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The purpose of this podcast is to give information about topics such as our department’s initiatives, routes in traditional higher education, trade and tech schools, apprenticeships, certifications, different avenues to enter the workforce directly and much more.
Good morning, and welcome back to the Donuts with DHEWDs podcast brought to
Cade:you by the Missouri Department of Higher Education and Workforce Development. The mission of our department is to empower Missourians with the skills and education needed for success. I'm Cade and here again with my coworker, Alison , to bring you relevant information each month about the world of higher education and the options that you have as you prepare to enter or reenter the workforce.
Alison:That's right. We're here to give information about financial aid, traditional higher education, trade and tech schools, apprenticeships, certifications, and different avenues to enter the workforce directly and much more. We will have guests each podcast to educate as well as tell their stories, struggles, and triumphs.
Cade:As we've mentioned, we have plans to cover a variety of topics that we've experienced and we have knowledge in. And if not, we'll be bringing a guest on here that does. Speaking of guests today, we brought someone on here that we are very excited about. This episode, we're going to be hearing from Erik Anderson, director of State Aid in Missouri, as we discuss all things scholarships.
Alison:However, before we get into that, Erik, what is your favorite type of donut? Oh. Did you think about it? We were chatting this morning.
Erik:Bear claw.
Alison:That's a good one. What is it? They're giant, dude. They're like as big as your head.
Erik:They got almonds. It's like donut. Yeah. They're like An apple fritter.
Erik:Can't go wrong with that.
Alison:Love an apple fritter for sure. Excellent. So I guess we'll just get right into it. So what is your name and what is your history working with you? How did you get to where you are?
Erik:Sure. So my name is Erik Anderson. As Cade mentioned, I am the director of our state financial aid programs. I've been with the department almost ten years now and I came through to the department as a former educator, I used to teach middle school English language arts and you know, always been interested in education and policy After teaching for a number of years I decided to join the role in the policy side. Started out with the department actually and data and research providing data to support our policy initiatives and moved over into academic policy and then eventually came over to financial policy.
Alison:Cool. And what made you want to work in higher education? What was in your sort of avenue? Like why did you go from teaching middle school to policy?
Erik:That's a really good question. Part of it I think comes, you know, the difference that college made on my life. Was born and raised in Missouri, I grew up here and going to college and seeing all the different opportunities, different ways of being actually studied both undergraduate and graduate studied anthropology, so seeing kind of how different cultures and societies value different things. A large part of my graduate education was focused on anthropological lens on educational systems. And there's a lot of talk about K-twelve education, you know, up through second degree, not a lot of research in post secondary education, college beyond high school.
Erik:So that was part of the interest in starting with the department, anthropological lens on what higher education is like and being involved in helping students make college decisions and then going through and finishing college and getting their degree and entering the workforce and finding that kind of joy in learning and those things that they've experienced and putting them into practice.
Alison:Right on. And we know that college is historically very expensive. Sure it is. Very hard to pay for. So I think Missouri does a great job of supporting their students in any ways that we can.
Alison:So that's what we're here to talk about. But before we get into the Missouri, like, state run programs, I think it would be beneficial to talk about, like, what are scholarships in general. Right? If either of you Kate or Eric had.
Cade:I can talk a little bit about scholarships in a general term. So scholarships are really more of a form of financial aid that is rewarded to students to help further their education. So some scholarships are based on academic or other types of achievements and other scholarships might be geared towards a specific group of students. So a lot of scholarships vary in amount from one time awards or of a few hundred dollars to fill tuition or even thousands of dollars. Every scholarship you receive will help reduce the cost of education so it's important to start looking early and apply for as many as possible.
Cade:Whenever I talk to students about scholarships or financial aid, I tell them to apply for everything that they come across. Right. Just because you never know what you might end up with, you really never know. Something that I also wanna add is that it often oftentimes people get confused about scholarships and grants. So before we keep moving forward, the difference between the two is a grant is need based, and you'll have to fill out the FAFSA to apply for them.
Cade:And usually they're given based on financial need, whereas a scholarship is most often going be merit based. So you'll apply for that separately. And like I said earlier, they are based on academic achievements or maybe an extracurricular activity, your field of study, anything like that. So, Eric, I will bounce a question your way. Sure.
Cade:Why do you think scholarships are important? Well, as Alison mentioned, you know,
Erik:the cost of attending college is pretty hefty at times, right? I think Missouri has done a really good job of keeping higher education affordable, you know, but tuition costs can still be several thousand dollars a semester and so scholarships and grants are a great way to keep that cost down. You know, Kate, you mentioned the different distinction between scholarships and grants. I think the important thing to remember is that dollars that you don't have to repay.
Alison:That's free money, baby.
Erik:Right, exactly. Whereas loans you do, you you take out a loan, have to help scrape calls when you have to pay it back. Scholarships and grants typically, there are a few scholarships or grants rather that convert into loans but we don't have those in Missouri but they are money that you can use to spend on college, you don't have to pay back.
Cade:I think that's a big misconception especially with anything like the FAFSA, People are always like, oh, I'm gonna have to repay the FAFSA. No, that's not true.
Erik:You're not gonna have
Cade:to repay the FAFSA.
Erik:Yeah, you can qualify for student loans like the way out the FAFSA but again, that's difference between like a Pell Grant for example, a loan whether it's subsidized or unsubsidized loans you have to pay back, Pell Grant you don't And our Missouri scholarships and grants you don't have to pay back on it.
Alison:And you don't have to take out loans if you don't want to, the importance that we need to emphasize is that in order to get a lot of these grants and scholarships especially in Missouri is that you have to file your FAFSA. That's like number one step.
Erik:Yeah, a lot of our scholarships are what are considered last dollar scholarships. So other aid needs to kick in first. So the students Pell eligible, they have to apply to Pell Grant first and then the grant will pick up the remaining costs. But in order to be eligible for a Pell Grant, you have to apply for FAFSA and so a lot of times for those scholarships, FAFSA is a FAFSA completion is a requirement for that particular grant or scholarship.
Alison:And for those who've never heard of the FAFSA, it stands for Free Application for Federal Student Aid. So if somebody is asking you to pay to file the FAFSA, it's a scam. Don't do it. It's in the name. It's the first f.
Erik:So I know that at a
Cade:lot of universities, at least for for many public universities out there, you must have a FAFSA on file in order to apply for their internal scholarships. I think a lot of people have their own sort of tips and tricks on where to find scholarships. Erik, you wanna talk a little bit about the best place to maybe look at a scholarship and then maybe Alison and myself can talk a little bit about some tips and tricks.
Erik:Yeah, the department websites are a great place to go. Journey to college is a great place to look for our different state grants and scholarships as well as dhewd.mo.gov website, our website. Shameless plug. Those are great resources as well. For Missouri specific scholarships, it was MyScholarshipCentral where you can search by region.
Erik:There are a whole list of other scholarships there that are ever growing. But beyond there, mean, you can always check with your institution, they've got a great list of institutional scholarships or talk to other folks as well see what they're doing. And there's a lot of websites out there that promote scholarships. You have to use some discretion that you're not falling for a scam.
Alison:And you don't wanna, my rule of thumb is like if you have to pay for a chance to win a scholarship, might not be the one for you. But I often tell students like check with their jobs. Like McDonald's has a tuition reimbursement. I think Walmart does.
Erik:Like a
Cade:lot of Walmart's science program.
Alison:Yeah. A lot of, like, high school jobs that high schoolers typically have offer some sort. And it might be $500. It might be $200. But, like, that's the thing, you know?
Erik:And every little bit helps.
Alison:Every little bit helps.
Cade:Erica, I like that you said to just talk to people. The the largest scholarship that I got in undergrad was just someone said, hey, you should apply for this. And then I looked it up and I applied for it and I got it for two years in a row. So Yeah. You really you truly never know what's up there.
Alison:The worst they can do is say no.
Cade:Exactly. Yeah. Especially if you have like a Saturday job or something like that where you might have a little bit of downtime here and there on weekends. I know whenever I was in high school, I would spend that time to try to just apply for different scholarships, which was a nice use of time. I didn't get all of them but it's a good practice nonetheless on how to fill out scholarship application and really try to understand what the person who is reviewing the application is actually looking for, I would say.
Alison:True. And if you've got one good essay, don't reinvent the wheel, you know? You sure did. No. Take one good essay and then edit it.
Alison:But moving forward and shifting gears a little bit to, like, Missouri specific grants and scholarship programs, Eric, if you could talk a little bit about the A plus program here in Missouri, talking about like who's eligible, how do you get it, where can you use it, how long do you have it, things like that.
Erik:Yeah, so the A plus scholarship is something you actually start while you're in high school. So it's available to Missouri residents, it's available to US citizens or students who attend or graduate a Missouri high school. And what it is essentially is it's an opportunity for you to kind of do some service while you're in high school, there's a service component attached to it as well as showing academic achievement. You have to have an attendance threshold of 95% during high school, you have to do fifty hours of mentoring or tutoring. And you have to also get a GPA threshold 2.5 as well as a college readiness requirement on math.
Erik:So you have to show that you're ready in math in terms of the algebra one in the course exam. I believe most students take that as freshmen in high school, so it's a graduation requirement. Some students take it eighth grade, but it doesn't matter when you take as long as you score a professional or advanced on it or any math course that's higher, so algebra two or geometry or there's also, if think it's scoring there's a chance to redo it again when you take the ACT or even the pre ACT. So again, this is something you work on when you're high school, you have to be working on it for at least two years, you have to attend an A plus eligible high school for two years prior to graduation and once you get that award you can use it at any public community college or public vocational technical school And it covers tuition fees for those programs. Students have it for forty eight months after graduation.
Erik:So if you graduate this year, if you graduated in May 2024, you would have it through May 2028. You don't have to use it, you know, you can obviously take break if you need to, but you have forty eight months to eligible. Once you earn your associate's degree, then your eligibility is expired.
Alison:Right on. And for clarification for students who like live in a border state but go to Missouri State School they are still eligible for.
Erik:Yeah, that's why I stumbled over my words when I said you have to be a Missouri resident. With A plus you have to attend a Missouri high school. So if you live in, for example, Oklahoma, but you attend high school
Cade:in Branson or something. Yeah, Branson,
Erik:your mom's a teacher, your dad's a teacher in Branson, that's okay. Likewise, though, you can't use it the other way. So if you're a Missouri resident, if you're an Oklahoma, you're in the A plus scholarship, Missouri, you have to use it in Missouri.
Alison:Does not cross. Gotcha. But you have to go to Missouri institution. Right. Gotcha.
Cade:One of the questions that I've gotten about A plus a couple of times and Eric, maybe you could speak on this in a way that I couldn't. But the question is all about A plus eligibility for homeschool students. What does that look like and is there a
Erik:way that a homeschool student could get A plus Currently they cannot, right? The requirements are they graduate from an A plus Missouri high school and homeschool right now is not considered Missouri A plus eligible high school. There has been there have been several bills proposed over the last several years where they've tried to change that and allow homeschooled students A plus eligibility but did not made a lot of traction. And so until that changes, homeschooled students are not eligible.
Alison:I feel like that could be a whole other like podcast episode about like the implications of Yeah. I had a question. So I know that in the past couple of years, private schools were not eligible for A plus. They now are. Correct?
Erik:Correct. Yes.
Alison:Because I did not get A plus which is like love this for new students. Would have loved it also for me. But that's okay.
Cade:Thankfully I did get A plus although I went to university that at the time did not give you anything for A plus so.
Alison:I think Truman gave like a $500 scholarship if you were A plus eligible.
Cade:Yeah, would that be considered a scholarship, Eric?
Erik:Yes because we consider A plus a scholarship, it's merit based, you have to you know show that you've done certain requirements to meet it so we consider a merit based scholarship. Yeah a lot of institutions do that. Students who are A plus eligible and didn't end up attending a public community college for example, they attended a public four year or private four year then sometimes they give them some sort of award for that. Right. A good place to check if your institution to see if your high school is eligible is the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education's website.
Erik:They've got a list of all of the A plus eligible high schools. It's not every private institution in Missouri, not every private high school, but it is a lot of them.
Cade:Right, which is great. So this is kind of a highly specific scenario. Asking for asking for my own knowledge actually. So back to homeschool students actually. If there's a homeschool student who let's say is taking a couple of classes at an A plus certified high school, then would they qualify for A plus That's a
Erik:good question. It would depend on if the high school viewed them as attending full time if they consider
Alison:that's it's largely after the high school. Yes.
Erik:A plus program is largely decentralized and the high schools have a lot of kind of say about even like the tutoring and mentoring hours. We offer some guidelines but it's up to them to decide how they want to calculate that same with attendance, you know.
Alison:Yeah, which is particularly helpful, especially if like students have a sick family member.
Erik:Yeah, we saw that a lot during COVID too, like if someone in the early days, had to quarantine for two weeks. So you missed two weeks that already not Yeah, the early days of the pandemic. And so they have a lot of discretion on what they can do, they have waivers and all sorts of things that students can apply for if they feel like they've gotten a sinewing circumstance. But yeah, largely Kate, to answer your very specific homeschool question, your second of your homeschool questions, it's largely a discretion to school if they consider them enrolled and they do some reporting to DESE and all that then potentially they could receive their post. Okay, thank you.
Erik:I'm not gonna say they can because they might not Potentially.
Cade:Potentially. They could potentially, there is hope for anyone out there who needs a little bit of hope.
Alison:Right, Great. I feel like that that is there anything else that you would like to make sure that the folks know about A plus that you haven't already said before you move on to Missouri Access?
Erik:No, again, plus is a great opportunity. It's important to start early with A plus, you know, nowadays, they start talking about college prep as early as sixth grade, eighth grade, right? Students have to have their ICAP ready, individualized education plan and all that stuff ready by the time they hit eighth grade. But by the time you start freshman year, even if you're not sure you're going to go into college, you're not sure where you're going go, A plus is a great program for you
Alison:to Always better to have it and not meet it.
Erik:That's right. Keep it in your back pocket, kind of like you did Cade. Plans change. Yeah, plans can change. You may plan on attending a four year institution and decide that you want to go
Cade:to community college, you want stay local anyway. It covers tuition and fees. And then if you want to transfer out, great.
Erik:That's right. That's right. But it's important to start early. So be thinking about as early as your freshman year. It's easier to get fifty hours of mentoring and tutoring over four years than decide your last semester.
Alison:Right, like last two weeks of school you're like,
Cade:I was one of those students.
Erik:But everything worked out. Yeah, but it's important to start early and it's important to kind of keep that in your back pocket. You know, it can only hurt, it can only help you not hurt you. Right. Especially because a lot of the skills you get from A plus the tutoring and mentoring, the college readiness proficiency and mathematics, grade point average, you know, those are gonna help you be successful in college.
Alison:Right. And so moving forward from merit based to need based grants, we also Missouri also has the Missouri Access Grants. Same spattering of questions that you answered for the A plus program. Battery.
Erik:A A battery of questions. Yeah, so like I didn't mention this about A plus but you don't actually apply to the department for A plus. You have to enter into a written agreement with your high school that you're gonna be doing the A plus program and they award you at the end of the year and you can take that to the public community college. With access there is no application per se. What happens you complete the FAFSA, again this is a
Alison:I'll circle back to the FAFSA.
Erik:So you complete the FAFSA and if you have a certain income threshold and it's below that, right now it's used to be the EFC, the expected family contribution. Now it's been switched to the student aid index.
Alison:SAI. And I will. Yeah.
Erik:So if you're within that threshold then our system, our administrative system automatically calculates eligibility. So if you're a student and you complete the FAFSA, it gets sent here to our central office here in Missouri. It feeds into our administrative system and it calculates your eligibility.
Alison:Does Missouri access pay directly to the school or will it appear on student aid letters?
Erik:So depends on the time of year. Guess this year, you know, with some of the delays in the FAFSA rollout, I think there were a lot of letters that went out without access, I'm sorry. But generally the earlier you file your FAFSA, the sooner institutions know your eligibility. So kind of get the same data that we do. So if you file in January and they want to get aid letter letters and offers out in March, they can already include that on there.
Erik:So again, depends on the time of year that you file the FAFSA, depends on the institution, but largely you'll see that offer on the A letter. Now, you're to ask if it goes straight to the student or the institution. It goes in the institution on behalf of the student. Yeah, it's easier that way. Institution certify up this student who is access eligible attends our institution and then we'll send them a payment but that payment will get credited to the student's account.
Erik:Like the cost of books, if you live on on campus housing. Gotta live. You gotta Live in the dorms, gotta pay for the dorms or be in an apartment near campus, have to pay for that or you gotta eat. Eat. Gotta get your donuts in the morning with dude.
Erik:That's true.
Alison:Wow. That was good.
Erik:So that's cost of attendance, it's largely beyond the scope of the direct cost tuition fees and that's what access necessary does. Now if you are A plus eligible, you do have to apply A plus before access, Right. But generally that's because community colleges have a much lower cost than Oregon's institutions.
Alison:So growing up, I always heard Access Missouri, not Missouri Access. So I apologize if I keep saying Missouri Access or Access Missouri and not Missouri Access. I also always heard that.
Alison:Access Missouri, Missouri Access, it's all the same. It's all a grant program.
Erik:So it's Missouri. Now you got it.
Alison:Yeah, I'm so sorry. Access Missouri. Yeah, yeah. And so Access Missouri is a grant program and then so what would you categorize Bright Flight as? Would that be a scholarship because it's merit?
Erik:Bright Flight is merit based, right? So it's depending on an ACT or SAT score that's in the top 3% of graduating high school seniors for the upcoming year. So there's actually two tiers to Bright Flight, one is the top 3% and the second tier which is a lesser award is for the fourth and fifth percentile and again those are also calculated automatically like access and so we receive any Missouri students who takes the ACT will get those scores in, we can calculate your eligibility based on those scores that automatically come to us. The only time you'll get a letter for access is if there's something amiss in your FAFSA, there we have conflict in information says you're eligible, maybe it also says you're a graduate student, you know, but our records indicate that you're probably not a graduate student, we get a letter from us. With Bright Flight we will send out letters to students who meet the qualification.
Alison:And the qualifier is 31, 32 , correct?
Erik:Yes. Yeah. Yep for the fourth, fifth percentile it's 31, for the third, top three percent thirty two.
Alison:And what are those award amounts? It's 2,000, 1 thousand?
Erik:It's $3,000 the top percent it's a thousand dollars. 3 thousand dollars.
Alison:That's a good chunk of change. I had a question. You
Erik:mentioned eligibility with A plus I'll plug in with Access and BrightFlight or similar it's up to 10 semesters of eligibility. Now with BrightFlight, you do have to be continuously enrolled, right? So if you stop out a year and you want to come back then you might not be eligible for Bright Flight unless you've deferred. So if you have military service or you have a medical condition and you stop out for a year, submit a deferment but you do have to be continuously enrolled without a deferment. With Access Missouri, there's no continuous enrollment piece but you do have to you do have eligibility of 10 semesters.
Alison:And for all of these awards like Access Missouri, Bright Flight and A plus you all have to go to A, regardless, you have to go to a Missouri institution, correct?
Erik:Correct, yeah. A plus is limited on where you can go because it's just the community colleges and the public Locations, yeah. Right, But Access Missouri and Bright Light, it's our normal, you know, public private institutions.
Alison:Gotcha. And so let's say I'm a senior and I get A plus and I get Bright Light, but I have questions about them and like if I want to see if I'm eligible for Access Missouri, who do I contact?
Erik:Yeah, you can contact us at the department on our financial aid page on the department website. We've got contact us information. You can submit an email query and it'll come to us that way and respond to there or there's a number you can call which I don't know.
Cade:How do you About how long would you say it takes to receive a response? I have a question about that.
Erik:It depends on the time of year actually, like towards the end of the school year there's a little bit of longer wait times, but like right now if you were to call you'd get through pretty quickly. Generally I would say even our busy times we do our best to try and get back to you as quickly as possible. If we're not back to you within one or two business days. Oh, that's not a And
Alison:where can students check if they received an application like through the student portal or
Erik:so I don't know if you guys have talked about the student portal in one of your other podcasts.
Alison:Not at this juncture. Well, here we go. New rubber
Erik:shameless The student portal is a great opportunity for students to look at their eligibility for scholarships and frankly, we do have some smaller scholarships that you do have to apply for. A plus and Missouri Bright Flight, you don't have to, but some of our other programs do. So you can go to the student portal, you can find a link to that in the student journey to college website, but it's essentially a place for you to keep all your scholarship information if you don't plan on applying to any of the smaller programs, but you can keep your, if your institution requires any sort of essays as you mentioned, it's a great place to kind of store those. And any change to your eligibility whether it's Bright Flight or Access Missouri will be shown in the student portal.
Alison:And will that update every academic year if your eligibility changes?
Erik:Correct, yes.
Alison:So in theory, could people lose access if their DFC changes or the SAI?
Erik:Yeah, for access, yeah. So it's we look at it every single academic year. So if one year, you know, your access eligible the next year, you or your parents make a little bit more money and push you to that threshold, you may not get the same dollar amount.
Alison:So
Erik:maybe a lower amount depending on your income or you may lose it altogether. Now with Bright Flight, once you get your score, you know, if it's set at 32 and then for future graduating classes, raises to a 33, you're locked in.
Alison:You don't have retake the ACT as junior in college?
Erik:No, you're locked in. Now there are some other criteria too. You have to maintain satisfactory academic progress depending on how your institution defines that but you also have to earn at least a cumulative 2.5 GPA continue to be eligible for our scholarships.
Alison:Gotcha. And these three financial aid, they apply only to undergrad, correct?
Erik:Correct.
Alison:Cool. Cool. Cool.
Cade:Something about the ACT that I think at least I know whenever I was in high school, a lot of people sort of just counted themselves out for bright flight based on the average ACT score. I'm not sure what the average ACT is right now.
Alison:Nationally, I think it's like 21, 20 two. Okay.
Erik:I think Missouri might be around 23, last time I checked. Okay. So we're hiring the national self numeric record. Go
Alison:Go Missouri. Good on us.
Erik:Of course, I could be misremembering them. Not. Someone get calls out.
Cade:It change anytime.
Erik:Not so good. Yeah, at one point it was. Some undefined period of time.
Cade:So when it comes to scholarships overall, is it ever possible to have a scholarship taken away or redacted whether from the state? I guess for right now, let's keep it to I guess A plus and Bright Flight and Access Missouri. Is it possible to lose those?
Erik:So again, there's the criteria for initial students which we've gone over, but the renewal students, again, if your GPA drops below a 2.5 for example, then you wouldn't able to, wouldn't be eligible to see that scholarship until your GPA went back up. So if you had a 2.51 semester, then it dropped down to 2.3, that's what was the end of the academic year, then the next fall you wouldn't be eligible for Bright Flight, you'd have to work to get it back up and then you could get it reinstated. All of our grants and scholarships are subject to appropriations. This hasn't happened in a while but sometimes if our appropriations are low we have to lower the amount that we can offer or limit it to the number of students that we can get awards to.
Alison:And appropriations are what?
Erik:What are our appropriations? Good question. Appropriations are the dollars that the legislature give us for our financial aid programs.
Alison:Okay.
Erik:So the budget occurs at the legislature. They every year say how much money they're willing to give to save programs. Sometimes lately thankfully the legislature has fully funded all of our programs but there have been periods in the past where they haven't been fully funded or we've gone through economic downturn so the governor has withheld a little bit more money and we've had to lower the amount that we've been able to get.
Cade:I talked to parents or a student who's doing the FAFSA and if they're like oh I don't want to really continue doing this, I'll just finish it later. I think a lot of times whenever I sit with them and tell them, you know, if you're getting a couple of thousand dollars for this one hour of work that you're doing, that's an incredible hourly wage if you can look at it kind of that way. True. You know, that's some of the best money you'll make for at this point in your life and sixty minutes. So it really is worth it to just sit down and knock it out and crank it out even if it might cause an argument or two between whatever you're filling it out with.
Cade:Then just because that happens, it's like I'm doing math since it's great with my parents or something but
Alison:How could you change math? Yeah. That's what my dad always said. Was like, how do they change math? But yeah, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us about all of the very honestly very great things that Missouri does to make higher education more affordable and more accessible to students regardless of what that sort of looks like, whether it's two year, four year, trade school, tech school.
Erik:Are there any other burning questions you guys have? I know you guys are on the on the ground more than we are, so you're out talking to students and counselors. Anything else that Honestly, the
Alison:homeschool question comes up a lot.
Cade:Yeah, that was my main thing I was curious about. I would assume anyone listening to this that might neither be homeschooled at the moment or know someone that's homeschooled, maybe they can pass it along to them.
Erik:Now the homeschool students would be eligible for BrightFlight, there's Right. To achieve the qualifying score access, miss Harrison or other programs with A plus is limited. Sure.
Cade:I think overall just that I do kind of feel like there's a bit of a stigma for scholarships or any sort of grant in general for a lot of students. A lot of times, if I'm talking about the FAFSA, student might say, my grades aren't good enough. I'm not I'm not gonna get any money. And I'm like, woah, woah.
Alison:It's not about grades.
Erik:Yeah. They don't
Cade:care if have four L. They care if what kind of life you have basically outside of school more so. Right. But I think that's kind of just the biggest thing to make people understand and I'm not sure if that has kind of always been around or yeah, I don't know.
Erik:Yeah and I will say too, I know that institutions do publish kind of their sticker price on their website.
Alison:Can be very scary.
Erik:Yeah, it can be very high like,
Alison:oh my goodness. It's like I'm in the sixties most of
Erik:time. Yeah, I'm never gonna be able to afford for this, be able to pay for this but what you don't realize is there are a lot of scholarships available and very few people actually pay that sticker price. So simply by spending an hour filling out the FAFSA, you can become eligible for all sorts of financial aid that you didn't know about. There are a lot of need based scholarships out there that use the FAFSA to determine, you know, it's a standardized way to show what financial need There's also a lot of merit scholarships. Not all of them are academic in nature.
Erik:There are a number of athletic scholarships. There are some very niche scholarships as well for left handed cello players for example.
Cade:Know, left handed but I can't play the cello. Wow. But I
Erik:think there are
Alison:left handed scholarships. There are. There are also like RedHen scholarships. Yeah. But I feel like that those are behind paywalls which I don't love.
Alison:Yeah. You know? They
Erik:are. You know, and that's anecdotally.
Alison:That's anecdotally. But there you
Erik:you just don't know what what's out there. Until you look. Right. Yeah. Until you look, until you talk to people, until you spend an hour filling out the FAFSA who's in the department website.
Erik:There's a
Alison:lot of great options. It is sort of a grind though if you're like really trying to get a lot of scholarships.
Erik:Like You can spend a lot of time going down a lot of rabbit holes. Right.
Alison:And so like if you set aside like an hour a week during your senior year, that might be a good way to check it Talk
Erik:to your counselors, talk to your peers, talk to your teachers, they may know folks, if you have older siblings, talk to them.
Alison:Right, we've all been here before. Something that
Cade:I am kind of curious about and this is more so of just your opinion, Eric, more so than maybe just my opinion. What would you say out of if a student was doing an average four years for their undergrad, what is the year that they would get the most scholarships do you think?
Erik:Don't know. Would you
Cade:get more do you think I guess, let's say even just comparing your freshman year to your senior year and all of it is, you know, based on the student's individual situation.
Alison:I think it depends on, like, what their major is because they might have like collegiate scholarships like in their school's college of chemistry or whatever.
Erik:For the first two years, a lot of institutions have kind of general scholarships. First years, sometimes you have a lot of times you have to have a major player but you're usually working on your general education. There's a lot of generalized scholarships for the first two years. As Alison mentioned, once you've kind of declared your major, you know what discipline you're going into, what college you're going into, what you're studying, then they've got some very specific ones that could be more money available that way but largely just depends on the program.
Cade:I know that for me personally, my freshman year was the year I got the least amount
Alison:of scholarships.
Erik:Yeah.
Cade:And I think for anyone who experiences that as well, it can be very discouraging after year one because I thought it's gonna cost me this much money every year, I can't keep doing this. But you really just do kind of, you get to better understand how each university operates when it comes to what either choosing scholarships, how to find the scholarships. I don't know there's there's tons of things out there. Yeah. I'm talking circles but
Alison:Also like constantly keep in contact with your financial aid officer. They knew me by name, I was always in there.
Erik:I was
Alison:like please break down all of these prices for me.
Erik:Well I know too years ago we did a series of reports on affordability and things like that and we looked at internal data and some different sources. And again, this is several years old at this point, it may have changed but the time that we looked at it and this was right before the pandemic, about eighty percent of freshmen who are enrolled at our public institutions had completed a FAFSA, right, which means twenty percent of students didn't. They started college without completing a FAFSA. Now beyond the freshman year into sophomore, junior, senior year, only sixty five percent of students completed the FAFSA. So I think a lot of times what happens is people apply, they complete the FAFSA, they didn't get any sort of award so they don't bother to Do it again.
Erik:Do it again, right? Why would you? Well yeah, I didn't get anything the first time, why am gonna get something the second time? But situations change, income levels change, requirements change. So I would encourage students who may already be in college, if you haven't completed the FAFSA yet, go ahead and do it.
Erik:Even if you didn't earn something, weren't Pell eligible that first semester, first year, reapply. We saw this too, had a, not too long ago, a convening of our counterparts across the Midwest up in Chicago we talked about FAFSAs and things that we're seeing and patterns that we're seeing. And while the numbers may be a little bit different, seeing a lot of same thing. Freshmen apply at a higher rate than everybody else and once you don't get something you're less likely to apply later on.
Alison:I wonder if that has to do with like counselors being like, hey you need to file your FAFSA as opposed to like being sophomores in college and like nobody's telling you to do that.
Erik:Yes, that could be too. You know, there is a lot of there's a lot of concentrated effort around graduating seniors going into college to complete their FAFSA, but once you're in college, you're largely on your own. Right. So you don't have someone telling you,
Alison:Hey man, applications open.
Erik:Yeah, I noticed you haven't completed your FAFSA yet. So that is important to keep in mind too though. And again, I know everyone gets busy in college and about the time that the FAFSA due in February for the priority deadline for access to Missouri, that's about midterms, right? And
Alison:that feels bad.
Cade:A lot going on. Allison, I really like the point that you write up about just being a familiar face in the financial aid office.
Alison:Oh my gosh. They should know you by name. They really should. They're like, oh my god, here comes this girl again. It's not
Cade:a well, it's not necessarily a bad thing. I think that people are always afraid of, you know, a bother to someone and whatever if you interrupt them at their desk and they're already working on something. I don't think that's what it is. I mean, at the end of the day, you're paying to be at that university, even if you're on a scholarship or not, there's money that is for you that is going to that university and you do have the right to know what that money is being applied to whether it's breaking down fees or if it's just the cost of tuition for an in person class versus an online class or something like that. Those are the things you need to be aware of.
Cade:I think a lot of times that can throw people off because they might think, oh, well I paid, let's say $3,000 for the total of one year and I took all in person classes, next year I'm gonna take all virtual classes and they don't realize maybe there's a difference in the price for those for per credit hour. But yeah, be a familiar face in there. Think a lot of times you kind of have to be your best, your own best advocate with financial aid at a university.
Erik:And we work very closely with our financial aid officers across the various institutions. I will say, you know, they love helping students.
Alison:That's why they're
Erik:in the That's exactly right. They're in the work because they love helping students. If you need someone to talk to, you can go up there and they're more than happy to talk with you, help you understand things, maybe even they know the scholarship that you didn't know about. Which is the best. Yes, they're very knowledgeable.
Erik:I know we have lots of conversations with the financial aid professionals around this, right? They really enjoy working with students and they're always, I would argue they're some of the best advocates that students have. Even if you don't know them personally, they don't know you personally. They're always telling us about ways that we
Alison:can They're going up the bat for you.
Cade:They really are. Ways that we
Erik:can improve our policies and our procedures and things that we need to consider when administering financial aid. So they are some of our bigger advocates.
Alison:And if they don't know the answer, they will point you in the direction of someone who does.
Erik:That's right, they will generally reach out to us and ask us. We'll do our best as well.
Cade:Awesome,
Alison:thank you again so much. I know I said thank you already, and then we went on a couple of tangents which I think is really excellent.
Erik:Well thanks for having me. I know this is Donuts with DHEWDs, there is a lack of donuts .
Cade:After later. Rain check on the Later. Rain yes. Rain check on the donuts. Rain check on the bear claw.
Cade:Is that what you said your favorite was?
Alison:Bear claw or apple fritter. Or apple fritter. Prefer an
Erik:apple fritter.
Cade:Same thing.
Alison:Incorrect. No, yeah, so thanks again to Eric Anderson for talking to us about all of the Missouri State aid we have available for students here in the state. As always, can reach out to us at journeytocollege@dude.mo.gov if you have any questions. Cade, if you wanna take us out.
Cade:Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Donuts with DHEWDs, and we'll talk to you later. And feel free to grab yourself a donut whenever we have them.
Alison:Thanks, Erik. Thanks, Cade. Thanks, Alison.