difference by whatever deadline is posted, so you can set up your exotic count here and.

I I'm not sure what the inside. That's the one thing I'm not sure on the instructions for Zodd account. You can go to this website and try to set up an account. I'm not sure when new students are set up in the system campus building. I think usually does that in June, but this is where you'll go later in the summer to see your charges again. There won't be anything there until August at the earliest, so there's no need to worry about it now.

Other thing is, uhm, for payment of fees, there's something called a paste plan. Oh sorry.

Back on that side real quick, there's a pace plan, so if you want to pay your financial aid fee deadline in installments each quarter, you maybe you are eligible. If you want to sign up for pace and that breaks up the payment into three monthly installments, I believe there's a small fee to sign up for pace, and then again the campus building office will break up your payment into three installments and you won't have to pay it all at once. But then again, that's totally up to you. If you have enough financial aid to cover your fees, then that's maybe it's something you don't need to take advantage of.

You can payment options, you can see include debit card, check cash, the check. Financial aid obviously is a big one. 529 plan savings plans.

The credit card is a new one. We used to not take credit cards, so that's hopefully an advantage. For those of you may be waiting on an appeal to be approved or waiting for a file to be completed, you can pay by credit card and then hopefully hear back from us if necessary and pay that balance down before you owe interest. But yes, so this is the zod account and this is where you will see your fees and take care of your fees. Your financial aid though, once you've accepted it and it's available and all that, any aid that you accept will automatically go to your side account and automatically pay down your fee so.

You don't. If you get a UCI grant, you don't receive that grant physically and then use it to pay. The grant will automatically pay the fees for you, so that's it's all automated behind the scenes. Here is a schedule you can see of the enrollment windows, and then you can see that bill is to be announced, but it's usually again early August.

And then there's also a you can feed. Deadline is September 15th. You can see the winter fee deadline, and then there's also December 15th and the Springfield fee deadline is March 15th.

Um?

Let's see and there was the and then there was also. We also have gotten a couple of questions about you. See ship you can see on this page right here. There is a waiver window, the universe. It's by law. You have to be covered under health insurance. So if you are already covered under your parents, perhaps or you've purchased your own. If you're an independent student, you can come to this web page to wave out. This is the UCI student Health Center website.

And if you will go right to their website, you can see on the first page where it's highlighted where there's instructions to waving student health insurance plan. There's a window in which you can do that. The data at the top, and so you basically have the month of August. If you decide to waive out, you will need to apply for a waiver through the Health Center, and if they approve you, great. And if they don't approve you, then you will be required to pay for health insurance as part of your fees.

Students receiving the UCI grant that UCI grant is intended to help with the cost of health insurance, so if you opt into health if you are taking the health insurance and you know you're going to need it and you have it and you have UCI grant already awarded, that UCI grant will help pay for that. If you're awarded UCI Grant and you decide to opt out of taking the health insurance, and we weren't expecting that, then you're UCI grant may be reduced because again.

It's meant to pay for some of that cost. If you wave out and we were not anticipating that you would wave out, then you're if you're no longer paying for that cost at a pocket, then the grant no longer applies because that cost disappears as well. So I don't want to get into it too much. I mean, it's a case by case basis depends on the student, and so that's a question. If you're not sure about when it comes time, you can look into it. But basically, if your UCI grant recipient and you decide to waive health insurance, it may impact it. May not it May.

But just keep that in mind. I just like to make people aware of that, uhm?

I'm going to go down next to. We've got several questions about work study, so I wanted to talk about work study real quick work study is awarded to the students based on you CIS awarding policies and your family contribution and everything on your account. So if you have work city, great. If you don't have work study, mu didn't likely qualify, but if you do have it, how it works is you basically apply for a job through career.uci.edu. You can see at the bottom there we call it handshake.

You can apply for a job through handshake and you can filter. I believe you can search by jobs that require work study the University offers jobs, student worker jobs that are both work, study specific wired and non work setting required. So just because you don't have work study does not mean you can't get an on campus job. But if you have work study you just basically apply for a job either way and then once you get the job you just turn it biweekly paycheck and the hiring Department.

Pays you out of your work study award so you earn that work. Study award through biweekly paycheck.

A lot of students ask, you know, I got $1500 an in my am I basically fired after I earned my $1500. The answer is usually no. Once you run out of work study award, your Department has to make that decision to continue to keep you on and keep you hired. They just have to pay you out of their own Department funds. Once you've run out of work, study funds to pay to be paid from. So as far as I know, most departments are absolutely fine with that and that's kind of the norm. Is that students can run out of work, study in the Department will continue to pay them.

But I can't guarantee that that's not information I have, but I know what you see in our financial aid office. We have a lot of student peer workers, and when they run into financial aid, we continue to employ them and pay them even once their work study runs out.

Let's see, can you have a second job at the same time as work study? Uhm.

A student workstudy workers are limited during the school year. Two I think 19 or 19.5 hours a week of work so they can't exceed that amount. As far as I know. So you need to make sure that you are.

You need to make sure that you're not exceeding that because during the academic term, when School is active again, there's a limit to how many hours a student can work a week. So just keep that in mind. But as far as I know, I think we have a student here who does have two jobs and I just make sure her hours here do not interfere with her cap in her hours at her other job. So that's something to keep in mind.

Someone asked what is the president's work study the presidents works. It is just a different fund. We have federal an presidents work study. They're both work study. So as far as students are concerned, it's the same award. They don't need to worry about that. It all applies the same except your work study award. Apply for jobs and then start working to earn that work study award.

Can I see now one of the caveats here is like I mentioned at the beginning, we don't know how it works. It is going to work in the fall. We don't know what Paul is going to look like yet, so you may not be able to apply for a job right away. Once you've accepted your work, study your words not going to like disappear in the file you reward is your award, so the work study award isn't going anywhere. Whether or not you'll be able to utilize it this upcoming year. That's just information we don't have yet, but keep in mind that we're not going to like.

Take away your work so if you can't use it in the fall because of because of the campus being closed or something like that. So just keep that in mind.

Uh, let's see. So let's work study. I want to touch on a couple more topics and I'm hoping to have time to open it up here.

Let's see.

Won't OK, so let me talk about loans for a little bit. Alot of families ask about loans. Here is a breakdown for the loans. The different loans I'm going to try to go over them briefly so you all can get as much information as possible.

The the main loan that a lot of students are going to see is the federal, the federal direct subsidized loan. This you can see the interest rate here.

So this is the breakdown of students will receive if they have the need for it, they'll receive the subsidized loan. All students will also receive a direct unsubsidized loan offer, and then, depending on your family contribution, you may also see some of these federal direct plus loan or the University loan or the Hawk loan. You won't see a private loan offered, but that's another option as well. So let me go through these quickly for you. The federal direct subsidized loan is a.

You can see it to Linda Lenders, the federal government when you accept the loan is guaranteed. It's a student loan. You would if you accept alone. There are requirements you have to complete and I'll get to that in a second and the loan will like once you've accepted it, completed the requirements the loan combines with your other aid and grants an will help pay your fees down and all that stuff, so it's just lumped in with your other financial aid. You can see the interest rate changes year to year for this upcoming year. It's as low as I've ever seen it at 2.75%.

And subsidized loan is a deferred interest, so the government subsidizes the interest on the loan while your student in order you the students are attending school. So if you're going to take this out your freshman year.

Up to 30. The maximum cap for refreshment is $3500 for a transfer. If you have enough units, you might get offered $5500, possibly depending how many units you've completed, but once you've accepted the loan, the interest is subsidized. You do not pay any interest on the loan until six months after you leave UCI. Now I say leave UCI because it's not necessarily graduate. Obviously we have students who may be withdraw for one reason or another, or they leave UCI.

And take a gap year or something like that. You have a grace period of six months with the Student Loans you can see on there so that six months is whether you leave or graduate. So those of you who point on graduating in four or five years you know the normal path, then it's six months after you graduate.

The federal unsubsidized loan is the exact same in every regard to the subsidized loan, with the exception that there is no in school interest deferment, so the 2.57% interest rate on the loan for this upcoming year that would start to accrue while you're still in school, but the payment is still deferred until six months after you leave school as well, so the unsubsidized is the exact same as a subsidized, with the exception of the interest obviously not being subsidized.

A lot of families will also see the Parent plus loan. This is a credit based loan that your parents will have to apply for an be approved by the government. The interest rate again as as low as I've ever seen it at 5.3%.

There is no in school deferment on the interest of a parent loan. They have to pass a credit check. Your parent has to apply for the loan, get completed, master promissory note and then the loan. Whatever they take out for this year, the repayment automatically begins 60 days after the final disbursement of the loan at UCI. The final disbursement for the academic year is usually in early March or late February for spring quarter. At that time it 60 days from that moment.

Um, one of the things I want to mention for parents to is just because that's the standard repayment does not mean that that is will be your repayment plan. You can always reach out to your lender and request a different repayment structure. Your lender. We don't know who that is, it says on here the lenders, the federal government. That is true, but the federal government contracts out different loan servicers to actually manage the load, so you will get notified who your lender is.

The academic year. Once you've accepted your loan, it takes a little time, but once you have that information then you work with the lender on repayment and all that stuff.

And you can always, once your loan has been accepted and approved, and it's gone through weather student or parent after a little while, usually takes a couple of months, but you can usually then log on to there's a website that you can log into a federal website to check and see who your lender is, so that's available information to. I don't know if we have that slide, and that's OK if we don't, but it's NSLD s.com if you just search the National student loan data system, that's where you would go to find out who your lender is.

I'm usually two to three months after your loan disperses. There's also you can see a University loan that's a subsidized loan. UCI is the lender. It's a 5% interest rate and it's also like the subsidized low deferred while you're in school, so the interest rates little higher than the subsidized, but the interest is subsidized in other regards. It's basically the same as the federal subsidized loan.

The Hawk loan is a unique loan, not too many people will see that is for certain majors only, and you can see it's 0% interest rate, which is great, but there's no grace period. You start repayment automatically once you're done, and then private loans are available for those who don't want the parent loan. Maybe the parent is denied and doesn't qualify for the parent loan. Maybe you just don't want to borrow the Student Loans for some reason, although again, I highly recommend taking out at least the Student Loans because of the terms you're not going to find better terms on the loan elsewhere most likely.

Uh, but if you'd like to take out the private loan you apply for those through some private bank or lender Credit Union or we have information on our website about that. If you want to research it and then once you have been approved for a private loan, you just need to notify UCI so that we can certify the loan for you.

So that's kind of a breakdown of how loans work. I'm trying to get and keep this brief 'cause I want to get to questions and we solve a couple more topics real quick. So again, except your loans, if you thinking about loans, if you need loans to pay your fees, please accept them before the fee deadline and also complete you see the website at the top here. There's studentaid.gov you need to complete what's called the master promissory note and an entrance loan counseling. So there's two requirements. These are listed on your mind To Do List tab as well, so when you accept your.

Board on your my eight account through, uh, the UCI financial aid website portal. There is a my To Do List tab and the instructions and links for what you need to do. Once you accept a loner alright there typed out for you and the links are provided. You need to make sure you complete those requirements. Student took sometimes will accept a loan for the first time the day before feed headline, and then they get their classes dropped because the requirements were not finished. So if you're planning on doing loans, please prepare and plan ahead and complete all the requirements.

Um?

Let's see I try to get through these last ones quickly.

Uh.

See middle class scholarship. Uhm so people ask the middle class scholarship.

You can see right here on the side, the parameters and requirements for middle class scholarship family total income on the FAFSA, parent total income. I should say, if you're a dependent student, must be below 184 thousand and total assets of the family must also be below that number. It covers up to 40% of system fees at UCI. This is about $5000, so it's a sliding scale based on your income and assets. You can get up to about 5.

1000 or less if you're closer to those asset and income ceilings must be a California resident. Must be a citizen or a B540 eligible and your FAFSA has to be on time. The other thing about the M CS award middle class scholarship it's not awarded until usually October November, so it's not going to be in your package for faulty so you again like like an appeal you need to be prepared to pay for fall and then if you're eligible for this, you'll be awarded it later. Similar to blue and gold. If you have Cal Grant you won't get middle class scholarship. It's the same similar idea. It's a state fund to help.

For fees, the Cal grants already covering your systemwide fees so you wouldn't qualify for middle class scholarship.

If you have borrowed up, there are some students occasionally just to throw this out here. If you've accepted need based loans like a subsidized loan, and then you get middle class scholarship. It's possible that when you're awarded the scholarship that we have to reduce some of your subsidized loan, an offer you unsubsidized loan instead because you don't have room in your budget for any more subsidized loan. Please be aware if you are awarded this award, please review your award carefully and I would say this.

Generally speaking, whenever you get a notification that something changed on your on your award, please review the email and your account carefully so that you can make sure that you're seeing everything correctly and then obviously by fall. Hopefully we're open to the public and have phones and you can call us or come in and talk to us. If you have questions.

Alright, I know we only have a little bit of time left. Let me see. Uh, Yeah, we don't know a lot about um, remote for fall, uhm?

Do you have? Do we have the link to the website for outside scholarships were past the deadline for any UCI scholarships for this year?

Yeah, there's this scholarships link right there. You can look at that and there's further information there, but we're past the deadline for UCI scholarships for 2021.

Um?

Let's see.

So the count.

And then we did get a question about the cow that waiver real quick or veterans benefits veterans benefits. Depends if you are receiving federal or veterans benefits under post 911 or volk rehab, or any of those benefits you would supply your DD214 and costs certificate of eligibility to the UCI veterans office. If you are getting the calvete waiver, that's a letter you or your parent would receive saying You're eligible for a cow that waiver.

We would take a copy of that form and then you would be awarded a cow that waiver what veteran benefit to get that's determined by the veterans office and they pass that information to us. If it's again post 911 or vocrehab chapter 33. Again, these terms don't mean anything to you unless they do, but that's just information for the calvete waiver letter. That's going to be equal to a Cal Grant, so 12,570, and if you get the cow that waiver similar to the other words, you won't also get to Calgary. It's one or the other, and you'll get the vet waiver instead.

So keep that in mind. You cannot get cow that waiver and, uh, and uh, the Calgary that waiver and Kaligram so then let's see I think that's all the questions I plan on getting too. I think we're almost at a time. If anybody has any quick questions, any common themes that have come through?

Thank you, yes, please check your email frequently. Um, please check your my 8 portal regularly. Uhm, I would really get in the habit, especially if you're new student and you're not used to all this yet. Please just get in the habit of checking your UCI email like daily like you would check your social media or anything like that and read anything that we send you email. Especially now of all times is the main way we communicate with you and I can't stress how important it is that you see on top of your tasks.

Now we have eight financial aid counselors for 25,000 thirty thousand students. So we send something out. We really need people to pay attention, so please be checking and will get to your questions as best we can.

You can contact us by email. Right now. Email is the only way I'm going to post this. We might post this chat afterwards so people can listen to this again. We also have a chat bot that has prebuilt and answers, but again we don't have the staff to manage an actual live chat scenario, so we have a chat bot on our website emails the best way right now even though I know we can't get to everybody in a timely manner. But we will try and then yeah, so that's what we have right now.

Uhm, I hope I answered a lot of your questions. Again, we have a few minutes left. If there's any common themes, van or Daisy that you've seen come through. If you want me to answer anything.

I'm happy to do so.

Um?

Don't see any questions coming through yet.

Any any common questions you guys want to post through real quick in the last couple minutes?

I enjoy it then if you go into the questions tab, you'll see a couple questions in there we only have about another 3 minutes or so, unfortunately, so we might not get through. Many of them are much above, but you can see them under the question.

OK, thank you um. OK, so where can we view the slides? Uhm, I don't know yet where we're going to post that, but we will create something and will either send out an email or will post a link to the front of our website page. So check back to our front our main website.

Um enrollment uh oh, that's a good question about enrollment, so we do. You do have to be enrolled? Um, enrolled full-time during the academic year is 12 units at UCI, so you must be at least 12 units to receive your full Pell Grant and Cal Grant eligibility. You can still receive financial aid at 6 units, but to get the full amount of eligibility, you have to be in 12 or more. So please keep that in mind that color grandin, Calgary, and especially our unit dependent. So if you drop a class or drop below 12 units for any reason during a term.

You may have to get build some of your Pell Grant in Cal Grant, so please make sure that you're in communication with us and that you try to stay in 12 units or more so that you're not build any financial aid.

Reported changes from commuting to living on campus. We will work on the report this summer. We will be updating budgets and awards as we work on our reports. The counseling staff received reports of all the things that are reported online to us, so we will work on those when we get time.

Appeals are ready. I mentioned that so you can email us Uhm.

Verification takes time. Depending on the student, some files are quick. Some files take a lot of follow up.

Uh, fees and payments will be in August.

Uh.

OK, sorry there's a lot to scroll them here.

Work said he won't be taken away if you have work study, you have it. If you don't, you don't. I'm you'll see that on your award letter.

And.

OK, yeah, I think we're just about out of time, so I want to thank everyone for attending today. We will have more of these down the road in the future. I'm not sure exactly when, but please pay attention if we reach out to you or if we can have more of these we will. We will do so. I hope this was helpful. And again, email us if you have any questions and we will do our absolute best to get to as soon as possible. But yes, so thank you again and hopefully this is helpful.