Office of Financial Aid Overview

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Alright, so I'm gonna go ahead and get started. My name is Brianna Molden and I am a coordinator in the office of financial aid at Colorado State University. Pronouns are she, her, hers.

Financial aid at CSU were interesting in that we do financial aid, but we also handle billing for the University an residency. So I'll go over residency towards the end of this presentation. If you have some questions about that, I do see that we have some non resident folks in the room so I'll touch on that towards the end and will also talk about non resident costs and scholarships to in this presentation. So we handle that. Student employment is another thing where if you have questions usually you can shoot those to us or the Career Center and we'll talk about that a little bit in this presentation as well.

So just to give you a road map for where we're going with this presentation, we're going to talk about essentially how much it costs to go to school. Will talk about resources to pay for college, like grants, loans, scholarships. And then we're also going to talk about timing what you need to do an when, so we'll go over all of that in this presentation.

So starting off here, we are going to go over college costs, so there's different kinds of costs. I like to think about it into two different categories, so you've got your direct costs, which you can think of as these are things that are just going to be on your bill at CSU or at whichever school you end up going to. So those direct costs would be things like tuition and your fees. Or if you're living in the dorms it could be room and board, so those are direct costs from the school. Then there's also these other costs.

That are going to be.

That are going to vary from one student to another and those are going to be your indirect expenses, so that would be your personal expenses. How much you're spending on books, depending on your major, that could be a lot less than some other programs. Any supplies that you might need that's going to vary pretty widely from one student to another, so those are a little bit harder to anticipate and budget for it. But we like to split them up into two different costs just because direct costs. Those can be fairly stagnant, and then in static and then other ones are just going to.

Very pretty widely so.

I'm gonna go to the resident cast and I also have a slide for non resident this is this is just an estimate so your costs for next year. If you go to CSU could look similar to this. It could be a little bit different. We'll see what those costs are, but this is just to give you an idea of what school cost might look like. So you see you've got those direct costs of your tuition and your fees and this is going to be. This is an estimate for essentially, if you're a full time student, so that would be 12 or 15 credits.

If you're part time, then it's going to look different than this and you can go on our website to learn about what our tuition and fee rates look like for part time students as well. We have a whole chart out there, but for a resident student you're looking at about 12,000 a little over $12,000 a year for your tuition in your fees. If your full time, then you've also got additional tuition tuition cost, so that could be maybe like course fee or something like that.

So those are also going to be cost that you want to that we build into your budget or your estimate just so that you know to anticipate those books and supplies. These probably aren't going to be on your bill unless you charge your books to your student account, so those are things that you want to budget for, but we're not going to directly bill you for those books unless you charge them to your student account, in which case those would be on your bill. But books students spend a pretty widely different amount on book. Some students only spent a couple $100 a year on books, and could spend more.

So it really just depends on what you're studying and what your what your needs are there for your classes, housing and meals. This is another one where that can vary pretty widely from one student to another. So if you're living in a suite style dorm, maybe you have a private room and no roommates, or you have like a really large meal plan, then this is going to be higher for those students in someone who's living in. Maybe like an older dorm with roommates and a shared community style bathrooms, so that's just something to be aware of is that's going to vary.

Depending on what dormy choose to live in.

Then we've also got transportation. This is something that you're not going to see on your bill, but we do like to throw it in there just so that you know if you want to. You need a budget for, maybe like a plane ticket home. If you're a non resident or putting gas in your car, things like that. That's something that you'd want to budget for and then other educational expenses would just be personal expenses. So altogether for resident, we're looking at about 29,000 for a Colorado resident, and this is just based on this year's rate, so again next year that could change for a nonresident it's higher because your tuition and fees are going to be.

More so that's closer to 30 thirty 1500 for tuition and fees for the full year, and then almost 49,000 as a total estimate, including all of those things. So the direct costs and the indirect expenses.

So that's what college costs look like. Now we're going to transition into what is financial aid, so this sort of ubiquitous term is at loans. Is it scholarships? Is expanse an answer? Would be all of those things that can consist of all kinds of different ways that students and families pay for college? So typically the main types of financial aid are going to be grants and scholarships, loans and then student appointment. So grants and scholarships. That's free money. You don't have to pay that back.

Typically that's going to be determined by.

Demonstrated financial need on your FAFSA or your Caspa if you're a Colorado resident and I'll talk about kaspa a bit later in this presentation.

So that could be me based. It could also be merit based, potentially for scholarship specifically that could be based on maybe an application that you've done or different things that you've participated in, so that's free money. You don't have to pay that back to anyone. Loans are money paid back, overtime with interest, and there's different kinds of loans, so we'll talk about that later and then student employment. This really isn't something that you're going to use so much to pay your tuition bill as it is money that you would use for personal expenses, so this is something that you're.

Turning over the course of the term and so it's not going to be immediately available to you when your bill it comes to, so that's something that we throw it in there. But it's something that functions much differently than those other kinds of financial aid. But we'll talk about that as well. One thing I do want to mention is the ka for the college opportunity fund. This is something that for Colorado residents, it's technically not financially, but I do want to mention it. It's worth mentioning.

This is a statement from the state of Colorado man. It's free money. You don't actually have to apply for Fasa to be considered for this. All you have to do is fill out this application here at this link. Cough college dash assist.org to be considered for that plan. Any Colorado resident can get it. So this year the cof stipend was $40 per credit hour last year. It was much higher and next year potentially it could be more. We'll see what happens, but this is just free money. You don't have to pay it back. Definitely your Colorado resident, you should.

Apply for that and authorize it just so that you can get that stipend on your bill.

And there it's a one time application. You don't have to reapply will do all the legwork for you, so once you fill out your application, that's it, you're done. You don't have to redo it each year or anything like that. You just do it the one time, and then that's it. So make sure that you do complete that. If not, will call you and let you know that we didn't get your application. So there will be reminders along the way, but it's just something worthwhile to remember to do if you are a Colorado resident an asset. Students are also eligible for this as well, and I'll talk about that more when I get to my Colorado asset slides.

Some.

And feel free to also pop any questions into the chat. I'll try to monitor that and then answer questions if you if you have any questions about what we're we're talking about here. So I'm going to talk about Gramps now. Grants like I said, they're free money. They don't have to be repaid. The main thing that grants is that it's going to be neat space, so it's based on your demonstrated financial need determined by FAFSA or the Caspa.

Application and there's different types that you might qualify for with grants.

There is federal grants, state grants and then institutional would be the different categories you want to think about grants in.

So right now there really aren't too many federal grant programs available. There is a federal Pell Grant which some of you may have heard of an this one. It can range from a few $100 a year to a few $1000 depending on your financial need as demonstrated by your FAFSA.

So when you do have to fill out faster to be considered for and you have to be eligible for FAFSA in order to be to receive the Pell Grant that one. It's based on your FC or your estimated family contribution on your fast. So if you have lower than 5700 then that's where you would qualify for this grant.

Also, state grants. So in Colorado the state grant would be our Colorado student Grant, and then there's also institutional grants so.

These are going to vary depending on the school that you go to. This could vary from one school to another because it's based on the institution. So at CSU we've got our Ram Grant. We've got our tuition assistance grant, which I'll touch on in my next slide, but these it just varies from school to school, so it looks a lot different depending on what school you choose to go to, the amount and also the criteria that you need to meet in order to be eligible for those.

So we'll talk about CSU grants. So this is for our Colorado residence, so the tuition assistance grant this one's purpose to cover all or half of your base tuition and fees an this is in conjunction with your other grants, so it's in combination with your pal and your student grant.

And it could be $6000 to $13,000 a year in grant aid, so it's it's just. It's just purpose just to be enough to cover your tuition in your fees. Or half of that. It might be maybe some ram grant in there, just to cover most of your cost for your base version of these. And again, this is based on need demonstrated by the Fasa, in order to be considered for this, you also have to fill out csus institutional aid application so it's something that will. If we think that you'd be eligible for this, then will ask you to fill that out.

So we can determine eligibility for that.

And then Colorado asset I. This is a smaller population, so I'm not going to spend too much time on it. If you do think that you would qualify for asset, then definitely go to this link and there's more information there for youfinancially.colostate.edu/asset. If you want more information about that asset is for a documented students who have been accepted for admission and the main thing with asset is you have to have attended college at all out of high school for three years immediately before your graduation.

So.

He would need to be pretty much have gone to Colorado high school for most of high school in order to be eligible for this. And then if you do think that you'd qualify, you'd want to make sure to go ahead and apply for that cough that I'd mentioned before.

Really important so that you can be considered for any state aid, so make sure that you do apply for that 'cause you are eligible. If you are an asset student.

Real quick, just the steps for asset students. So you would want to apply.

By submitting your application and then instead of filling out the FAFSA, you actually have a separate application called The Castle, which is the Colorado version of the of the FAFSA. This is new, so this just came out this year, but you'll fill that out in order to be considered for a Dan. Then you'll fill out that cough application so those are the steps for you.

You could also be considered for institutional and state grants. You can be considered for different kinds of scholarships and private scholarships too. So again, go to our website if you have any more questions about that or reach out to me and I'm happy to answer any questions you might have there. So going to scholarships.

Scholarships are also free money, so they're similar to grants in that you don't have to pay them back. But these are pretty much going to be more merit based as opposed to financial needs based, although there are some where they look at your demonstrated financial need from the FAFSA, but typically scholarships are going to be more merit based, so they're going to ask about your test scores or GPA. Maybe volunteer experience or things like that.

So there's different kinds of scholarships that are available that you can apply for. There's all kinds of different scholarships out there, and I'm sure that you all are very familiar with that, and I've seen the different search engines that are available online with scholarships that you can search for in primarily outside scholarships are probably more what you're familiar with.

Typically with scholarships, they're going to be based on GPA at least, and then maybe some other criteria.

We have our own institutional scholarship application so you can be considered for institutional scholarships by filling that out. You can also be just automatically considered for certain scholarships at CSU just just by completing your admissions application. So some are going to be admissions based and then if you fill out our CSU scholarship application, you can be considered for those institutional CSU scholarships as well. And then there's outside scholarships too. If you go to our website, we do have a link to some outside scholarships on our website, so I would definitely recommend.

Going to the website and checking that out and seeing if there's any scholarships listed there that you might want to apply for. You could also look at different kinds of search engines for scholarships. You wanna be wary though, I do recommend that if you're looking for scholarships through a search engine. Just be mindful that there are some scams out there and so you don't want to be giving out too much of your personal information. Definitely don't pay money to get money, something that we like to say in the in financial aid world, so make sure that if they were asking you for a fee or something that you just check it out and make sure that it's not some sort of scam.

'cause there are quite a few scholarship scams out there unfortunately, and we've seen an uptick in those, especially within the last three years. We've seen a lot more scholarship scams. There's also other times of kinds of scholarships that you can apply for too, so you'll want to look at maybe like community organizations. Alot of time they have scholarships. Or you could look at different foundations or local businesses to. Or you could look for scholarships. Maybe that are in your field of study. So look at.

Companies that are in your field and see if they have scholarships or you might be able to ask your employer or your parents employers if they have any scholarship opportunities and sometimes that that ends up being the case where there's scholarship opportunities through that as well. So there's a lot of different places that you can find scholarships.

So we're going to touch on admissions based scholarships. So like I said at CSC, we kind of two different kinds. We've got those admissions based scholarships that you're automatically considered for, and then we've also got our CSU scholarship application which you would apply for separately for admissions based scholarships. We're not quite sure exactly what the criteria is going to be yet. In order to be considered for those. So more to come on that once we know we will definitely update our website.

With more information, but outside of GPA, we're really not sure yet exactly what that's going to look like. So just just keep an ear out. For more information about that. Typically for Colorado residents, you're looking at admissions based scholarships that would range from $1000 to $4000 a year in their renewable, so you can receive them up to a total of eight semesters as long as you meet the renewal criteria each year for those scholarships.

Miss historically would have been our green and gold scholarship or Colorado Merit Scholarship.