On September 30th, Millbrook will be holding its annual financial aid night. This event provides important information to anyone who plans to attend a college or university after graduation. The presentation will take place virtually over Google Meet starting at 6:30 pm. 

  This event will give students and parents a better understanding about paying for college. The information that will be covered is about how to determine the annual cost of attending college, the different types of aid, what counts as aid, and what applications can be utilized to access financial aid. Financial aid offices from Meredith College, Wake Tech, and UNC Chapel Hill will be giving their insight on financial aid during this event. Kevin Michaelsen, the Director of Financial Assistance at Meredith College, and a Wake Tech representative will present the main information at the beginning of the session. Brooke Farmer Sibrian, a Financial Aid Counselor at UNC Chapel Hill, will be answering questions from the chat box. All three will take part in the panel discussion at the end of the presentation where students and parents will be able to air questions and concerns to the expert presenters. 

  Millbrook’s financial aid night will cover all things to do with The Free Application for Federal Student Aid or “FAFSA”. FAFSA completion is essential to post-secondary success, this often correlates with students’ attendance rates and persistence in college. The more confident students feel in their plans to pay for college, the more likely they are to go through with applying for colleges all the way up to finishing college. Millbrook’s FAFSA rate fell by seventeen percent last year. This mirrored nationwide trends that indicate if students were going to college, further proving how helpful completing and understanding the FAFSA can be for students’ post-secondary future. 

  There is a lot of misinformation about financial aid which deters some students away from college because they may be worried about paying for it. Millbrook counselor Jenny Cahoon said,“That is why we want one hundred percent of our seniors to complete the FAFSA. It is the only way for them to get a realistic sense of what they actually qualify for.” Ms. Cahoon, financial aid coordinator, urges all seniors who have questions about paying for college to attend the virtual presentation. If students or parents have additional questions, they can email Ms. Cahoon at [email protected].