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Hello everyone. Today I'd like to
introduce Rashinda Hutchinson from
the UCSD Financial Aid and
Scholarships Office. Hi, Rashinda?
Hi there. Thank you so much for having me.
Thank you for being with us here today.
I have a couple of questions in
regards to student financial aid.
The first question is,
what is the cost of attending college?
What a great question.
When it comes to the cost of attending college,
there's a lot of things for us to consider.
The most important thing is
what school do you want to go to?
When we come to that,
we start to think about
the different types of colleges that are out there.
If you are choosing to attend
a community college like
Mesa College or Grossmont college,
you would be paying tuition
of $1,104 for the school year.
If you were going to attend
a Cal State University like Cal State LA or San Marcos,
you would be paying $5,742 for tuition.
If you chose to go to a UC, like UCLA,
UC San Diego, you would be paying tuition $12,570.
If you chose to go to a private college
somewhere like Yale or Harvard,
your tuition can range from 40,000 plus each school year.
In addition to tuition and fees,
there's other things that we also like to
consider when we thinking about college.
Things like books and supplies, room and board.
Those are also additional cost
that you would want to think about.
When you go to school,
you're going to have to think about how am I
going to get back and forth to school.
So there's transportation expenses involved.
Personal expenses, things like shampoo and
conditioner and deodorant that
you're going to need while you're in school.
Those are also costs that she would also
need to consider when you're
thinking about going to school.
The good thing is that financial aid is available,
and financial aid helps to cover all of these costs.
Right, so it really depends on
which college system the student chooses to attend.
What types of federal aid is available to students?
Federal aid. Federal aid is things that
comes from doing the FAFSA application.
There are things like Federal Pell Grant money,
which is free money that you don't have to pay back.
That's free money that can be applied
directly towards your tuition.
There are things like federal work-study.
Work-study is that opportunity where you can work on or
off-campus and earn money while you're in school.
That's something that comes from the federal aid as well.
They also offer student and parent
loans where you can borrow money now
to help you pay for your tuition and fees and
then pay it back later on when you're done with school.
Those are the different types of
federal aid that you can receive.
Okay, and how do students apply to
FAFSA or the California Dream Act?
A great question.
Yes. A student basically
is going to need to do an application.
One or the other.
Complete either a FAFSA application
or a Dream Act application is what the student will do.
October of your senior year in
high school is when you want to get started on that,
and each school year you're going to need to
complete an application for financial aid.
The applications are due by March 2nd.
March 2nd is our priority deadline date,
so you always want to get your application
completed before March 2nd.
The other thing to consider is
which application do you complete?
If you are a US citizen or a permanent resident,
you're going to do the FAFSA application
at studentaid.gov.
If you are an AB 540 student,
then you are going to complete
the dream Act application at dream.csac.ca.gov.
Okay. Thank you for that, and
that due date is very important.
The March 2nd due date.
What information do students need to have
ready to fill out the FAFSA or California Dream Act?
Students that are going to be completing
a FAFSA application will need what we call an FSA ID.
That's your Federal Student Aid ID,
and you go online to set this up.
This is the way that you and your parents will
sign your application electronically.
You will need your student social security number,
you will need your parents social security numbers.
The parents date of birth is going to be needed.
Your parents educational level,
how high did they go into school?
Did they get a college degree?
Did they only complete elementary?
Those things are important to know.
Parents marital status.
Are your parents married? Are they divorced?
Are they separated?
We need to know the month and year that that happened.
Then it's always a good idea to have
a list of the colleges that you want to attend
because you're going to want to add those schools to
your application so that they can
receive your financial aid results.
Then of course, we need to have
tax information from two years previous.
So two years ago,
tax information is what's going to be
needed for both the student and the parent.
You're going to need this for
both the FAFSA and the dream Act application.
What if my parents don't want to provide me
their financial information or
what if they have questions?
Yeah. So if your parents do not want to provide
their financial aid information or
their financial information to you,
that will limit you greatly.
Your financial aid will be limited.
You will not be able to receive the grant money,
that free money that we're talking about.
You will be able to get a student loan,
but it will be very minimal.
Parents involvement is huge.
It is a big part of this process.
It is very important that you get your parents involved.
If your parents have questions about the process,
they can definitely contact
the financial aid office at
the college that you wish to attend.
There are financial aid counselors
available and they're ready to answer your questions.
They can help out with the application
and tell you how to fill it out.
Parents are a big piece of this.
Definitely going to need their involvement.
So yeah, let them know now,
I'm going to be going to school.
I'm going to need your help for the next few years.
I'm going to need your help filling out
this financial aid application so that
I can get the best financial aid possible.
Right, so it's very important that students work
closely with the financial aid office
at the college they're going to attend.
What are scholarships?
Scholarships.
Scholarships is free money.
This is that time where you can get some free money.
It'll be applied directly towards your tuition and
fees and you never have to worry about paying it back.
Scholarships come from different donors.
So they may have
a reason that they're giving a scholarship.
It may be that they're looking for
a left-handed student and
you just happened to be left-handed,
you're going to apply for that scholarship
because then that's free money for you.
There's scholarships for pretty much everything.
Anything and everything that's out there.
You just have to apply for it to get that free money.
How do I find and apply for scholarships?
It is a search.
You must go online and you must get started searching.
Fastweb.com, collegeanswer.com.
These are what we call search engines.
You basically put in all of
your information and then they
start to e-mail you and let you know,
hey, you're eligible for
this scholarship or you're eligible for this one.
Those will be the scholarships that you can just
continuously be applying for.
For those students that are living
in the San Diego area,
San Diego Foundation has a lot of scholarships as well.
Sdfoundation.org is another one
you would want to go to and start applying for those.
The thing to keep in mind is
that when you are applying for a scholarship,
scholarships, they're meant to give you free money.
You should not be providing any type of
payment information to apply for a scholarship.
If they're asking for a credit
card or something like that,
then it's not right.
There are a lot of scams out there,
so you need to be very,
very aware of that.
But remember, when it's a scholarship,
they're asking, what's your story?
What have you been through?
And you're just providing your answer.
You're writing an essay to tell them what's going on,
but this is your way to get free money.
I tell my students all the time,
if it took you an hour to write
that essay and you got a $5,000 scholarship,
was it worth that hour of your time?
That's how you have to think
about it when it comes to scholarships,
it's definitely worth it.
Go online and start searching.
Another thing you can do is search at
the college that you want to attend.
Different colleges have
their own scholarships that are available so
you can start searching and applying for those there.
Awesome, so those are some really good resources.
But of course there's many more.
Just like you mentioned,
students should never pay for a scholarship application.
It's very important. What additional support resources
are available to low-income first-generation students?
As I mentioned, every school has
their own set of resources available to students.
Here at UC San Diego.
We have tons of resources.
We have a Basic Needs office where they offer
additional food to students that are without food.
There's a food pantry that they can go to.
We have a Cal Fresh program
where students can apply and receive
the EBT card and they're able to get
food while they're living or going to school.
We also have other things such as loan programs.
We have scholarships that are always
offered throughout the school year as well.
There's all kinds of different resources available.
Like I mentioned, if you know
you're going to be going to
a certain college and you're really trying
to go there, start looking now.
You can start researching
what things they have available for you.
But yeah, there's a lot of resources available out there.
Right, so the student should
check with the college that they're attending to.
There's always a lot of resources there.
Well, thank you,
Rashinda for being with us here today.
This information is very valuable
for all the future college students out there.
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