#143 FAFSA & Financial Aid Delays: Buying College Better with Beth Walker Transcript

THIS IS AN AUTOMATED TRANSCRIPT… PLEASE FORGIVE THE TYPOS & GRAMMAR! xo-Lisa.

Lisa Marker Robbins 01:02

In today’s episode, we’re addressing the recent delays in the FAFSA financial aid application and how you can navigate the college funding process more effectively. I’m thrilled to be joined by Beth Walker, a seasoned financial expert and founder of the Center for college solutions. Beth shares her expertise on the changes impacting you this year, including the delayed release and important updates to the financial aid formula that every college bound family should know. We’ll explore strategies to reverse engineer college affordability so you’re not left waiting on financial aid results that might come in too late. Beth also offers practical advice on aligning your team’s college choices with your family’s financial realities without limiting their future options. If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the financial side of the college journey and worried about missing critical deadlines, this episode is packed with valuable insights to help you support your team competently. I’m Lisa Marco Robbins, and welcome to College and Career Clarity a flourish coaching production. Let’s dive right in to this timely conversation.

Lisa Marker Robbins 02:16

Beth Walker, back to the show fourth time, because you are such a guru on this FAFSA, epic failure last year, hoping for better this year. And so inquiring minds need to know. Parents need the support. Welcome.

Beth Walker 02:33

Well, thank you. I’m sorry I’m back under these circumstances, but wow, it’s a big topic, and we need to talk about it.

Lisa Marker Robbins 02:41

We absolutely do. So okay, so for listeners, I want everybody, whether you have a student or you work with students that you have a high school senior who will be heading off to college, that’s like our first group we want to tackle. If you have a child who is in college already, and you were part of the financial aid epic failure last year, or even if you have a younger student, a freshman, a sophomore, a junior in high school, Beth is going to have advice for all of those groups as it relates to financial aid, filing for financial aid, how we make sense of the mess that I mean families with younger kids might even not. They might not even know that we have a mess so

Beth Walker 03:28

they’re blissfully ignorant. Isn’t

Lisa Marker Robbins 03:30

that well, and couldn’t we hope that it’s gonna improve by the time maybe a sophomore families kiddos heading to college?

Beth Walker 03:40

I do believe there is that hope, because we’ve reached a point where it’s so unbelievably unacceptable that, out of shame, they’re going to have to fix it.

Lisa Marker Robbins 03:53

Okay? So they, being the federal government, yes, yes.

Beth Walker 03:59

Okay, we’ve got the Department of Education and the financial aid office, so we’ve got a couple of different sort of big subset, little subset, that are dealing with all of this. Okay,

Lisa Marker Robbins 04:12

so for a family who’s like, I’m a financial aid newbie for I’m just now thinking about paying for college, the FAFSA is what so let’s get it defined.

Beth Walker 04:27

The FAFSA Free Application for student aid, another lovely government acronym that is the official form where you file for financial aid for all government based financial aid. Now the private schools, many of the private schools, some public schools, actually use a different form called the CSS Profile from the College Board, but almost every school also uses the FAFSA. So it’s an important part of registering for college, figuring out if financial aid is going to play a role.

Lisa Marker Robbins 05:09

And you know, I have a lot of listeners that will say to me right away. You know, we don’t make enough to qualify for any financial aid outside of the you know, my kids awesome grades and awesome test scores with us earning them. But like, if you ever had a thought like, oh, we may might take advantage of taking $1,000 a year in a student loan, federal student loan, then they’re going to be completing the FAFSA.

Beth Walker 05:36

Well, not only that, when you really understand how schools evaluate a household for not only need based financial aid, but for merit based financial aid. The irony is, oftentimes our listeners who make too much money to get a lot out of the need based system benefit immensely by what I call opening the financial kimono and filing that financial aid form, they’re signaling to the school, I’m not going to be a need based household, and ironically, that may end up triggering the school to offer them more merit based aid or more discounts because full pay households that have kids that are competitive, from a GPA and class standing and test score and all the extracurriculars, all those important elements that makes them even more attractive. So it’s like, oh, they aren’t going to need a lot of need based aid. Let’s create a financial incentive out of our endowment programs to bring that student to school. So I tell all families, complete the FAFSA, complete the CSS Profile, and if you are not likely to get a lot of need based aid, just view it as your loan application for low cost student loans that have favorable terms you can’t get in the private market, because economically, it doesn’t make sense. That’s another podcast we’re going to use that system to our advantage. So we absolutely want to do it.

Lisa Marker Robbins 07:13

Okay? So I wanted to paint that picture, because I don’t want anybody to like, say, Oh, this is the one episode that’s not for me, regardless of your income, regardless of if you have a student who’s college bound or already in college, we want to educate you on what has happened this year since the epic failure of financial aid, college financial aid last year. So where do we stand?

Beth Walker 07:39

So where do we stand? After the bureaucratic bungling of last year, which admittedly was a complete disaster, they attempted to say they’d be on time for this year. What does on time mean? On time for this year would have meant we’re going to release the new FAFSA software that all the families entered the data in October 1. Well, that isn’t what’s going to happen. What they said was we are still having challenges. So we’re going to test very selectively with a very small group of families this software and we’re going to push out until December 1, but I just read something yesterday suggesting there’s not a lot of confidence they’re even going to make the December 1 deadline. So this is a moving target. They would be smart to delay until they get it fixed. I mean, what happened last year is they knowingly released software that hadn’t been tested, hadn’t been corrected, was flawed, and they put families in colleges. Colleges were in no position to make award letters because they couldn’t calculate anything.

Lisa Marker Robbins 09:01

Why? You know, I mean, the colleges are as much of a victim in all of this as the family. So, you know, listeners, this is not at the college financial aid office. They are a victim, right along with you. This is not any of their doing, and they’re as frustrated as any family is Amen

Beth Walker 09:21

to that and and so it’s really forced. You know, in a lot of ways, this is a gift, if we if we can do a paradigm shift. Okay? And here’s the gift we have handed over the quote responsibility for figuring out how to pay for college to the government by waiting until they tell us what we’re going to get out of the need based system that is backwards. We should go into this process saying this is how much. College I can afford, and I understand the role that the FAFSA and the CSS Profile are going to play in it, and this is my educated thought about what I’m going to get out of it, so that that is at the tail end. We’ve just been conditioned in our culture up to this point in time, to think that we needed to wait on a government calculation to begin figuring that out. And I would suggest, and what I tell my families is, no, no, no, no, we’re going to reverse engineer this, and we’re going to enter into this whole experience with an expectation of what we’re going to get out of the FAFSA, what we’re going to get out of the financial aid system, and we’re not going to be far off. So that’s really the value of approaching it in a really proactive way, like, okay, financial aid may play a role in terms of low cost student loans. We might get a work study out of it. We might get X, okay, and if we don’t get those things, here’s Plan B. So we

Lisa Marker Robbins 11:11

should point something out about that, because we were talking about student loans. But you just also mentioned, when you complete this, this is also what could make your student eligible for a work study on campus. Job, correct,

Beth Walker 11:27

correct. And all the more reason for you to just say, Hey, if you’re giving away money or you’re providing financing, that, from a interest rate perspective is more attractive than what I can get in the private marketplace. Of course, I want to raise my hand and at least evaluate it, because I can always say, No,

Lisa Marker Robbins 11:50

great point. Why not saying yes to taking a student loan just because you fill it out? That’s

Beth Walker 11:55

right. But why wouldn’t I want to take the time to learn about all the options available and then make an educated decision about how I’m going to put all those pieces of the puzzle together.

Lisa Marker Robbins 12:07

I mean, that’s how I buy a car, right?

Beth Walker 12:10

And isn’t that how we buy a house? Which brings me back to, why wouldn’t we get pre qualified for the purchase? Why wouldn’t we crunch the numbers and figure out before we even entertain where we’re going to apply or where we’re going to say yes to here’s my affordability ceiling. This is how much money I as a household can afford to pay for this purchase. And then I’m going to find schools that fit the bill. I’m going to come up with a funding strategy that works, and I’m going to understand before we hit submit on the application, what role financial aid is going to play. Okay, college application, on the college application, that’s exactly right. And and that’s the part that as frustrating as it has been, it was a train wreck last year. It’s really frustrating for a lot of families, because they’re still using the mindset that, oh, I’ve got to get this done before I can decide how I’m going to pay for it. And I think that is just a flawed approach, and we can take back the purchasing power by reverse engineering it. Okay?

Lisa Marker Robbins 13:17

So that reverse engineering. There’s time for somebody who has a freshman, sophomore, junior or younger kid to do the reverse engineer before their student is applying to college next October. As we publish this episode in October, we should say we’re recording this on September 27 it’s coming out exactly October. Who knows if things are going to change in the next three weeks? Because, literally, it could. I’ll be like, Hey, Beth, we gotta rerecord that record. Yeah. Okay. So if a family has a senior right now and so, what should they plan for? So first of all, and I’ll say, I live here in Cincinnati, Ohio, as you obviously know. But you know, University of Michigan, right up the road, we won’t even get into the Ohio State versus Michigan thing, but they use the CSS Profile Exactly. And so that’s an example of a public that does use it. Yes. Now if a family has to fill out the CSS. Is it available in October, like it always has been.

Beth Walker 14:25

They have not changed the formula there. They will release in October. So so the added complexity that the the parents of seniors have this year is we’ve got October opening the CSS Profile most early application, early action, kind of admissions activity opens on November 1. Then you have the theoretical opening of the FAFSA on December 1. So it used to be you handled all the financial. Made forms in October, early to late October, then you did, you know, the admissions applications, and you were done. So we’ve just got this extended weight on the FAFSA. Now, I will say, for those families that tackle the CSS Profile, it’s a more invasive formula. There’s even more information than you need for the FAFSA. So if you do a good job preparing to file the CSS Profile in October, you’ll be really well prepared to handle it in December for the FAFSA. So you would

Lisa Marker Robbins 15:32

you will have gathered all your things. Don’t put them away. Keep them out on

15:36

a file. Might have to update them,

Lisa Marker Robbins 15:39

yep. And then if they hit their target date of December 1, do you encourage families to immediately then on December 1 to and by the way, this is for both those with students already in college, because you have to file this every single year. And if you have a senior, would you encourage them to go ahead on December 1. And you know, it’s post Thanksgiving. Okay, let’s go or like, what’s their window? It’s holidays are a busy time.

Beth Walker 16:08

It is a busy time. What I will tell you, and I say this every year with FAFSA CSS, even though it opens october 1 or it opens December 1, this is not an example of where the early bird gets the worm. This is the early bird gets the headache. This is a brand new release. They work out the bugs the first seven to 10 days. So if you’re in the middle of December, if you’re late December, not a problem. If you’re in the middle of October, on the CSS Profile, late October, not a problem. Okay? So I, I would, I would let somebody else take that head first, and I would wait and let them get everything kind of squared away, because

Lisa Marker Robbins 16:52

they’ll get out those technical bugs that are throwing errors and stuff that can be so frustrating. So middle to end of the month doesn’t matter if it’s October or December, CSS or FAFSA, correct, either one. Okay, that’s right. Is there a you got to get it done by x date? Like, would you recommend December 31 as a I like, I need to get this done in December.

Beth Walker 17:20

I’ll say this. I think if you complete the forms within 30 to 45 days of it opening up, you’re you’re still at the head of the line.

Lisa Marker Robbins 17:32

Okay, so we’ll say within 10 to 45 days,

Beth Walker 17:37

there you go. 10 to 45 days of the day that it opens up, that would be ideal. So if

Lisa Marker Robbins 17:42

it does open on December 1, somewhere between December 15 then January 15, absolutely okay. Great. Now for the families who have kids in college, or families with younger kids who heard about all the headaches, there was enough of a change in the financial aid formula that if you had already received financial aid previously, you are getting a shorter stick here. For many families, most families last year can what can families expect? And in the realm of like, did they correct any of the things that that made the financial aid awards be smaller last year? Is it the same formula? I know that there was a bug in there that they decided not to fix that was moving against the families. Is that fixed? We probably don’t need to get into the weeds of what the bug was, but there was one

Beth Walker 18:43

so much to unpack here. So let me start with if you have kids that are currently in college, okay, because your deadlines are different. The deadlines we just talked about, October for CSS profile, theoretically December for FAFSA, those are for high school seniors. Historically speaking, if you have a returning college student, you’re always going to be at least a month, sometimes two months later, because you have to file these forms every year as a returning student. So number one, your deadlines are different. Number two, they did change the formulas. The probably the most painful has to do with the sibling discount and the sibling discount in the previous FAFSA formula, if you had more than one student in college at the same time, whatever the calculated value, which used to be called the expected family contribution, EFC, and is now called the sai Student Aid index, was cut in half and shared by the students that went away in the new release, and that will not change moving forward. So it’s a steep penalty because. Now it’s going to cost more if you have two kids in college. Now the CSS Profile is maintaining the sibling discount. So I think ironically, if you’re already in college, you’re kind of there, and you’re going to have to come up with a way that you’re going to deal with it, and that’s a conversation probably with a financial advisor who’s really good on cash flow. And how are we going to deal with this? If you are the parents of younger kids, what’s going to happen is you’re going to probably have more schools that use the CSS Profile on your list than you originally thought, because while they may a private school or one of these expensive flagships, like University of Michigan, they may, out of the box, have a higher retail price, depending on how it all shakes out, they may offer you more discounts, especially if you’ve got two kids in school.

Lisa Marker Robbins 20:56

Okay, so in the vein of my reverse engineering, thinking ahead. You’re what I’m hearing is like, if somebody has a sophomore in high school, they have plenty of time to really take a very different approach so that they have a better college list, but on the financial outcome side, where I’m always encouraging starting early, so you have a better college list that’s aligned with the students, extracurriculars and what they’ve learned about themselves, what they’ve learned about careers, they’ve built the self awareness so they know where they should go. Is that right?

Beth Walker 21:32

That is absolutely right. And that’s why, you know the magic method wrote about that in the book. That is why you have to find people that can guide you and help you in these areas, because this is 100 plus hour project plan. And if you’re thinking, oh, I’ll just leave that up to my 16 or 17 year old and their school counselor, I don’t think you’re going to be thrilled with the outcome.

Lisa Marker Robbins 22:00

And we need the people your book. Got it right over there. I’m looking at it right now. Buying college better is Beth’s book, and she does have this, this method that she teaches you how to do in the book. It’s the magic method. So, yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s the same thing when people say, Oh, kids will figure out what their major should be when they get there, and what their career being. That’s a very expensive experiment.

Beth Walker 22:26

It sure is, and I will tell you, in today’s world, at the cost that we’re talking about nine times out of 10, it’s the most expensive approach. There are so many ways for us to be better consumers of higher education, but it starts early.

Lisa Marker Robbins 22:42

Well, I think too. I was just reading an article today about a lot of high schools are dropping the word college from the counseling. So college counseling, and they cited that there are fewer. It’s interesting, fewer students have this was a different article I read earlier this week, but how fewer students are confident that college is the right path, but their parents are still confident that college is the right path, which I found really interesting. And then students cited two reasons that they weren’t going to college at least that first year out of high school. Number one was the fact that they just wanted a break, and number two was that they haven’t identified their career path. Those were the top two reasons. I’m like,

Beth Walker 23:33

Okay, you’re like, hey, we have the science right, and

Lisa Marker Robbins 23:37

the science works regardless whether it’s, you know, college or directly to career. But you know, there is a significant investment here. Okay, so go ahead, the

Beth Walker 23:49

three things that I think have created a little bit of doubt in the value equation of college. You have, you had covid, and the way that that all played out gave parents and students pause for like, Well, wait, if I can get all this online, why am I paying for room and board and all the things? Okay? Number two, you had this unbelievable debate, and now lawsuits and Supreme Court about student debt, which got ridiculously out of control, and is another train wreck that the Department of Education is dealing with. And then you’ve got the FAFSA debacle, okay? And so I think even if you’re not that tuned in, because you’re busy living your life, working, having fun with your family, doing the things that you’re doing. You’re hearing all these things and you’re wondering, what is going on? Yeah. I mean, we can show you the economic data of college graduates making more money and all those kinds of things, but I’m really encouraged by the fact that it’s opening people up to, well, maybe. Be I only need an associate’s degree for that work path which they’re going to learn through you, or I would do better in the trades. And we have such a shortage. So I am constantly telling families, look, you need to invest and figure out the why before you step foot on campus with your kiddo, they need to know why they’re going to school and what they’re going to study, that’ll save you a small

Lisa Marker Robbins 25:22

right? There’s that. There’s that disconnect between the parents value perception and in the kids value perception, you know? And there’s so many jobs that there’s multiple pathways. I mean, okay, if you want to be a teacher, you got to go get a college degree or engineer, but even if you want to work in it, right? Or nursing. I mean, there’s so many. I was talking to a mom recently, and they really are thinking about investing in, maybe, like purchasing a franchise, because their kiddo looks very independent and entrepreneur, entrepreneurial. And instead of investing in in college, giving that same investment on the other side, on the career path. Okay, I love

Beth Walker 26:04

that. Yeah, I love how you invest it, right? You’re

Lisa Marker Robbins 26:08

it because you want to invest in your kids. Anyway, okay, I digress. I could get on that soapbox forever, as we all know. Okay, so you have hope that this could be the last year of debacle, but it’s still

Beth Walker 26:23

a natural optimist. Yeah,

Lisa Marker Robbins 26:25

I love that. The you know, I often feel like my my attitude, and I use this in my coaching, is things are happening for me, not to me, like today, I had two podcast guests. One has a terrible migraine from the hurricane that we’re dealing with today, and the other one has covid. And I had two cancelations today. You were, you were my third guest, and I, and I was like, oh, you know, for immediately felt my body like, Oh my gosh. This puts us behind, but they’re both going to rerecord next week. It’s not a huge deal. But you know, then I was like, Nope, this is happening for me. I’m supposed to be doing something else, which my son is getting married tomorrow, and I’ve actually figured out today that I had a lot more still to do around that.

Beth Walker 27:15

Oh, so now you’re welcome.

Lisa Marker Robbins 27:16

Okay, so it all worked like so what I’m hearing is you’re eternally optimistic that this could be back to an October 1. So if you have a student who will be in college starting in 26 then your financial aid forms, maybe all go back to October 1. They can take this timeline that you just taught of those who have seniors, you’re going to do it not in the first 10 days, but within at least 45 days of when your financial aid forms come available. Don’t be the early bird.

27:54

You bet you,

Lisa Marker Robbins 27:56

if you have a student who is in college, and every year we have to do these forms. You’re doing the forms you’re going to be one to two months after that timeline works that you’re teaching us whether it is, I mean, last year it ended up becoming January,

Beth Walker 28:14

we should and then it was April, and then it was Yeah.

Lisa Marker Robbins 28:18

So we should say to our listeners, they you know, last year when we talk about debacle, it was supposed to be October 1, then it was supposed to be December 1, then it came online for a couple days at the end of December, then it went back offline. So that’s why we’re like, this could change, but we can always take what you just taught us smartly. Don’t be the early bird. Get it in within 45 days. Don’t let whatever the outcome of that student aid index is going to be determine your college list and what you can pay for college Amen sister, applicable to any timeline.

Beth Walker 28:55

Absolutely, absolutely. Let’s take this role that’s going

Lisa Marker Robbins 28:58

to be a classic, because now we just know how to re how to engineer the dates. That’s right,

Beth Walker 29:05

exactly, exactly. Yeah, don’t sweat it. Don’t sweat it. Is it worth it? Yes, it’s worth it, but don’t let it get you. I mean, I was reading headlines like, well, I don’t even know if I can go to college. Well, if you’re waiting for a government form to answer that question, that isn’t a plan. Now you can know that well in advance of completing those forms, and you should. And so that’s, I just think the paradigm shift has to be you are making a six figure and possibly a six figure investment decision. Yeah, and whether you’re buying a car, you’re buying a house, what we’ve done historically as consumers in America is outsourced that calculation of how much can I spend to the lender. Oh, the car dealership did the math, or the mortgage company did the math and they told. Told me I could only spend up to this much, and so now that dictates the model car I buy or the zip code that I shop in. Let’s just do that for college. That’s all. Let’s just approach it the same way. The challenge that we’ve faced is, well, wait a minute, who do I go to? Because the college isn’t going to do it. The Net Price Calculator isn’t going to do it. The FAFSA system isn’t going to do it. So I have it for free on my website. You can plug all this stuff in and get a spending ceiling, and that’s where you should start.

Lisa Marker Robbins 30:31

Okay? And what is the URL for where we’re going to send people? And we will put it in the show notes, and

Beth Walker 30:37

I’ll apologize for how long it is. Center for college solutions plural. So center spelled like normal, C, E N, T, E R, for is the word F, O R, college solutions plural.com.

Lisa Marker Robbins 30:53

Perfect. And I mean, I love your passion around this. I glaze over with all things financial. So I’m glad there’s people like you in the world doing my personal and my company finances are about all I can handle. And you share this also in your book, which will also link to buying college better, where you just give that guidance chapter by chapter on your magic method that’s fantastic.

Beth Walker 31:22

Appreciate that. Thank you. I just, I love your passion for what you do in this space, and I think we’re both on a mission to help families. Because, yeah, you know, they’re bringing a knife to a gunfight. We got to fix that.

Lisa Marker Robbins 31:35

Amen. So Well, Beth, I know that we’ll have you back. And you know, who knows if this year we’re gonna have to have another episode to update, or if we just need to get stuff out in our newsletters and social things like that, but we will support families all we can and giving them the wisdom and the path to move forward and do it right. Thanks, Beth,

Beth Walker 32:00

thank you.

Lisa Marker Robbins 32:07

Thank you to Beth Walker for sharing her invaluable insights on navigating the financial aid delays and making smarter financial decisions for your teen’s college journey. As we wrap up, I encourage you to take a practical step forward. Begin reverse engineering your college affordability by determining your family’s budget and exploring colleges that align with both your teen’s aspirations and your financial realities. Don’t let the financial aid delays or changes catch you off guard. Start planning now to ensure you’re making informed choices without missing critical deadlines. If today’s episode was helpful, please share it with a friend who might benefit from it, and don’t forget to rate and review the podcast to help us reach more families with valuable insights and support. Thank you for listening to the College and Career Clarity podcast, where we help your family move from overwhelmed and confused to motivated clear and confident about your teen’s future. I’m Lisa Marco Robbins, and until next time, keep striving for clarity and confidence in your teen’s college journey. You.