10/31/2024
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM PST


Location: Virtual Session: Zoom details will be shared upon registration confirmation.


2024 Fall Training #14: Helping Homeless and Foster Youth

The 2024-2025 FAFSA is here! This FAFSA contains many changes as a result of the FAFSA Simplification Act, including important new policies for homeless and foster youth. In this training, participants will get tips for working with students in those situations including a tool you can use for a documented interview with your student. 
 
Key highlights:

1. If a student indicates that they have an unaccompanied homeless youth determination from one of the authorized entities in the law, schools are not required to request documentation from the student. If a school chooses to request documentation, it must accept documentation from one of the authorized entities. If the student has received a documented determination from one of these authorities, the institution must not request additional documentation, proof, or statements unless it has conflicting information about the student’s status.
2. On the 2024-2025 FAFSA, a student who has indicated that they are an unaccompanied homeless youth, but does not have a determination from one of the authorized entities in the law, follows the same FAFSA flow as a “Provisionally Independent” student to allow them to complete a FAFSA form without parent information. However, because an unaccompanied homeless youth determination is not a professional judgment under the unusual circumstances provision, the student will see unique messaging that indicates the need for further action by their college or career school’s financial aid office to determine their eligibility.  In these cases, a financial aid administrator must review the student’s circumstances and make a case-by-case determination of homeless youth status based upon a written statement from or a documented interview with the student that confirms that they are an unaccompanied homeless youth, or unaccompanied, at risk of homelessness, and self-supporting. This determination must be made without regard to the reasons that the student is unaccompanied and/or homeless, or the circumstances that lead to the student’s unaccompanied homeless youth status.