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Nervous about starting at Michigan State? Worried about your class schedule, living away from home, or where to even start? The Spartan Orientation Station (SOS) is a podcast hosted by New Student Orientation staff and was created by students for students. This podcast will launch twice a week throughout the summer, and each episode will feature a unique interview with campus departments discussing their services, common misconceptions, and fun Spartan engagement opportunities. When you need help at Michigan State, it is okay to signal SOS! Don’t worry – MSU is there for you.
Speaker 1
You're listening to the Spartan Orientation Station on Impact 89. The podcasts by students for students. Now, this week's episode.
Abigail
Hello, everyone. Welcome to NSO's Spartan orientation station. On today's episode we will be exploring everything you will need to know regarding financial aid. The Office of Financial Aid provides access, aid, and advisory services for the MSU community. They hope to model campus wide communication and collaboration while respecting the needs, values and diversity of MSU students, parents and colleagues. My name is Abigail Arsenault, I'm a rising senior year here with a major in social work with a minor in justice, law and policy, and additionally with a certificate in law and policy.
Emily
Hi, guys, my name is Emily Hill. I'm a student coordinator working with the new student orientation office. I am a rising sophomore who is studying environmental studies and sustainability. I'm really excited here today to be with David Norde, who is the Assistant Director of Student Services and Outreach at the Office of Financial Aid. Thank you for joining us. Can you explain and introduce yourself? And what your role is within the financial aid office?
David
Oh, yes. Like I said, David Norde assistant director, student services and outreach here. I am a successful alumnus of the University class of '09, go green. And I'm here to answer any questions regarding financial aid. So my main primary jobs, of course, is outreach, and also managing all of the financial advisors that we have on staff.
Emily
Amazing. Um, so can you cover a little bit of what the financial aid office offers for students and parents?
David
Absolutely. So in accordance with our mission statement, we provide advising services in many ways to help assist students with their financial aid, find a financial aid, assess opportunities within the industry community and outside the industry community as well. And we can do this through multiple ways, of course in person advising, phone and email.
Abigail
Awesome. And so how can like a student or a parent, contact the Financial Aid Office? Can you visit the office in person? And where is it located on campus?
David
So we're located in the Student Services Building, north end of campus, we're right across the street from the MSU Broad Museum on the second floor. So when you come in, if you're in person, we provide in-person advising in between the hours of 9am and 4:45. All you would need is, of course, a students ID. And if you're a parent visiting, you'll just need to have the student's ID along with of course, authorization from the student to access their account.
Emily
Of course, awesome. Um, so if students like want to know what their financial aid situation is looking like, where can they go to find that information, access that information, where's the like financial aid portal?
David
So the financial aid portal is within SIS. So they'll go to student.msu.edu. And then they'll see a financial aid tile. Once they click that tile, they'll have a link to go into the financial aid portal. And it'll be just their account. If parents have guest access, they'll be able to do the same thing as well. This is where they'll see their financial aid package, see any outstanding documents that we're asking for. And also any messages that's very important, any important messages that we want to send the student will be sent through that portal.
Emily
Amazing.
Abigail
And so I remember when I first got to Michigan State, with financial aid, I was a little bit like a deer in headlights. And so when I first learned about FAFSA, I was still very confused. So if you could kind of like explain what that is. Do you need to complete it every year? Some of the things that go into that.
David
Yeah, so thank you for saying it right because a lot of people say fassa.
Abigail
Yeah
David
So the FAFSA is the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. So for any domestic eligible earned, or citizen or non eligible eligible citizen, they can file this as a free application for federal aid. It's available at studentaid.gov. You can even go to fafsa.gov. That's FA FSA. Right? Once they have completed that, you know, we will get you know, it asked for a lot of information. Right? So they asked for financial information, demographic information, what school or schools you want to have this information. Then that is being processed from the federal government, when I say federal government I mean Department of Education, and then that is then sent to the school within five to seven business days. And at that point, then we go ahead and assess what financial aid that student is eligible for from a variety of different levels, like from federal, state and institutional aid, as well.
Emily
Awesome. If they have questions about their loans, should they come to you?
David
Yes, they should come to us. We do have a lot of information on our website. Right so nothing, you know, even if they cannot visit us a lot of the general information is available there, okay about the different types of loans they have, right? As far as accepting it and everything else that is all through the portal. Okay. And we have instructions of how to do that on our website as well. But you know, when it comes to loans, specifically, that's a voluntary process. You know, here at Michigan State, we do not accept any loans unless the student really wants them. Right? That, we will always show you everything that you're eligible for, though, that is our job. So we'll show everything that you're eligible for, even if you don't need it, or want it.
Emily
Got it. Um, so I remember being a, like, first year student last year, and I was really worried about my parents are unfamiliar with the financial aid process. And so I was really worried about like, when I was supposed to accept my aid, how that was going to be deposited in my account, how that was going to show up for me. So any advice for students on when they should? And when they'll see that financial aid hit their portal?
David
Yes. So once we have your FAFSA, that information is immediately sent to your portal. Okay. And this, that's a loaded question. So just bear with me. When do you need to take action? That depends, right? If there's any outstanding documents, the portal is color coded, you'll see stuff in green, if it's all ready to go. You will see stuff in red if we need some additional information, right, because there's a process called verification a third of the country is selected for means that we just doesn't mean anything wrong. So don't have a cow. Just make sure that you follow up with us, we give you all the information of what we need. And as far as timing is as soon as possible. Okay, it is soon as possible. If you have any gift aid or quote unquote, free money, like scholarships and grants, that's automatically going to pay your bill. Okay, if you have any outside scholarships from outside entity, like say, from your school or from your community, right, or from an organization, that money will post soon as we get the check. You can notify us anytime we will include it in the package. But until we get the actual physical check, it will not disperse onto onto your bill. Okay, when it comes to any other type of federal monies and stuff like that, you will see all that post when it comes to loans, it won't post until the loan is actually accepted, originated, and actually sent to student accounts to post on your bill. With that being said, the best time is really before the bill due date, not on the bill due date. It's really when you first get your bill, right. And bills are usually sent out maybe a month and a half or two months prior to the start of the semester. And know this, because a lot of students do depend on financial aid to get their books and stuff like that. That is a result of a refund, which is basically more aid than what your charges are. If that is you, then all you need to know is that that money will be dispersed to you 10 days before the start of classes. As long as we have all the documents that we need, the FAFSA, you are properly enrolled. Right. And there's no immediate changes.
Abigail
Got it. Okay. And so, if you could kind of explain the big differences between what a loan is, scholarship and grants and work study. Are those all just basically individual things?
David
Yeah, yeah, they're different types of aid, right. And the biggest argument we have, or debate, I should say, I won't say argue, but the biggest debate in our office is my child or I did not get anything. All I got was loans, well, loans are financial aid. Right, right. So grants and scholarships is what we call Gift Aid. That's money that does not have to pay back. They're either on award, given to you by something you've done, or determined by your FAFSA. Because there's several types, there are several types of scholarships that are academic based, which is based off of course, academic rigor. There are some that are competition based, especially for our art majors, our photographers, our fashion designers, etc. There are scholarships based off of need, which we need the FAFSA to assess. Okay. In addition to that, when it comes to loans, loans is money that student will pull out to pay on their account, but they have to pay that back eventually at some time. If it's from the federal government, they have certain rules of repayment periods. Now, because of the pandemic, all that was paused and everybody was happy, no interest securing everything, right. But when it comes to loans, you will have to pay that money back eventually, not all upfront, unless they say it. The federal government when I say that upfront, they usually give a six months period of after you graduate leave school or go beneath halftime. So for undergrad that's going underneath six credits, if you're coming in as a graduate student underneath five credits, you know that is when stuff starts to go into repayment. That's when the clock starts and then your payments are pretty much set out for 10 years with all interest in crude etc. and projected interest, and you have a monthly payment up to that point, once the government allows us, repayment to start back up, okay? So those are different parts. So you have Gift Aid, which you don't have to pay back, just enjoy, live long and prosper. You have the loans, which you do have to pay back so you definitely want to make sure all your plans postgraduation is set. And that's the stress factor, right. But there's also different ways you could pay that back. It's not just up, you know, there's Income Based Repayment, there's gradual repayments. There's different repayment plans, through the federal government right. Now, there's another type of loan we haven't talked about yet. And that's the non federal government loans. And that's alternative loans. That's a loan that's from an outside entity, such as a bank, financial institution, that's, you know, popular names like Sallie Mae, Discover, Chase, etc. Those are loans that you still have to pay back, but you may need a cosigner, okay, and that could be a parent, that could be a loved one or anybody that has substantial credit. And you can get as much as you need, as long as you don't go over your yearly budget for your educational expenses. Okay. And when I say educational expenses, I mean tuition fees, living, travel, you know, personal items, etc. Books, right? We're not talking about cars. We're not talking to trips to Cancun or Puerto Cana No, we're talking about educational expense, right, et cetera. So I hope that and work study work study is a little different. So work study, which is very popular back when it was first started, the purpose of that is for the student to actually get relative work experience, and to receive money to go towards education, right. And so a lot of students will look at their financial aid and see they don't see it. And they want to know why. So the way Michigan State does is we award for our students that have very high need levels, right. But it does not stop the student from getting a job. All it means work study is just a program where you get a job here on campus or off campus, if they qualify, your paycheck is being provided by the federal government and the school.
Emily
Okay, that's very helpful.
David
A lot of people think work study pays on directly on the bill, not at Michigan State. Right, that goes to you to go towards some of your personal educational expenses, such as, you know, the very key items, nobody wanna talk about, like, I don't know, deodorant, toothbrush, gas money, etc. You still have to work the job, you have to apply for a job, you have to good at the job, because you can still get fired. Right? You know, we tend to forget you get fired from a job, right? Even if it's a campus job. But it just means the source of that check comes from federal government.
Emily
Got it. That's really helpful to know the difference between all of those. Could you give us like a percentage of MSU students that receive financial aid?
David
It really depends. So as of '22, 60%, of all MSU student population was receiving some type of financial aid. Now there's some changes with the state. So if you're an in state student, of course, the government's the governor signed that Michigan achievement grant. If you're education they have the Michigan Education stipend, etc. So we will probably see more students receive some financial aid, right. And now because we're so smart now. We're so smart, we're learning how to find scholarships, we're learning how to find you know, early on before they even come to college, you know, but as of the data shows, right, I would probably say without fail, probably a good between 80 to 85% of all MSU Spartans receive some type of financial aid. Because even if you are, because even if you are a billionaire, and you file the FAFSA, you're guaranteed loan, you're entitled to loan, right? Rather you take it or not, that's on you. Right. And our office processes billions of dollars in financial aid a year. Okay, now, I'm talking about the whole university here. So that also includes our professional graduate students, our law students, our med students as well. Okay. So, yeah, it's a lot. It's a lot.
Abigail
Yeah, that's a higher percentage than I thought it would be realistically but
David
Yeah you know, the unofficial financial aid is of course, mom and dad. But it is the whole thing. And also consider this look at the campus look around, look at all the resources that you get to enjoy as a Spartan, the counseling, the, the, the advising. We have our own hospital here. Your dorms look better than my dorm and Hubbard Hall in the early 2000s. The furniture was better, the food was the food is better and all that good stuff. So, you know, we're here to really provide enough funding so that you could have a good educational experience here at Michigan State University. Also consider the following. This is the only place, college college is the only place where you can be broke, dead broke, but live like a king as long as your bill is paid. Okay, so long as you got your financial aid set up, you cannot have no job, you have shelter, you can eat as much as you want. That's not the same when I was a student, because a silver meal plan was limited, you only eat two times a day. Right? Now, you can eat as many times as you want, right? You have fitness facilities, you have a beautiful campus to walk through with social events. And of course, the degree of your choice. So this is a good time, but you have to make sure you have all your stuffs handled and put together and ready to go before the bill due date, okay.
Abigail
Very important.
David
Right? Do you wait last minute, that's this is not the time to do last minute stuff, right? If you you know, and that's why we have full time jobs, because we do have some students who do. Right, and we'll help you. We'll get you through it. But we can't stop late fees. We can't stop this, there's rules, right. So that's something that we want people coming into this environment to know. Okay.
Abigail
Yeah, I think I that's a great point, like you said, all those resources here on campus, I think is important to realize as a student and coming in and learning more about the financial aid and what that encompasses with your education along with those resources on campus. And I guess, to go off of that, this is kind of our last question for you today. But
David
I was having so much fun.
Abigail
Oh, I know. I'm learning so much, too. And I love it.
Emily
I'm learning so much about financial aid. It's sort of sad to stop. But yeah,
Abigail
Yeah. And so what is your favorite part about being a Spartan and working with the students?
David
Man, so I have been in financial aid for over, I would say, maybe eight and a half years now. Right? Out of that I've been at Michigan State for four of them. I had this was actually my first job after I graduated. The biggest reward I get is actually helping a student and see them graduate. I have several students that I've worked with, and I got the opportunity to see them cross the stage, or to become something better. Right. And I have fun stories all in between there as well.
Abigail
I bet.
David
But the one thing I love about being a Spartan, because we just have the best students in the world here, right, the best character, everybody in the country goes here. All right, and outside the country, for that matter. Yeah, I get the opportunity to experience so much culture. My first experience with culture shock was on this campus my freshman year, right. It's still cold here in the winter. We can't, we can't stop that. But I love the campus. I love the people. I have the privilege of working with some very good people in my office. And this is so far has been the best work environment that I've been in, with the exception of maybe another firm that I used to work for in architecture. So you know, that's what that's the rewarding part. And then, of course, mom and dad seeing that big sigh of relief.
Abigail
Oh, yeah,
David
That big, okay, thank you, you know, like now, okay, they feel that their future can continue.
Emily
That's amazing. That's awesome. Um, so thank you so much for joining us today, David. And thank you all for listening to the this episode of The Spartan orientation station. Please join us next time for a discussion with our university ombudsperson to discuss your rights at MSU.
David
Go green.
Emily
Go white.
Speaker 1
Thank you for listening to this episode of The Spartan Orientation Station on Impact 89 FM. Let us know what you think by connecting with us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram at MSU underscore NSO.