How To Write Your Financial Aid Appeal Letter - YouTube

are you disappointed with your students  financial aid package from the university  

is there no way that you can pay what they're  expecting you to pay if that's the case then you  

might be eligible for a financial aid appeal so  in this video i'm going to give you five steps to  

appealing financial aid packages this is going to  include details on what steps to take as well as  

what to write in that important financial aid  letter now this can be done every single year  

while your student is in college so this is not  just for senior year high school but it can be all  

four years while they are attending here are just  a couple examples of families that have used our  

financial aid appeal process in debt for degree  lab our monthly membership for paying for college  

and one family they received an extra fifteen  hundred dollars even after they didn't even think  

that they'd get any more all by submitting this  appeal letter that i'm going to explain to you  

and then another family this is crazy  after submitting the appeal letter  

they actually had their efc which i'll  explain in a bit edited from over 50 000  

per year to only 13 000 per year and therefore  the university actually gave them an extra 27  

dollars in grant money twenty seven thousand  dollars all by following our steps on how to  

appeal financial aid so if you're interested in  learning about debt free degree lab the program  

that they use to follow this you can find the link  in the description after this video but for now  

let's talk about the five steps to appealing  financial aid so that your family can get more  

money from the school hello my name is jocelyn  pearson founder of the scholarship system  

where we redefine paying for college that  your family can have a strong financial future  

rather than one where your student is buried in  tons of student loan debt now don't forget to hit  

subscribe because every single week i'm going to  give you a new strategy in a short video on how to  

secure a debt-free degree let's go ahead and get  started so what is a financial aid appeal well let  

me rewind a little bit and tell you about fafsa  when you submit fafsa which is a federal form for  

federal student aid you receive a number called  efc expected family contribution or this is going  

to be changed to student aid index sai either way  basically it's a number saying what your family is  

expected to contribute to your students education  for this year now the thing is this is based on  

prior prior tax information so two years ago so  perhaps most families actually have different  

financial situations these days compared to back  then so what we need to do is show that to the  

university and explain hey our situation has  changed from these numbers that you're looking  

at there's no way we can pay this and so that is  why we would want to submit a financial aid appeal  

letter in order to request more money now the  thing is you can't just say hey we just want  

more money can you just give us more money you can  try that i always say try why not but typically an  

appeal is based on certain specific circumstances  i'll explain those circumstances in just a moment  

in a list now every school can handle this  differently some might have an official process  

some might have just a person that you need  to send an email to either way i'm going to  

give you what you need to send now comment  below did you know that you can request more  

money from the school or did you think that the  first offer is just simply what you have to pay  

let me know in the comments and it's okay to say  that you didn't know because i will tell you that  

most families don't so what are the circumstances  basically any kind of extreme financial hardship  

is a reason for financial aid appeal this includes  loss of income or loss of disability or any kind  

of other sources of funding it could be death of  a breadwinner it could be change in marital status  

maybe one person left the relationship and so  the financial situation is greatly different  

maybe additional expenses beyond what is just seen  in the cost of attendance for that college's bill  

and it could also include major medical expenses  or maybe even just extreme situations based on  

covid so anything that has really hit your  family hard financially this could be reason  

for appealing now let's get into the five steps so  first and most important is collecting any proof  

they will ask you for proof if you are saying  that you have lost a job or lost income etc so  

i'm going to give you a list of what to collect  in just a little bit secondly you want to find out  

how the school handles the appeal process reach  out to the financial aid department maybe give  

them a call or you can have your student do this  and say okay is there any formal appeals process  

or do i need to just send an email and if so to  whom so that is the second step the third and  

most important step is writing the appeals letter  now i have a surprise for you and that is a free  

template for a financial appeals letter so you  can go to the link below in the description  

or you can go to the scholarship system.com  appeals template now when you're looking at this  

template you will see an official formal header  to the letter so this can include your student's  

information or your information the date and  then the financial aid department's information  

then when it comes to addressing the letter you  want to either address it to a person if you  

receive someone's name or you can just address  it to the financial aid department in general  

now there's three main sections of information  that i suggest families covering now the first  

part of the letter should be just a very brief  introduction something along the lines of hey  

we are newly admitted or it can say if your  student has already been there you can say that  

hey we've been there for x amount of years and  really enjoyed our time here so just something  

very short and sweet to open it up the second  section of this is going to be the most important  

and that is explaining those financial hardships  and your reason for appealing for more money now  

when we talked about the changes in circumstances  that's what you want to focus on here okay  

we need to give them very clear evidence as to why  we should receive more money be careful that this  

isn't just a big complaining paragraph i would  recommend balancing it with hey this is what we  

were hit with this is what we're doing to fix it  but we haven't been able to get the money side of  

it fixed or something like that so you can show  yes we're in a tough situation we're trying to  

get ourselves out of it we are but it still hasn't  come to fruition yet so try to have a balance of  

a a circumstance that has affected you with the  the steps that you're taking to fix it so we  

just want to make sure that we're not just kind  of complaining about our life but we're showing  

them hey we're truly impacted we are making  a difference with it but we still need help  

this paragraph is the most important but you  also don't want to make it too fluffy try to  

make it short concise and to the point now third  you want to write a conclusion so this can be  

why the education is important it can  be if we don't receive any more money  

our student is either going to have to leave the  university or they won't be able to enroll or it  

could be that they're going to have to borrow  this amount in student loan debt which we know  

is going to make it much harder to succeed beyond  college so just a quick consequential explanation  

for the students now if you have an offer from  another university where they offered more money  

that might be something that you want to consider  including in this letter as well so those are the  

three main parts of the letter then you want to  have your student sign it or you sign it with name  

email and phone number that way there's no way  they don't know any kind of contact information  

then the fourth step is to package this with  any kind of evidence so think about all those  

circumstances i mentioned earlier what kind  of proof can you submit this could be medical  

bills w-2s a letter from a previous employer  about loss of employment it could be proof of  

education expenses beyond what they know about so  any kind of official documentation that can show  

that your financial situation has indeed changed  now the fifth and final step is to submit this so  

they might ask for more information back and forth  but the best thing you can do is include as much  

as you can in the first and official submission  so you can either submit this through a formal  

process depending on the university or it might  just be an email if it is an email you can put  

your letter into a pdf format do not attach a word  document or a google document you don't want it to  

be editable put it in a pdf and then attach it and  just write a short intro in the email or if you  

want you can just put the letter right into the  email but then you don't need that header that we  

talked about so really this is up to you or maybe  the school tells you how to submit it i personally  

love the pdf way to go just because it keeps it  a lot cleaner now also with that pdf you want  

to make sure you include any kind of evidence so  all of it should be submitted at one time together  

now just some final tips be respectful there is  a true human on the other side of this that has  

kids that has jobs stress problems they are trying  to balance as much as they can with helping you  

financially and with answering to their own boss  so just keep that in mind you can definitely get  

further in this process by being sweet the second  is to have all evidence ready and together that  

will make your life a lot easier down the road  especially if they come back with questions you  

also want to make sure you can present it clearly  and orderly don't have just a ton of receipts in  

a jumbled pile and hope that they can figure  it out make it very nice and neat for them to  

clearly see what you're trying to show them next  you want to make sure that you're staying on top  

of this so this might take a few follow-ups you  might have to stay on top of them follow up but no  

matter what you want to make sure that you don't  just submit it and hope for the best and lastly  

submit it the sooner the better so anything with  financial aid the sooner the better always comes  

into play okay the last thing i want to mention  is that financial aid appeals as you saw earlier  

can truly bring in a lot more money from the  universities but you don't want to stop here  

linked below is a free training on my six steps to  securing scholarships this is where your students  

should be working on outside money to help  complement what they get from the university  

in fact i received six figures in scholarships  and we've since helped families secure almost  

6.8 million dollars in funding using the process  i teach in that free training you can find the  

link below or go to the scholarship system.com  free training now don't forget your free appeals  

letter either and also leave us a comment  below or thumbs up or hit subscribe that way  

we know we're doing a good job and you're finding  these helpful and we can keep creating them okay  

that's all for today again i'm jocelyn with the  scholarship system i'll see you in the next video

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