FAFSA Expert Shares Money Saving Tips (Student Loans, Grants, And Scholarships)

What's happening, guys? It's Shane here. Welcome back to the channel. And today I brought on a

very special guest. We are going to be talking about financial aid and getting your education

paid for. So I brought on the world's foremost expert in financial aid, the FAFSA guru

Tina Seel. So thank you so much for coming on the channel, Tina. Thanks so much for having me, Shane. I'm super excited to talk with all of you today

Yeah, Tina has a really massive following on Facebook and she's starting to get a pretty

big following here on YouTube as well. So definitely check out her YouTube channel

I'll link that in the description below. But yeah, Tina, I wanted to get you on the channel

so we could pick your brain about financial aid stuff because as my followers know, I'm all about

getting the most out of college with the least amount of time, effort and money

So, you know, that's kind of what this channel started off with is kind of, you know, teaching

people how to get the most out of college with the least amount of time, effort and money

And you are probably the world's foremost expert on the money part of that. So one thing I wanted

to start off right off the bat is some people might be thinking, oh, FAFSA, you know, I don't

need to apply for that. I'm not going to take out any loans for college. That is one of the

most common misconceptions about FAFSA. You want to apply for FAFSA if you're going to college in

the United States, no matter what. It doesn't matter if you're not taking any loans out

doesn't matter if you're low income or you're the highest income. You want to apply for FAFSA

no matter what, because it's automatically going to apply for a bunch of scholarships

and grants for you. And you're very likely going to land some of those just right off the bat

at the schools that you apply to. So that's one thing I wanted to mention right off the bat. And

did you want to add anything to that, by the way, Tina? Yeah, I just think it's so important. I mean

for a couple of reasons other than institutional scholarships that are out there, you know

I recommend that every single student appeal their financial aid offer. 80% of students who

file a financial aid appeal will receive additional aid in the form of free money

But in order to do that, you have to get a financial aid offer, which means you have to

fill out a FAFSA form. And then something might happen during the year where a student decides

they need to borrow a loan that they didn't plan on borrowing. So if that FAFSA is not on file

they can't do that. So that I would just like to kind of add that. Got it. That is a great point

And that is something I think I'll probably ask you about a little bit later on in more detail

But right off the bat, like what are the different types of financial aid? So there's a lot of

different types of financial aid out there. The first and the most common is federal and state

financial aid that students are applying for when they fill out a FAFSA form. It comes in the form

of grants, which are free based on income, federal work study, which allows students to get a job

working on campus and earn a paycheck for the work that they do, and federal student loans

low interest loans that don't have to be paid back until after graduation. And that students

apply for by filling out the FAFSA form. There's also institutional scholarships, which are free

and it really depends on the college in terms of how much institutional scholarship money they have

to offer. Sometimes colleges will require what's called the CSS profile, which is a supplemental

financial aid form that they use in order to determine how much of that scholarship money to

award. And then another type of financial aid, which often gets overlooked, and I see a lot of

students leaving the money on the table for are outside scholarships. There are literally thousands

and thousands of scholarships out there that students can be applying for, which are separate

than the FAFSA, but they don't take the time and effort to do that. So those are the three different

types. There's also private education loans, which I typically try to tell students to stay away from

unless it's absolutely necessary. So I'm not a big promoter of those

How does somebody go about applying for financial aid, somebody who's like 1718

or maybe they're watching this, they're the parents of somebody who has decided that they're

going to go to college? How do they even go about applying for student aid

So the first thing that they need to do is fill out what's called the Free Application for Federal

Student Aid, the FAFSA form, which they can find at fafsa.gov. Every student that wants to access

money to help them pay for college needs to fill this out every single year. And if the student's

under 24 years old, so you know, I have a lot of students in high school, high school seniors that

I'm working with, they're going to be dependent on their parents information. So the student and

parent will need to fill out the FAFSA form. Once they hit 24, they're considered independent

and they can actually fill out the FAFSA on their own with just their own information and their

spouses if they're married. One little caveat to that if a student is under 24 years old

and they have a child that they're supporting, or they're married, or they're a veteran of the

armed forces, or they were homeless within the last year, or they were in foster care

or emancipated, then they do not need parent information on the FAFSA form

Got it. And is financial aid available for any career out there that anybody would want to get

into? So not every career financial aid is offered at institutions that are eligible for Title IV

funds. But there are a lot of like two year colleges out there that offer shorter term

training programs like certificates and two year degrees, where students can actually access

financial aid. And then in addition to the four year, the two and four year colleges, there's

something known as proprietary schools, which tend to be shorter term training programs where

students are earning like a certificate program. You know, things that come to mind are like medical

coding and billing, things like that, even truck driving school, different computer certifications

you know, cosmetology school where students can actually access financial aid to pay for the

program. So provided the school is eligible for Title IV funds, then you can apply for financial

aid. Got it. And what can students do if they apply for financial aid, and maybe they don't

get enough scholarships, grants, and money? Is there, do they have any options at that point

So there's two things, which I briefly mentioned a couple of moments ago. The first is they should

be applying for outside scholarships every single year consistently throughout the year. There are

scholarships out there that are available for students ages 13 and older. So high school

freshmen, sophomores, and juniors can be doing this all through high school and then senior year

That's the most important year. You want to, I recommend students apply for three to five

scholarships each and every month if they're serious about, you know, really closing that

financial aid gap. And then once they go off to college, they can continue actually applying for

scholarships each year they're in school. So searching and applying for outside scholarships

would be the first thing that they can do. The second I mentioned a few minutes ago is appealing

their financial aid offers. As I said, 80% of students who file a financial aid appeal will

receive additional aid in the form of free money. And there's a myth out there that in order to do

this, students have to have special circumstances such as reduced income or something like that

And that's not the case. I would say probably 75% of the families I help with that process

don't have any special circumstances. They are just humbly asking the financial aid office for

additional money because the college is out of reach financially. There's a strategic way to

write a letter and some specific things that should be included in a financial aid appeal

So those are the two things that I would recommend. Got it. Yeah. And just a second

what you said there, I've worked with a bunch of different students who, you know, they go on these

websites like fast web, for instance, and they apply for a bunch of these scholarships

And like you said, I mean, it might be a thousand dollars here, $1,500 there

but especially if you start applying early, if you're early on in high school

there's a lot of scholarships that only freshmen in high school can apply for. And then a lot that

sophomores can apply for. And I've seen a ton of different examples of people who do these

you know, writing competitions, the scholarships that you apply for, et cetera. And they just get

all of their college paid for like right off the bat. And one of the cool things, I don't know if

this is technically what people are supposed to do, but sometimes they just straight up give you

a check. Right. So if you want to go buy a new Mac book, you want to buy a new nice computer

something like that. You can do that. I think that don't, maybe, you know what, maybe I shouldn't

say, I don't know if you're technically supposed to do that. No, you're right. You're right. Yep. Absolutely. You know, for education related expenses, which can be a lot of things. So

yeah. Some scholarship organizations will just send a check to the student. You're

yep. 100% correct about that. I may or may not have bought a Mac book in 2011 when I got a

scholarship possibly that lasted me almost 10 years. Yeah. Yeah. So that, that may or may not

have happened. But what about for part-time students? Can part-time students still apply

for financial aid? Yeah. So as long as you're pursuing six credits a semester, which is

typically two classes, you can apply for financial aid that will help you pay for college. So a lot

of non-traditional students will pursue, you know, school part-time maybe because they're

raising families or they have full-time jobs, but yes, absolutely. Got it. And then what would

you say, like, what are your favorite sources for applying for scholarships out there? Are there any

particular ones that are kind of like the low hanging fruit? You know, you notice people get

a lot of, a lot of value out of. Sure. Yeah. You know, the first thing I want to say with scholarship

searching, I think one of the biggest mistakes students make is they go for the ones that

they're trying to get the biggest bang for their buck. So they're applying for the 10,000, 20,000

$30,000 scholarships that are going to have a lot of competition. The best scholarship students can

be applying for tend to be around $3,000 or less because they're not as competitive. If students

are applying for five, you know, they've received five $2,000 scholarships, that's $10,000. So some

of the best resources that I see are scholarships.com. That's a great website that I really

like. There is a search directory feature at the top of the page that students can use to actually

search for scholarships by category. Another one that I like is called myscholly.com and it's

M-Y-S-C-H-O-L-L-Y.com. That one does cost $7.99 a month to be a part of, but I highly recommend it

I've seen a lot of students that are accessing some really great scholarship resources and having

a lot of luck receiving them from that website. Then for if there's any high school seniors

watching this, they want to check with their high school guidance office of their high school for

local scholarships. There's a ton of local resources that students miss out on because

they're not searching for them. And then lastly, your state's higher education agency. So every

state has a department of education along with a state higher education agency of the state that

you live in. So just google whatever state you live in. I'm in Maine, for example, Maine state

higher education agency. Once you get to that website, type in scholarships and it will pull up

a resource listing of scholarships for residents of that state. So those are probably the four best

resources for scholarship searching. Got it. And you know, one thing I think that scares a lot of

students off is the fact that, you know, a lot of these scholarships, you do have to write

short essays for, you know, usually they're like a page, maybe two pages typically. And what I tell

those people is typically it's going to be the same like five to ten prompts over and over again

And once you've written an essay, you can maybe make a few little changes to it and then just

submit it to the other scholarship or essay competition that you're applying for. So after

you've done the hard work of writing those first five to ten, you know, one to two page essays

it's pretty much smooth sailing from there. And yeah, I've seen people have tons of success with

those like five hundred to three thousand dollar scholarships. I mean, it's just it's really easy

to make money. I had one student add up the amount of time that he spent applying for the scholarships

and then dividing like dividing the amount of money he made by that time. And he was making

around the same amount as a doctor, essentially. You know, the other thing they can do is really

chunk down their time. You know, I recommend an hour and a half each week on searching for scholarships. How many hours do we all spend on our phones? You know, take 30 minutes, you know

three times a week and focus on applying for a scholarship. Absolutely. It's super easy to do

It's basically free money for people because there's just not that many people doing it

And the one website you mentioned with the paywall, I would say that's probably even a

better opportunity because a lot of people are like, oh, I'm not going to pay for it. Well

that's just a barrier to entry for you. Yeah. Yeah. You pay for it. It's going to make things

even quite a bit easier for you, probably. Right. So what about somebody who has divorced or

separated parents? I know that can be a little bit complicated. So what is your advice to people who

are in that situation? This is where I probably see some of the most mistakes being made on the

FAFSA. So if your parents are divorced or separated, only one parent needs to fill out the

FAFSA form. And this would be the parent with whom the child resided with most within the last year

If the child was 50-50 with both parents, then it would be the parent who provided more than half of

the child's support. So a lot of times students think or parents think because they filed a joint

tax return in the prior year, even though they're separated and not living in the same household

that they have to fill out the FAFSA together. But that's not the case. Basically, what I would

recommend is not using the IRS data retrieval tool because you don't want to pull in that joint tax

return. You want to enter them in the information manually and just pull out your income to enter

on the FAFSA form. And then the other thing I'd like to add, if that parent is remarried

then they do have to put their current spouse's information on the FAFSA form, which stinks, I know

when it's a step-parent, but it's just kind of the way that it goes. But yeah, only one parent needs

to fill out the FAFSA form. It's not the case for any student that might be applying to colleges

that require the CSS profile. Most colleges will require a custodial and a non-custodial profile

form from both parents, even if they're divorced or separated. So something to kind of keep in mind

Got it. And then what about if a student is maybe not financially connected to their parents

like they're emancipated or they're just not financially connected? I guess that would be

like independent. That's what they'd put on their FAFSA form. So what about those people

Well, that can be a little bit tricky. If there's a situation where they are like legally emancipated

then they can automatically be considered independent on the FAFSA and not provide

parent information. Otherwise, if it's like in a strange situation or they're just not living

at home and they're fully self-supporting, the only way around not reporting parents' information

would be to contact the financial aid office directly and talk to them about their options

Sometimes financial aid offices can do what's called professional judgment and push those

students through as independent. But usually in order for that to happen, there has to be like

an extreme situation going on in the home, such as documented abuse or estrangement for

different reasons and things like that. It's not like a shoo-in. It can be a little bit more

challenging to kind of be considered independent when you're dependent. Got it. And then I found you because I recommend the Career Explorer test to so many people. And

then at the end of the test, you were actually on that page. And then I was looking through

your content and you had a lot of awesome stories and stuff on your page of people that you've helped

get college paid for. So that's really awesome that you're doing that, helping them navigate

just this crazy financial aid system that we have in the U.S. with college. It definitely takes a

lot of expertise because I know that stuff changes all the time, too. I have trouble staying on top

of it. So if people want to find you, I know you also offer a free training as well. If people want

to find you, I'm guessing I'll probably have a link, which I'll put down in the description as

well as the pinned comment below. And we don't have the link set up right now, but we'll set

up a link to where it goes to the free training. Is there any other places that they could find you

Yes. So they can go to my website, thefafsaguru.com. All of my information about the programs and

services that I provide are there. I also offer a free initial 10 minute consult call for anybody

that I've never worked with before. And then YouTube is a great place to have a lot of videos

there with free information. People can find me there. Got it. Awesome. Well, thank you so much

for coming on again, Tina. I'm sure a lot of people will probably have questions and they

can put them down in the comments below. I know if you have time, maybe if you read the comments

you could go down there and answer them. If not, I'll try to get to them as well. But yeah

if you have any questions, definitely leave them down below and we'll try to get to them

And yeah, thanks so much for coming on. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me, Shane. I appreciate it