Counselor Corner

You’re heading down the home stretch and summer is right around the corner. Since the best summer jobs go early, carve out some time now for an active job hunt. Nailing down that summer job before exam week can translate into more money and less stress. Here are some tips to help you get ahead of the game:

• Get your resume and cover letter in top-notch shape, and tailor and tweak your resume for different jobs. If your school’s career office has counselors who review student job resumes, take advantage of this service.
• Give some real thought to how do you’d like to spend this summer. Consider several possibilities with a plan of attack for each, then work your plans.
• Heading home for the summer? Check out your town’s newspaper and online job boards for summer positions, including paid internships. If you plan to stay near campus, check out summer jobs and paid internships available on campus or in the surrounding area. If you have a holiday/resort area in mind, this often means finding summer housing as well as a job. Now’s the time to nail down the details.
• Tap your personal network. If approached early, parents, relatives, classmates, friends, and professors, might know of interesting leads or opportunities—or be willing to make inquiries on your behalf. Let people know that you’re looking so you are on their mental maps. And always, always remember to thank people for their help, recommendations, and kind generosity.
• Got an entrepreneurial streak and a marketable skill? If being your own boss appeals to you, consider lawn mowing/landscaping, house painting, tutoring, babysitting, or pet-watching.
• Consider working for a temporary agency.

To keep your search in full speed, check out these useful online resources:

http://www.campjobs.com/
The online source for summer employment opportunities.

http://www.coolworks.com/
Seasonal jobs in national parks, ski resorts, ranches, theme parks, tour companies and more.

http://snagajob.com/default.asp?ref=gsmj
Job opportunities in retail, restaurant, entertainment, automotive, office, and many other industries in all 50 states.

http://www.summerjobs.com/
Career resources and employment opportunities for high school and college students, resort and hospitality staff, expatriates and international job seekers, part-time workers, and adventure seekers.

Smart summer saving strategies
Money earned during the summer is an absolute necessity for many college students. Before starting your first day on the job, sit down and strategize practical summer savings goals, then make a strong effort to keep to that plan.

This FinMan (Financial Management) Tip-of-the-Month is provided by NU SFS and Nellie Mae.

 Happy Spring, everyone! Exciting times here at NU. We inaugurated our new President this week, the temperature climbed to about 60 degrees, and we admitted our new class…!

Congratulations to those who have been accepted into the class of 2012! Wow, 2012!! Man, that makes me feel old. Anyway, this blog post is directed at the prospective freshmen for September of next year. Last week we began releasing our financial aid awards for those of you who had all of your forms completed, and we’ve already heard back from some of you. I just want to address some of our most common questions here.

 “I really thought I would get more aid, why didn’t I?”

 Financial Aid awards can consist of two parts, a merit based scholarship and any other need-based funding, which can come in the form of university grants, federal grants, loans, and work-study.  Your “need” is determined by the FAFSA and the CSS Profile.

 Acceptance to NU was very competitive this year. I heard we had over 30,000 applicants for about 2800 spots.  Academically, this class is stronger than ever. Merit-based scholarships were determined in relation to the entire incoming applicant pool.  Our university grant funds are limited and are allocated based on your calculated need. As long as we have your FAFSA, you will have been awarded federal grants, loans, and work-study based on your family’s EFC.

  Unfortunately, we are not able to meet the full calculated need of every eligible student, but we try to do our best reduce the financial burden.

My EFC is $XXX, but it looks like I am going to have to come up with $XXXX, why do I still have to pay so much?

 The EFC (Expected Family Contribution) is the federal government’s calculation of your eligibility for their federal funds. It’s not the dollar amount that you are expected to pay. We use the EFC to award federal aid, and as a guide to determine where your family falls as we give out our need-based grants.

How can I get more financial aid?

 If there has been a significant change in your family’s financial circumstances since you filed the financial aid applications, we can discuss our appeal process.  We consider things like the loss of a job, unexpected changes to income, and medical expenses not covered by insurance. We don’t take outstanding debts into consideration. Otherwise, feel free to contact us about payment plans, alternative loans, or a combination of them.

Another school gave me a much better package. Will you match it?

 Every school is different, and it is our policy to make scholarship decisions upon admission and not in response to offers that a student receives from other universities. We have carefully reviewed your eligibility and our funds available and we have made our best offer.

I hope that answers some of the common questions you might have. Feel free to contact your counselor by email (you can use “My Counselor Lookup” on our homepage or via myneu) directly if you have specific questions. Thanks!

Don’t put off filing your FAFSA because your 2006 taxes and your family’s aren’t ready. The FAFSA allows you to estimate those taxes, then update your application online. With W-2 forms arriving in late January, filing your taxes early supports your FAFSA. Fortunately, student taxpayers have more convenient tax-filing options than ever.

Why not take advantage of IRS’s Free File program?
If your 2006 Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) was $52,000 or less, you may be eligible for a free tax preparation and electronic filing (e-filing) service called Free File. It’s worth checking out one of the IRS’s free service providers listed here to see if you qualify. Note: Free File may not allow you to file for a Hope or lifetime learning tax credit, or other higher education tax deduction.

Tax benefits: Students and parents paying higher education costs may be eligible for a number of tax benefits, including the Tuition and Fees Deduction and the Hope and Lifetime Learning Credits. To help in the preparation of federal taxes, you may wish to consult IRS Publication 970, Tax Benefits for Education.

Other basic tax tips:

• Keep copies of your completed tax returns, financial aid applications (including electronic records if you e-file), receipts, pay-stubs and other important documents as having these handy will ease the process! Remember:
  • Copies of tax returns should be kept for at least three years.
  • Copies of financial aid applications should be kept for at least one year.
  • Loan promissory notes should be kept until the loan is repaid.
• Even if you do not have to file, you should file a federal income tax return to get money back if you had income tax withheld from your pay.
• You should receive your W-2 Form from your employer by January 31. If you do not receive the form by February 15, the IRS can help you by requesting the form from your employer.
• File only one federal income tax return for the year regardless of how many jobs you had, how many Forms W-2 forms you received, or how many states you lived in during the year.

Financial Management (FinMan) messages are provided by your financial aid office and Nellie Mae.

I Am Here!! Welcome to 2007 everyone. We are gearing up for the Spring term here in the Financial Aid Office. That means we have to make sure everyone is set to attend classes next Monday. I hope that includes you!!

If it doesn’t, that may be because you have a block on your student account. There are several different reasons for a block: academics, health services, judicial, etc. Here in the Financial Aid Office we can really only help you with one type of block and I’m sure you can figure out which one it is…financial.  

If you have a financial block on your account it means that you owe the university money from a term prior to the Spring 2007 term. If you are unable to resolve this issue by paying the amount you owe directly to the Student Accounts Office, you will want to come by and see your Financial Aid Counselor. Your Counselor will be able to suggest alternative ways of paying off your past due balance, and this most often involves taking out a student loan.

 I Am Here begins on Thursday the 4th. If you come in before I Am Here to resolve your block, you will be able to complete the I Am Here information online. If you stop by the Financial Aid Office during I Am Here and your financial block is successfully resolved, you will not have to go to the Ballroom in Curry to officially register for classes. The sooner you come by the better, as lines and wait times get longer as we approach class purge time, which will be Monday the 8th at 4:00 p.m.

 See you soon!

In just a few short weeks, we will be at the start of a new semester again. For some of you who have been away on coop, this may mean you are packing up boxes and preparing to move back to Boston. Others of you may have been here with us all along, but will be moving from the dorms to an off-campus apartment in January. We get a lot of questions in the office about using financial aid funds to cover the costs of rent for off-campus housing. Let me give you a little info on how the process works. 

As most of you know, when you live on campus your housing costs are charged directly to your student account bill. When financial aid funds disburse to your account, they pay tuition, fees, meal plan, husky charges, parking, library fines, and….dorm charges. So you don’t have to worry. However, when suddenly you have to write a check every month to your landlord, it seems to become a lot more complicated.

But, it’s really not complicated at all! Just as an example, assume your dorm costs for the fall term were $2,500. For the spring, you want to move off-campus and your rent is $500 for January through April and you need $500 for utilities for the four months. Since the $2,500 housing charge will no longer be on your bill in the spring, after the financial aid funds disburse in the first weeks of January you will have a $2,500 credit on your account. This credit is an excess of funds that you are able to have released to you.  Notice that I said the financial aid will not be disbursed until after the spring term starts. This means you must make sure you have prior arrangements for rent funds if you owe them by January 1^st!

To access the funds, you must request a cash release from the Student Accounts Office through myNEU. The cash release will come to you in the form of a check. You should take the $2,500 check and deposit it in your personal bank account. You can then write a personal check to your landlord every month. Some students prefer to request a separate $500 check every month. If you barely passed Intro to Accounting, you may want to do this as well.

See, it’s not so bad after all. If you would like to stop by the Financial Aid Office, we will be happy to help you plan out a budget for the term (or better yet, the whole year) so that you can be sure your finances are in order.

Happy Packing!

Hello Again. I hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving festivities. Its always nice to have a few days off. We are going into the final stretch of the fall semester…you all will have to be gearing up for exams soon!

We have had a few questions on the Blog that I would like to address. Raul asks about the Loan Entrance Interview and how he can complete it. Well, its really simple. All he has to do is log into myNEU, which he can do straight from the Financial Aid homepage. Click on the Self-Service tab, and there is a Loan Entrance Interview link on the left-hand side of the page. The “Interview” consists of information about loan borrowing and repayment and a short quiz. He does not need to come in to the Financial Aid Office and meet with his Counselor to complete the process. Although students are always welcome to stop by if they have any questions about their loans.

Joanne asks about how much it really costs to go to college vs. the cost that NU estimates. Well, the budget that SFS estimates for NU students when we determine financial need and aid packages may actually be higher that what most students should need to spend throughout the year. This budget includes the usual things such as tuition, fees, and allowances for books, which will generally be the same for all students in the same program. However, the budget also includes things that are not fixed, and that can vary widely depending on the student’s lifestyle such as housing costs, transportation, living, and personal expenses. SFS generates an average for these costs based on its location in Boston and the current cost of living that may be more or less than what a student spends (that’s why its called an average, right?) For example, on campus you can live in an economy triple apartment for $2,045 a semester or a one bedroom apartment for $5,270 a semester- the choice is yours. So to answer Joanne, the budget that SFS creates for its students is a reasonable estimate of what it should cost you for the academic year; if you are paying more, you should be looking at why and what you can do to reduce your expenses.

That’s all for today. Thanks for reading!

Hey everyone! Sorry it’s been so long since we’ve posted. Up until last week, it was actually somewhat quiet here in the financial aid office. Once classes start for the fall, we have a teensy bit of downtime before we start looking at aid packages for next year. Now that it’s time to register, we’ve got lots of students coming in to see us, so no more relaxin’ for us! Those FAFSAs will start rolling in around February, so that’s always fun to look forward to, too!

The majority of students in the office this week are coming to see us about—dun dun dun—financial blocks!! Those students who currently are carrying a balance of at least $750 have found themselves with a financial block that pops up when they try to register. It doesn’t prohibit you from pre-registering, but if you still have a balance in January you won’t be able to complete I Am Here and will be purged from your courses. Those students with balances at this point were also hit with late fees last week, which has also been a common question up here in Richards Hall. Just so we’re clear, if you were carrying a balance of at least $750 as of the last week of October, you received a late fee of either $75, $150, or $200. We can’t waive these now just because you want them waived. You need to have a plan to pay your balances, guys!

So what can you do right now if you have a balance and don’t know what to do? Well, it depends on how much it is, and if it’s going to be feasible for you to make those payments before January. If not, you’re going to want to come on in and meet with your counselor (see my counselor lookup from our homepage) to devise a plan. It may involve alternative loans, or perhaps some creativity on your part. Make sure that you’ve completed your federal loan paperwork, also. Those of you with Stafford Loans (mainly freshmen) that haven’t done your entrance interviews or completed your e-signature for the Promissory Note online are some of our most common visitors!

Hopefully you’ll seen more of the blog posts soon. Thanks for reading!!

FOOD RULES

Apart from tuition and dorm/apartment costs, your biggest expense during school is probably related to your stomach! But don’t let food costs eat away all your money. You can reduce food expenses by following these rules:

At school

• If you paid for a meal plan, use it! Whenever you buy a meal without using your meal plan, you’re doubling the cost of that meal.
• BYOF (Bring Your Own Food). Buy snack foods in bulk and bring them to school instead of buying at a vending machine or convenience store.
• Beverages take a big bite out of your budget. If you buy a gourmet coffee or tea totaling $2.75 per day, 5 days a week for 36 weeks, you’re out $495 in a year. The same can be said for bottled spring water. You don’t have to cut out caffeine, but try bringing a thermos of home-brewed coffee or tea to school a few days a week. For water, invest in a faucet filter and save hundreds in bottled water costs.

At your dorm/apartment

• Learn to cook simple meals. If you can read and boil water, you can cook. Visit sites like www.foodtv.com for recipes and ideas.
• Plan meals with leftovers in mind. On a Sunday, make a batch of chili or a pot of soup and have microwave-ready lunch for days. No stove? No problem: Use a Crock Pot for simple, one-pot meals.
• Share food costs with roommates. On weekends, host a potluck meal with friends (everyone brings something) instead of eating out.

At the grocery store

• Plan shopping once a week.
• Make a list of what you need and stick to it.
• Look top-to-bottom (not just at eye level) in grocery aisles for bargains.
• Use coupons only for things you buy regularly (www.wow-coupons.com/grocery.php).
• Choose store-brand over name-brand items with the same basic ingredients.
• Take a predetermined amount of cash so you won’t spend more than you can afford.
• EAT before you shop - an empty stomach equals an overfull cart.

Financial Management (FinMan) messages are provided by your financial aid office and Nellie Mae. 

Ok, Ok, I know some of you never left over the summer, but there are A LOT of students coming back to campus this weekend. Soon we will be in full swing of the 06-07 school year! We’ve had a lot of questions from students who are trying to get everything squared away before I Am Here next week, so hopefully I can clear a few things up.

We have certified most Stafford Loans for new students by this time, so if you are a freshman or transfer student, you should be able to go online to sign your MPN. If you cannot access your loan information online, you may want to read my last post to figure out why!

At the beginning of every new term, we always get a ton of questions about Financial Blocks. Basically, a Financial Block is put on a student’s account by the Student Accounts/Registrar’s Offices when the bill remains unpaid after the due date. This Block will not prevent a student from pre-registering for classes for the upcoming term. However, if this Block is still on the account when the following term rolls around, the student cannot register for classes during I Am Here. If the Block is still not resolved by the end of I Am Here, the student will be dropped from all pre-registered classes.

How do you prevent this from happening to you? Make sure your bill is paid!! No, seriously. As much as you plan in advance to make sure your costs are covered, at times, certain financial aid funds, alternative loans, outside scholarships, payments, etc. do not come to the school and post to your account as planned. If you think something may not be correct with your bill, make sure you contact us or Student Accounts as soon as you notice the problem.

If you are not great with planning in advance and you always seem to be squaring away your bill from last term right as the new term is starting, come visit your Financial Aid Counselor. Now! For the 06-07 year. Your Counselor can help you to determine what you will owe from now until a year from now, and what financing options you can utilize to make sure you never have to worry about a Financial Block again.

What should you do now if you have a Financial Block on your account? If you are still struggling to find a way to cover last term’s costs, you may want to look into taking out an educational loan. Now that we are in the days of online applications, 24-hour turnarounds on approvals, and electronic disbursements, the process is relatively easy and fast. Make sure you pay attention to the academic year on the application, especially if you were thinking of taking a loan for the 06-07 academic year as well. At this time, you can only apply for a loan in the amount of your back balance, which is the amount that remains unpaid on your 05-06 bill. If you want to apply for funds for 06-07, you will have to complete a separate application. Once again, that’s an 05-06 app for those of you with a Block, and an 06-07 app for the Fall and beyond.

Looking forward to seeing y’all back on campus soon!

Hi again. Hope everyone has been enjoying the summer, spending time at the beach or by the pool. We have been busy awarding and finalizing aid packages for the 06-07 academic year. I can’t believe there is only a month-or-so left until the start of the Fall term!

There are still a few students who have not yet been awarded aid packages. This is most likely because we have not yet received all of the paperwork that we need from you. If you are one of these students, check under the “Your Documents” link on the My Financial Aid page of myNEU. If we are missing any paperwork from you, it will be listed here as “Not Received.”

“Anonymous” recently posted a good question regarding the status of documents under the myNEU link. He mentioned that one of the documents he submitted has been showing a status of “Not Reviewed” for awhile. Well, he can rest assured that this is not decreasing his chances of being reviewed for additional funding. “Not Reviewed” is the status we use when the document has been received by our office, but the review is not complete. It does not mean that we have not yet looked at it, but for whatever reason we are not yet able to finalize out review. Once the review is complete, documents are marked as “Received.”

At times a document may show as “Not Reviewed” for some time because there are other documents still listed as “Not Received” that are preventing us from performing a complete review. For example, if you have been selected for the federal Verification process, we need your taxes, your parents’ taxes, and the Verification Worksheet. We cannot do anything without all three documents. So although your taxes may be “Not Reviewed” for two months now, they will remain that way until all paperwork is turned in to us.

We will be welcoming another new class of freshmen to NU soon! Along with coordinating your schedule to avoid 8 a.m. classes and buying extra-long sheets, you are also working to get all your financial aid paperwork squared away prior to September. Many of you are also looking at “Your Documents” on myNEU and inquiring about missing documents, such as loan notes, I-9s, and W-4 forms.

If you are coming to a Summer Orientation session, you will attend an informational session that tells you all about the loan process, and have a chance to complete your workstudy forms (that’s the I-9 and W-4). If you are unable to attend an Orientation Session, you will be able to provide the required documents to complete the workstudy forms in the Fall. The Federal Loan Entrance Interview is a process that you complete online through myNEU. If you are looking at myNEU and see it listed as a missing document, go ahead and complete it right then and there. After the Entrance paperwork is received, loan notes can be completed. You will receive an email with information on how to go online to sign the Stafford loan Master Promissory Note. If you have been awarded a Perkins loan, the Master Promissory Note will be sent to you in the mail at your home address over the summer.

If you are still totally confused by what you see under “Your Documents” on myNEU, be sure to shoot an email to your Counselor; you don’t want to hold up the processing of your financial aid.