Your Statewide Training Committee invites you to our Spring 2024 event: Statewide Training Comes to Your Region! Due to FAFSA Simplification and ISIR delays, a decision was made by Executive Council to offer this event both virtually and in-person.

It was at the discretion of each region to decide if they wanted to host an in-person meeting. If your region is offering an in-person meeting, we HIGHLY recommend you attend the meeting as it will give you the opportunity to meet and network with your colleagues and share information and ideas. Please find all the virtual and in-person details below.

Event Title: SWT Comes to Your Region Meeting - The SAI Formula and Professional Judgment

Date & Time: 4/12/2024 10:00AM - 12:00PM

Cost: Free to all NYSFAAA members
Registration Link: https://nysfaaa.memberclicks.net/login#/login
Registration Close: Through the event start time or until the event reaches capacity; whichever occurs first

Locations: Virtual and In-person for Regions 6 & 7
*PLEASE NOTE: Regions 6 & 7 are hosting in-person meetings and end times may differ. You will receive details from your Regional Representative via your region email listserv. If you have any questions please contact:
Region 6 Email: Melissa Vargas [email protected]
Region 7 Email: Erica Follick: [email protected]

Description
An understanding of how the FAFSA data come together to become the Student Aid Index is important for financial aid administrators to understand, especially when it comes to professional judgment. In this session, we will work through a sample dependent student’s FAFSA to calculate their SAI (the independent student with dependent(s) formula is similar to the parent contribution formula) – and then we’ll look at how changing the elements (as though we were considering using PJ) will change the outcome. Understanding this process can help FAAs manage their appeal workload – so many requests from students and parents, even if a professional judgment is warranted, will not result in a change to the student’s federal aid eligibility or extended Pell eligibility. Let’s see if we can predict in advance whether the adjustment the student or parent are requesting will result in more funding for the student.

We’ll also look at how professional judgment is changing, in light of the FAFSA Simplification Act and the recent report by the Inspector General about the University of Southern California’s use of PJ – so that you’ll have the most up-to-date understanding of what “case-by-case” means and what you need to document when you make income or asset adjustments using PJ.

Presenter:
Robert Weinerman, Director of Training
Iron Bridge Resources, LLC