PLANit Sarasota-FASFA Video

Summary

In this informative video, Thomas Williams from PLANit Sarasota discusses strategies for funding higher education. Joined by scholarship manager Molly Swift and operations director Earl Young, they explore various financial aids available like government and private scholarships, loans, and savings plans. They emphasize the importance of early FAFSA submission and meeting scholarship deadlines, highlighting the benefits of understanding different types of loans and actively seeking scholarships. The conversation outlines key steps for students and families to effectively finance higher educational pursuits, advocating for organization and proactive planning.

Highlights

• FAFSA is a crucial document for accessing multiple types of financial aid, including federal, state, and institutional grants. 📝
• Students must apply early to maximize financial aid opportunities due to first-come, first-served policies on some funds. 🚀
• Molly and Earl emphasize the importance of paying attention to scholarship deadlines and application completeness. ⏰
• Explore various funding options and tailor your applications to meet specific scholarship criteria for better chances. 🏆
• Scholarships generally require essays and references, so prepare these documents early and customize them as needed. ✍️

Key Takeaways

• Start early with your FAFSA applications to maximize your financial aid opportunities! 📅
• Explore all possible sources of educational funding, including scholarships, grants, and loans. 💰
• Meeting scholarship deadlines is crucial; don’t wait until the last minute! 🕒
• Understanding different types of loans can help in choosing the right one for your needs! 📊
• Scholarships are like buffets, variety is key! Apply to as many as possible. 🍽️

Overview

In the PLANit Sarasota video, Thomas Williams speaks with experts Molly Swift and Earl Young about financing higher education. They cover pivotal financial aids like FAFSA, which is central for accessing a range of grants and scholarships, stressing the importance of submitting applications timely to secure needed support from available funds.

The video further delves into understanding various loans, distinguishing between private and federal options, as well as subsidized versus unsubsidized loans, offering viewers a comprehensive overview of what's available to them. Molly Swift advises on handling scholarships by not waiting until the last minute to apply, ensuring deadlines are met to avoid missing opportunities.

Moreover, Earl Young shares valuable tips on how students can strategize their scholarship applications, akin to a buffet approach, ensuring they maximize their chances of securing funding by applying widely and meticulously following each scholarship’s specific instructions and deadlines.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction The chapter introduces Thomas Williams, presumably the host or a prominent figure in the following content. This introduction sets the stage for the rest of the material, hinting at the key themes or topics that will be discussed. The friendly greeting and repetitive musical cues suggest a welcoming and perhaps recurring segment or series.
• 00:30 - 01:00: About PLANit Sarasota The chapter titled 'About PLANit Sarasota' discusses PLANit Sarasota, a collaborative initiative in Sarasota County that brings together various organizations to assist students in obtaining education beyond high school. The chapter's focus is on financing education, specifically covering the costs associated with college or technical college education. It introduces two experts on the topic: Molly Swift, the Scholarship Manager for the William G and Marie Selby Foundation, and a colleague of the narrator.
• 01:00 - 02:30: Resources for Financing Education Earl Young from the Education Foundation of Sarasota County discusses various financial aid resources available to students and families to fund education, emphasizing the importance of exploring diverse options.
• 02:30 - 04:00: FAFSA Overview The chapter provides an overview of various sources of financial aid available for students. It highlights that financial aid can come from federal and state governments, educational institutions like universities, colleges, or technical schools, and private or non-profit organizations. Additionally, students may have access to scholarship programs through their employers or community organizations. Loans are also mentioned as a form of financial support.
• 04:00 - 05:00: Florida Financial Aid Programs This chapter discusses the various financial aid programs available in Florida. It emphasizes eligibility for certain grants and scholarships, the benefits of work-study options, and the potential advantages of the Florida Prepaid Plan and 529 savings programs. These programs offer tax benefits and can influence financial aid opportunities, providing families with multiple options to support educational funding.
• 05:00 - 06:00: Grants vs. Loans The chapter titled 'Grants vs. Loans' focuses on the importance of filling out the FAFSA, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. This form is essential for students in the United States as it helps the federal government assess a student's financial need, potentially qualifying them for various forms of financial aid such as grants and loans. The discussion hints at differing options available for financial support in education, emphasizing the necessity of this application in determining eligibility and financial planning for students.
• 06:00 - 08:00: Types of Financial Aid and Loans The chapter discusses various types of financial aid and loans available to students, emphasizing the importance of completing the FAFSA form. The FAFSA determines what the federal government believes a family can contribute, which influences eligibility for grants such as the Federal Pell Grant and other federal aid programs.
• 08:00 - 16:00: Scholarships Importance and Application Tips The chapter discusses the significance of scholarships and provides tips on how to apply for them. It highlights the importance of completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) to qualify for various state and institutional grants. The FAFSA is described as a crucial document that assists the federal government and schools in determining the family's expected financial contribution towards the student's education. Additionally, the chapter emphasizes the importance of submitting applications early, noting that the application window opens in October.
• 16:00 - 16:30: Final Advice and Conclusion The chapter provides insights into financial aid, emphasizing the urgency of applying early because some funds are distributed on a first-come, first-serve basis. Once these funds are allocated and promised to students, they are no longer available. Additionally, the chapter discusses the Florida Financial Aid Application (FFA) as a state-specific complement to the national FAFSA program, highlighting the complexity and the importance of navigating both systems effectively.

PLANit Sarasota-FASFA Video Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 [Music] [Music] hello my name is thomas williams and i'm the
• 00:30 - 01:00 director of planets arizona planet sarasota is a cross-sector of organizations in sarasota county all coming together to help our students get an education beyond high school today we're going to talk about how to finance that education how do you pay for college or a technical college and we are joined today by two subject matter experts we have molly swift the scholarship manager for the william g and marie selby foundation we're also joined today by my colleague
• 01:00 - 01:30 earl young who is the director of operations and systems improvement for the education foundation of sarasota county welcome everybody thank you thomas thank you so much i'm going to start with you our opening question here is simply this when a parent or student is thinking about how to finance their education what what resources should they keep in mind what resources do they think about sure well there's a variety of sources of financial aid for families and students to be able to pay for college
• 01:30 - 02:00 and this can come from a variety of areas that the federal government state government that students institutions so their university college or technical school are all sources of financial aid and then there's also private and non-profit organizations so if the student has an employer they may have a scholarship program or maybe they're involved with a youth serving organization in their community and they could get a scholarship through through that or a foundation additionally there are loans that a
• 02:00 - 02:30 student may be eligible for which we'll talk a little bit more about shortly i hope and work study options and then if a family has the means and the time to do it i would also advise looking into the florida prepaid plan and other 529 savings programs and those have a variety of different differences but they generally have tax and financial aid benefits
• 02:30 - 03:00 okay we'll talk about loans and definitely a prepaid plan coming up earl the big one we want to often talk about here is fafsa the free application for federal student aid what is it and why should they get those forms filled out and filed absolutely so the fafsa as you said the free application for federal student aid is a it's basically a form that the federal government requires students to complete in order for them to determine what the student's financial need is so
• 03:00 - 03:30 as molly said there are a plethora of grants that students can qualify for and the main thing that the students need to do is complete the fafsa first and again that's going to tell us what the federal government believes that the family and their student should be able to contribute towards the student's education and so that is a important document to complete when um i think most students know about the federal power after that you can't qualify for the pell grant unless you're going to leave the fafsa but there are other federal grants that you may qualify for by completing the fafsa there's also
• 03:30 - 04:00 state grants that you may qualify for just completing the fafsa there are also institutional grants that you might qualify for just by completing the fafsa and so again very important document that's essentially the federal government telling us and the schools how much they believe that the family can contribute towards that student's education and it sets the student up for receiving a whole plethora of financial meaning based aid and the earlier you get those applications in i think the window opens in october the
• 04:00 - 04:30 earlier the better correct some of the money um is is on a first come first serve basis and i hate to use that word but once the funding is allocated and that money's already been promised to students once it's fun it's gone okay molly in addition to fafsa which is a national program here in florida we have ffa can you explain that yes so that's the florida florida financial aid application it's there's so many f's
• 04:30 - 05:00 and a's this is very similar but it's through the florida state department of education and so this is how a student would be eligible for things like the bright futures scholarship but there are 11 other grants and scholarships that are available through that through that application so the website for that is florida student financial aid sg.org great thank you very much so you both brought up loans before and i know um
• 05:00 - 05:30 i financed my education partly through loans and also had to do that with my children's education so um molly we'll start with you what is the difference between a grant and a loan that's simple a grant is a gift aid that is not something that the student is expected to pay back but a loan is something that one is expected to pay back yes yes yes they are all right um also the difference is between
• 05:30 - 06:00 both of you can join it here the differences between federal loans and private loans and subsidized loans and unsubsidized loans well i'll go ahead and just start off since we have talked a little bit about the fafsa and um so we you know the fafsa if you um complete the fafsa you may qualify for the pell grant there are other federal types of grants there's a federal supplemental educational opportunity grant there are other state grants i'm not certain what the names are anymore but i know one was called frag the florida resident access grant
• 06:00 - 06:30 um but then when it comes to loans there are a couple different kinds of months we talked about the private loans which could be from any company that's out there discover card sally made and there's also some of the public loans which are offered through the federal government now when you're talking about the stanford loans which are the ones that are offered through the federal government are subsidized and unsubsidized your subsidized loans means that the federal government will pay the interest on that loan while you are in school and up to
• 06:30 - 07:00 correct me from iran if it's still six months after you graduate that the government will continue paying that that is a need-based program so the only way that you can qualify for a subsidized loan is by completing the fafsa and the federal government determining that you have a need otherwise they may still offer you the unsubsidized loan which means that the second you receive that funding it is accruing interest there is no interest subsidy subsidized by the federal government okay i guess i'd like to add that
• 07:00 - 07:30 normally when i'm speaking with students we're talking about the federal loans and the federal loans do have a variety of flexible repayment options and so that is most likely where you'll see that a student borrower can base their payments on their income in the years to come so that that i think is definitely a benefit yeah there's three or four different types of programs there's pay as you go there's the income based repayment program and the other nice thing about um these laws like molly's mentioned is they also have the
• 07:30 - 08:00 loan forgiveness program there's a public service loan forgiveness if you work for a non-profit a government or a like a hospital organization and you join one of those income based repayment programs um after 10 years you can have your loan amounts uh forgiven a lot of the private loans like molly said don't offer those income based repayment programs don't offer those loan forgiveness programs for the government loans laws too okay well i'm going to go into you both of your wheelhouses we're very fortunate to have two great subject matter experts
• 08:00 - 08:30 so let's talk scholarships let's talk scholarships i'm just going to throw a couple up and get out of the way and let you guys explain molly students aren't always used to doing deadlines and hitting deadlines uh can you please address the importance of being on time with these scholarships and sure well there you know are a number of reasons why you want to make sure you hit this deadline um the selfie scholar application for instance it's an automated uh software system it cuts off at
• 08:30 - 09:00 the time that is the deadline it's i think 5 pm so we say make sure you hit submit by 4 59. but the thing is you don't even really want to be that student that's clicking submit at 4 59 technical issues can arise at any point you know and people break the internet you really don't want there to be any glitches in those final moments so i'm always explicitly explaining to students you want to submit this as soon as
• 09:00 - 09:30 possible especially if you have any questions while you're filling out the application or maybe you wonder is this attachment what you're asking for uh then the staff of volunteers who are running that program have a little more time to be able to give you a timely response and so i love it when students get in touch and ask me questions about our application because i feel that i can help them if they're waiting until the very last minute there's only so much to me that can go around so i do like to be there and also it
• 09:30 - 10:00 reflects well on the student to get it in early on time a scholarship is like an investment in that student's success and as a student you want to make yourself look like a really good investment yeah it's functional er i've heard you talk about this before tips and tricks can you just share some of the scholarship process and tips and tricks to be successful in gaining a scholarship sure um the first thing i like to tell students honestly is that it's a numbers game i mean the more applications that you can fill
• 10:00 - 10:30 out where scholarships that you qualify for the better chance you'll have of receiving a scholarship but committees are all different they have different makeups you know you could have a former english teacher a business professional an attorney and they're all going to review the applications a little bit different even if we give them a rubric or a matrix to follow um you know each committee member is a little bit different and so i like to tell students you can't take this personal these are very tough decisions and
• 10:30 - 11:00 you never know who was reviewing you and what was the main criteria they were looking at so with that being said i like to tell students it really is a number date give yourself the best chance of getting a scholarship by completing as many applications as possible and it's really a simple process when searching for scholarships the first thing you want to do is you won't even qualify for the scholarship if it's a scholarship that you do not meet the bare minimum qualifications don't waste your time completing that application i can guarantee you you're not gonna get it but once you
• 11:00 - 11:30 find the scholarship that you do qualify for it's simple when does the application become available and when is the deadline because i can guarantee you one thing you will not get the scholarship if you don't apply and you don't get it in by the deadline so um you know just being able to organize your scholarship search and then a lot of the different um required documents uh that is required of the different applications while there are hundreds of different types thousands of different types of scholarship applications we're really going to ask you for the
• 11:30 - 12:00 same set of documents maybe a reference letter we're going to want some sort of essay probably a transcript so we can you know verify your studies maybe a resume or a brag sheet but there's only so many things that we're going to ask you for so once you have a good organization system of what applications do i what scholarships do i qualify for when do they become available when are the deadlines and then have all my documents kind of organized applying for scholarships is easy and then it's reviews yes yes this is a matter of competing as many as you can
• 12:00 - 12:30 i've had some students complete 40 50 80 scholarship applications in a year those are the students that have the best chance of getting their entire cost of college paid for can you get a one-time scholarship that covers everything sure but that's not how 99 of students that get their full cost of attendance covered chances are they're going to get a selfie scholar they're going to get a little bit of federal aid they're going to get a little bit of state they might get some from you from the institution maybe they get one from the education foundation they're gonna they're gonna compile an overall
• 12:30 - 13:00 financial aid package that'll help them cover the full cost of attendance that's how students normally do it that i've seen in my experience excellent excellent molly and you think you'd like that i oh gosh i had so many thoughts but i've just had the imagery of it's like a buffet where you know you're getting different things on your that make up your plate and that totally erased what i had to say um i i think like earl said there are so many items where you don't need to reinvent the wheel each time explicitly for our application we say
• 13:00 - 13:30 that they don't need to make sure that the letter of recommendation is directed to the selfie foundation it can be the letter recommendation that got that student into their dream college if you have a stellar letter you know use that letter i mean maybe ask the scholarship if it doesn't explicitly say it ask there are some things that you will want to put some thought in and when there are essays for example you want to make sure that you read it and are answering the question
• 13:30 - 14:00 so many of these scholarships are asking similar questions and you know you can copy and paste to some extent but you really want to make sure that you're hitting on the key points and my other tip would be to really kind of do research on this group that's doing the scholarship maybe they have explicit uh goals or their mission statements something on the website will tip you off on what they're looking for so you can cater your your materials to to match what they're looking for and
• 14:00 - 14:30 molly brought up a really good point about following directions answering the essay questions she said that her scholarship you don't need for the reference letter to be addressed to the salary foundation other organizations might want that some organizations might be fine with just what the students call a brag sheet a four or five pages of just listing all their accomplishments honors and activities some organization might want a one-page formal resume um it's it's very important as molly
• 14:30 - 15:00 said if you follow directions uh because that is one of the things that can get you disqualified from consideration is simply not following the directions not getting your application turned in on time not following the word counts not providing the documents in the format that they ask you to these are things that make it you um not not awarded you excellent excellent and the key takeaway i take from what you both have said during this conversation is that if a student
• 15:00 - 15:30 or a parent or family gets after this they hit their deadlines they follow the instructions they don't just put in one looking for the home run but there are several apply for several scholarships look to see which loan makes the best sense for your situation and definitely fill out the fafsa because that sets you up for close to these other things if you do all that there is a good chance you can finance some or if not potentially all of your education and i think i
• 15:30 - 16:00 think you're understanding the gist of it perfectly there is a format there is a system on them to follow and i think being on top of the deadlines and the dates and being in front of everything as opposed to chasing everything and molly alluded to it don't wait until 4 59 to have my application you can get your application done two months in advance and be working on other applications possibly get some feedback and so as opposed to wait until 4 59 that's how you miss deadlines for large opportunities that
• 16:00 - 16:30 might be only available for you once when you're a graduating senior so make sure you don't miss those opportunities there's some phenomenal scholarships that are out there and they're very simple you just gotta follow directions and meet the deadlines excellent molly earl thank you for sharing your expertise until the next time from planets arizona the education foundation have a great day