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Contact:
Joe Stein
Office of Graduate Financial Assistance
School of Education, Room 115
Two Silber Way
Boston, MA 02215
617-353-4238
Fax: 617-353-8937
sedaid@bu.edu |
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Q&A with Financial Aid Director Joseph Stein
Director of Graduate Financial Assistance at SED
Q: What percentage of SED graduate students receives financial assistance? Who is the typical financial aid applicant?
A: I would say that most students receive some form of financial assistance. Of those who eventually arrive and attend full time, seventy to seventy-five percent receive scholarships—the percentage is much higher if you consider loans and other forms of available aid.
The typical applicant is everyone and anyone. We have students who are applying directly from undergraduate studies, we have those who have been in the work world for a while, and we have people who are making midlife career changes—we run the gamut. There is no typical financial aid applicant.
Q: As Director of Graduate Financial Aid for the School of Education, how do you assist students in making sound financial choices?
A: I try to explain that financial aid is more than just grants; the umbrella of financial aid includes loans and other sources of assistance.
I talk to the student about the goals that they want to achieve educationally, the time period that’s involved in their chosen program, and what financial aid options they have. Scholarships are predominantly merit-based. I’m not actually involved in any of the decision making regarding who receives a scholarship and who doesn’t. My role is primarily to help people through the financial aid application process for and to manage our financial aid budget.
A student who’s interested in financial aid submits an application for admission, on which they say that they want to be considered for financial aid. As part of the admission process, the department chairman evaluates the application and provides a numerical merit rating. Students who receive the top two ratings—SED’s top two entering candidates—are offered full tuition for that academic year. After that, we have quite a large group of people who receive scholarships that cover approximately two-thirds of the full time tuition.
All of our scholarships require a student to reapply and be re-evaluated for their second year of studies. Again, only full time students are eligible for scholarship assistance.
The tuition rate is lower for students who decide to attend school part time in the evening. Students who decide to be full time have to register for a minimum of twelve credits and can actually register for twelve to eighteen credits at the same cost. Students who register for eleven credits are considered part time, and if their classes are offered in SED after four o’clock, then the tuition rate for those classes is half the normal rate, which is a tremendous financial advantage for these students.In a sense, this is a form of financial assistance that the University is giving SED, as these rates are not shared by other parts of the University.
I meet with students to discuss what scholarship aid might be available. We look at their programs to determine whether the majority of the courses that they will be taking—even if they went full time—will be in the evening. Students then have the option of deciding whether they want to be full or part time, though of course they would have to meet with their academic advisor to figure out which status made more sense. I encourage everybody to apply as full time because they can then be considered for the full range of financial assistance that we have available. Later on—if they decide to go part time— we can adjust their aid.
I’d rather that a student turn down aid that was offered rather than suddenly say, “I decided now that I want to go full time; is there any money available?”
I also encourage everybody to apply for financial aid because oftentimes, people who have been away from school for
awhile—or who may not have received a scholarship as an undergraduate—are hesitant to apply for financial aid. They think that the University or the Department is going to be stricter in reviewing their application materials because they’re asking for money, and that’s absolutely not the case for SED graduate study—everybody is reviewed the same way regardless of the financial circumstances involved.
Q: What is the single most important thing a student should do before applying for financial aid?
A: They should read the materials carefully! For example, at this point our admissions office has processed about five hundred and forty-five applications so far for fall semester. Three hundred and fifty-eight of these applicants have indicated that they want financial assistance—the ones who haven’t may not have read the materials. Some of them had indicated that they planned to attend part time, and therefore they know that they’re not going to qualify for scholarships. In many cases, however, people who qualify for financial aid are hesitant to apply for it, and they shouldn’t be.
There are also students who may have checked off that they are interested in financial aid on their application for admission, yet haven’t submitted a financial aid application. It’s common for me in cases like that to contact the person to jog their memory and remind them that if they are really interested in financial aid, I’ll need an application form. I’ll keep after them because I would hate for them to lose the chance to receive money.
Q: What does Boston University do to encourage and support teachers and the teaching profession?
Because Boston University wants to encourage teachers, the University has allocated funds to aid those who are seeking State licensure/certification. We offer half-tuition scholarships for some full-time students who have a combination of merit and need and who are seeking State licensure/certification for teaching, counseling, or administration in a public school setting. This special funding is intended to benefit the area’s school systems by contributing toward teacher education. The University is committed to teachers—one of the primary reasons for our discounted evening rate is because many teachers who are working during the day are unable to take classes except for the evening. We can’t offer scholarship assistance for those people, but we can reduce tuition for those taking evening classes part time as a way of encouraging people to develop their teaching skills.
Q: What are some aspects of SED’s financial aid that applicants may not be aware of?
A: For one thing, our aid is available to international as well as domestic students, and that’s not the case with all programs in education nor with all programs here at the University. Domestic applicants and U.S. permanent residents are also entitled to government loans. The loan options are quite substantial; a student who files the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) then qualifies for Stafford loans and can borrow up to $20,500 during an academic year and more funds if they are needed for summer courses. The rate for summer courses at the University is fairly comparable with the evening rate, in fact a little bit less than the evening rate for courses they would take part time during the school year. So while we don’t provide scholarship aid during the summer; students can get loans during the summer as long as they register at least half time and they can also get loans during the school year as long as they’re half time. Since twelve credits is the minimum requirement for full-time status, a student would have to be registered for six credits in order to be entitled to a government loan.
In a sense, some of our loans can eventually turn into grants—but that’s up to government policy. A good example of this is the Perkins Loan, a government loan that’s capped at $6,000 an academic year. Students who receive a Perkins Loan and go on to teach in Title I schools, or specialize in what is considered a shortage area—science, math, special ed—often find the loan is forgiven over the course of four or five years as they go into work and repayment. Recently, the government has also started to forgive Stafford Loans for first time borrowers who are also teaching in either Title I schools or in the shortage areas. So, there are considerable options available through the government as well.
In short, if someone knows where to look—and again, if they read the materials—there is plenty of financial aid available. My office is very customer-friendly; I return calls and people are free to stop by—I’m very much involved with helping people in the process of applying for admission. I keep them in mind for any financial aid options that I can suggest to them based on knowing them, their interests, and funding guidelines. I spend a lot of time getting to know students and helping them to determine what their best options may be. When you get to the graduate level, particularly for education or for arts and sciences, the financial aid process is predominantly between a financial aid officer and the student. Many students who are freshly out of undergraduate school are not accustomed to this because in the past, most of the financial aid decisions were made by their parents. Although I do have some contact with parents, my primary contact is with the graduate students themselves.
There are still quite a few students who are just making the transition or who have never sought financial aid on their own—I do get calls from parents who want to understand what their children are committing themselves to.
Q: Do international students face any particular obstacles when applying for financial aid?
A: International students have to come up with documentation showing that they have financial support from their family or from a sponsor of some sort in order for the University to okay the process of applying for a student visa. If we offer a scholarship, students can include the aid we’re providing as part of their financial aid statement, but they still have to show that they have sufficient remaining funds. They then have to go through their local visa process, which in some places is quite rigorous. There are loans that are offered through U.S. sources to international students who have a U.S. cosigner or a U.S. sponsor, but in most cases loan options for international students are quite limited. Also, international students who are just beginning the program are required to be full time and thus can’t partake of the benefits of the evening rate, though that becomes a possibility for them later on when they’re at the end of their program and they have only a few remaining courses.
Our assistantships are also a source of support and an option for both international and domestic students. Depending on their various needs at any given time, departmental offices and professors hire assistants. When an applicant is accepted into one of our programs, the Graduate Admissions Office allows that person to apply for an assistantship. Teaching assistant positions may provide some tuition benefits as well as a stipend, and we offer Work-Study, which is another government-funded way of giving students financial aid. We have quite a few students who are receiving Work-Study funding based on their need. They have to be either U.S. citizens or U.S. permanent residents to be entitled to it, just the same as in the case of Perkins or Stafford loans.
We have a program here called BUILD—Boston University Initiative for Literacy Development—which involves quite a few graduate and undergraduate students in serving the educational community in and around the Boston area. We have a number of students from the School of Education and other parts of the University who are working as reading tutors in elementary schools, middle schools, various service agencies, and hospitals. Quite a few SED grad students work as lead tutors to help coordinate programs at these different sites. Through Work-Study, many are able to earn money as they go, and it’s good fieldwork experience for a number of them who are seeking careers in teaching and/or in literacy. It’s also another way Boston University is able to actively contribute to the educational environment in the Boston area.
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