Healthcare Leadership Virtual Information Session Financing Your Degree May 5 2026

Welcome to today's information session for the Master of Science and Healthcare Leadership Program here at Brown University. This is a joint master's degree program offered by the School of Professional Studies and the School of Public Health here at Brown. Today's session is devoted primarily to application tips as well as information about financing your education at Brown. So this is a real practical hands-on session. But of course, I'm going to spend a few minutes at the beginning giving you a little refresher on the program. So for today's session, we ask that you use the Q&A function on your Zoom webinar menu screen so that you can enter those questions at any point in time during the session as you think of them. And we will address folks' questions at the end of our presentation so that we can get through all the slides and make sure that we have time for questions. So I'm going to give you a quick review of the program structure and value and impact of the program, but spend much more time on the application requirements and then hand it off to my colleagues from our Financial Aid Office to provide some details. I'm joined today by Francesca and Matt, who are experts in helping students navigate the financial aid system and the increasing complexity of our financial aid system in the United States. So here we go. Program structure. So this is a one-year accelerated master's degree. It's a full Master of Science degree, and it is intended to take the best of health care knowledge, business skills and knowledge, and leadership development training to create strategic decision makers that can drive value and positive change in health care. All of our coursework is provided through a health care lens. So even when you are taking business courses like finance, you're taking health care finance. When you're taking economics, you're taking health economics and so on. So the value here is really providing things from that health care lens. So to quickly look at the curriculum, there are three terms or semesters here at Brown you will engage in continuously, going one term right into the next. And there are four full credit courses, as you see them here, that really form the foundation of the program. The policy, policy, strategy, finance and leadership and workforce development. That is supported by a whole range of health care specific topics that are half credit courses. They're marketing health, health care marketing, health economics, health law, quality improvement. And then our two technology related courses, technology data and analysis, as well as digital health innovation and AI. So those are in a lighter shade because those are fully, fully online courses. The courses, all the other courses are hybrid courses where you experience some of the curriculum in person and the remainder of the curriculum online. So there are two courses that happen throughout the program and really supplement and bring together all of the curriculum together. So you have the critical challenge project, which asks students to develop a project proposal and implementation plan for their challenge. And you work on that throughout your year of the program. And then our leadership and professional development course, which is geared towards your specific professional development. So it's a course about you and the types of skills and knowledge and practice in applying them to leadership situations. All taught by our world class faculty. The thing I would emphasize here is that the vast majority are practitioners. So they are not only academics, but they work in health care and they really provide that real world experience, the real world case studies, all of those types of things. So I'll just highlight one here down here on the bottom right is John Park. He teaches health care marketing and he is a vice president at Amgen. So he is knee deep in marketing issues as they relate to health care. So he really brings a great perspective to the classroom and that I could go on and on about my faculty and and the types of industry insight that they provide across a range of health care sectors. So let's talk quickly about the value and impact of the program. And what I like to really emphasize here is what students tell us. I can have these five bullet points about, you know, all of the great things that the program is aiming to do. But I really like to focus on what students tell us. And you can also join us for an alumni chat or a current student chat and they will you'll hear these same three themes from them. What they really value about the program is learning from a wide variety of peers. So if you are a clinician, you'll also meet hospital administrators, you'll meet folks who work in government or policy, you'll meet folks who work in the pharma industry, in a whole range of other health care sectors. If you name a health care sector for me, they've probably been in the program at one point or another. So we have patient advocates, all sorts of folks. And we design our cohorts to be reflective that way so that you can really get value from learning from your peers. The second thing they tell us is that they really appreciate our focus on applied learning. It's amazing. They come for their very first residential session and they're very excited and engaged and tell us they can't wait to go back to work and share what they're going to implement from what they've learned. And then lastly, what I hear from students, excuse me, that they really value is our emphasis on leadership development. We have that specific leadership development course that runs throughout the program, as well as leadership as a component of all of the courses in terms of the curriculum asking you to think about how would leaders think about these problems, how would they address these issues or questions that they're trying to work on in their institutions. So that's what we hear from students. And kind of in summary, this program really allows you to connect and collaborate with a diverse cohort of peers, both in person and online. There are three face-to-face sessions and continuous online learning and engagement. When you go back to your work environment, students continue to work full-time while they are in the program. So it's low residency. You just have those three weeks where you come to Providence and the rest is online and remote. And it really aims to cater to your work-life demands and creating that balance for you to continue your education while you're continuing to juggle all the other demands of your life. And then it's adjacently asynchronous learning, really allows you to participate and engage when it works for you. So if you're a person who works night shifts, you can do it at that slow moment at four in the morning, or if you're on call, you can arrange your time. It's meant to work for all different types of professionals so that they can participate actively. And last, I want to highlight the Critical Challenge Project because it really is an important component of the program. It's a student-identified challenge that you feel is in need of leadership and solution or resolution. And we want students to be in charge of picking the topic because you're the CEO of the project. And we want you to have a project that you are passionate about, a topic that you care about and want to do something about. And what we aim to have is a practical application of the coursework and your leadership skills. CCP is a great time for you to practice the leadership skills that you're developing in the program and really enables you to apply the coursework that you're learning directly to a topic that you care about. And finally, it's a collaborative process. You're the CEO, but you're collaborating with your peers, professional colleagues, faculty, advisors, so that you have a whole range of folks who support you through that Critical Challenge Project process. All right, so let me focus a little bit more in depth on applications. So applicants to the program come from diverse backgrounds, as I mentioned. They possess experience in the healthcare industry in some mechanism and preferably leadership experience. They're folks who are really seeking to broaden their knowledge, skills, and perspective so that they can have career growth and make an impact in the healthcare industry. They want to engage and expand their network and develop peers from across healthcare sectors and across the country. And they really need that flexible learning format to continue to work full-time while they're engaged in the program. There are six requirements to apply to the program. There's an application form and fee. The fee right now for our fall application cycle is being waived, so you can ignore that $200. You will not be charged that. And that is up through June 15th of 2026 so that you have applications for the fall term this fall. So the application form has your basic demographic information on it. We need a personal statement where we ask you to address what you intend to do with the program, what you hope to learn and get out of it, and how your experience and knowledge can impact and contribute to the classroom. We want you to think about what critical challenge project you would like to work on. So there's four guiding questions that allow you to think about, give us some sense of how you think about how to approach big problems in healthcare. We need three letters of recommendation. And I can't stress this enough, but that is generally the thing that takes the longest to get for your application. So the sooner you enter those names and email addresses into our application portal, the better chances we have of moving that process along in terms of getting your application processed. We need a resume or CV. And then we eventually, if you are admitted to the program, will need official transcripts. So for the application process, it's much easier and quicker to get a hold of unofficial transcripts, and we will accept them for your application. If you are admitted and choose to attend the program, we will eventually require official transcripts. We do not require any standardized testing like the GRE or GMAT. The only caveat to that is if you are in the your undergraduate degree from an international college where English is not the primary language of instruction, you will be asked to take a quick English language literacy test. So that's the only exception to testing if you happen to be an international person joining today. So what are some tips for writing a strong personal statement? So these are things I tell folks to emphasize and to think about. What is your professional achievements? What contributions have you made so far in your career? What's your academic background that you bring to the table? Importantly, why you want to attend the program. What value do you see in the curriculum that is enhance you personally and professionally? And what you are hoping to get out of a program like this? A little bit about your professional goals in terms of what you hope to be able to do with this degree. And then lastly, that important context of this is a program where you learn as much from your peers as you do from your faculty. And so it's important to think about how you can contribute in that peer learning environment. What are you bringing to the table to share with your colleagues? So identifying your capstone project. This is a short essay that we ask you to do, and we've tried to make it clear and simple in terms of the types of information that we're asking for. So first we want to know what is the challenge? And what are the complexity nature of the problem as you see it in the current environment? What are some of the technical, organizational, and social barriers and constraints? And then we have changed these last two questions to reflect more about kind of if you could wave a magic wand, what would the solution look like? This is how you would solve this challenge that you see in health care. So and if you want to address any particular ways that you might work on this during the program, that is welcome as well, but isn't part of the official question anymore. So really think about that, you know, what your idea, what your light bulb idea is to solve this challenge that you see in health care. So for the process, we have to receive all of those application materials. So those six elements, including the three references, and for now the $200 application fee does not apply. Eligible candidates are selected for an admissions interview with myself and our academic director, Scott Rivkes, and then there are an admissions committee reviews and makes a determination for admission. So in general, this is a rolling process. And so I have on the slide here that it takes approximately six weeks, but it's really much more close to one or two weeks in terms of that decision and notification of the decision. If you plan to accept your spot and want to reserve your spot in the cohort, we do require a non-refundable $1,500 deposit to join the program. And then information about any scholarship offers that the program is able to offer is communicated to you at the time of admission. So you don't have to submit any additional financial information, any additional work in terms of our merit-based scholarships that are given by the program. Right now, we are in the final phases of recruiting for the fall enrollment, fall 26 enrollment, and we are offering some significant scholarship up to 30% for really amazing candidates, which I'm sure all of you watching or attending this seminar could see yourself as. So there is a substantial incentive to apply now. All right. I am going to turn it over to my colleague, Francesca. I'm going to stop sharing my slides, and they're going to talk with you about financing your degree here at Brown. Thank you so much, Sandy. Hi, everyone. Thanks for having us here today. We're happy to be joining you. All right. So my name is Francesca Civella, and I'm an Assistant Director for the Office of Financial Aid, and I am joined by my colleague, Matt Davis, today, who is also an Assistant Director in our office. Matt and I work with both undergraduate and especially graduate-level students, and we're happy to be joining everyone today so we can talk about financing your education. So first, I'm just going to talk a little bit about the Office of Financial Aid and what we do to serve our graduate-level population. The Office of Financial Aid is located on the Brown University campus in the Paige Robinson building. Our email address is highlighted in blue, and I definitely advise taking a screenshot, writing that down. Please know that we are a resource, whether you are a prospective student, you know, a current student for the time in which you are, you know, either considering a program or enrolled. So anytime a student does have a question or concern, please know that we are available to assist you. It's just a matter of reaching out to us. In terms of what the Office of Financial Aid handles for our graduate-level population, we oversee students' completion and troubleshooting as needed with the FAFSA application. In addition to that, we manage cost of attendance budgets for all academic programs at the graduate level. And then upon receiving a student's FAFSA application, our office is also the one to determine a student's eligibility for federal direct loan programs, specifically the federal direct unsubsidized loan that a student may be eligible for upon filing the FAFSA application. I wanted to take a second before we dive into financial aid and important information to that to talk a little bit about a colleague office of ours, Student Financial Services. It is common that Student Financial Services and the office Matt and I work for, Office of Financial Aid, are confused. So we'd like to take a moment to talk about what these different offices do to better serve you, the student. So we just talked about the functions of Office of Financial Aid with respect to managing your cost of attendance, helping with the FAFSA application. The Student Financial Services office, they are the office that oversees the processing of a loan once that loan has been approved. And they also manage billing for the university. So whether that involves billing that would eventually be assessed onto a student's billing account, invoicing, different payment options, refunds if applicable, that is the function of the Student Financial Services office. So now I'm going to spend a little bit of time talking about the FAFSA application. For some students, this may be an old friend that you remember having worked with on an annual basis when you were an undergraduate student or perhaps a graduate student from a previous program. But let's talk a little bit more about the FAFSA in itself. So the FAFSA application is the free application for federal student aid. It is overseen by the Department of Education. The FAFSA is an application that is available for U.S. citizens and permanent residents to complete on an annual basis for each academic year that they plan to enroll. For any student that is eligible to file the FAFSA and is interested in potentially borrowing from the Federal Direct Loan Program, specifically that unsubsidized Federal Direct Loan, they would be required to file the FAFSA. Even if a student is not necessarily sure if they plan to borrow that loan, filing the FAFSA does not force you to have to borrow, but it's helpful to have the application completed up front so you have all options available to you. The FAFSA application is available at studentaid.gov, which is the federal student aid hub for most of their processes. So dependent on when a prospective student is ultimately looking to enroll will ultimately gauge which academic year FAFSA application you would be looking to complete. So at this current time, the 2026-2027 FAFSA application is available for students to complete over at studentaid.gov. For any prospective students that are considering future enrollment that would be part of the upcoming academic year 2027-28, know that generally the FAFSA application for that future academic year is made available sometime in October. Last helpful piece of information is our federal code. So when you're filing the FAFSA application, you are offered to include a list of schools that you would like to receive your application. Specifically for Brown University's graduate programs, our code is listed below on this slide, and that ultimately identifies for your application to be sent over to our office for review. These next couple of slides that I'm going to discuss talk about understanding an academic year based on the FAFSA application, because it can differ depending on at what time of academic year a student ultimately enrolls in their program. So this first slide is specific to students that enroll during the summer term. And again, this slide is based off of the academic year that is upcoming, the 26-27 year. For a prospective student considering future enrollment, please know that the information pertaining to FAFSA remains the same, but it would be for a future 2027-28 year. So for students that are looking to start their enrollment during the summer term, the summer itself is defined for financial aid purposes as the first term of a new financial aid year. So for a student that is a summer start, it means that their 26-27 FAFSA, for those that would be enrolling this upcoming academic year, is ultimately going to cover their three terms of enrollment. So for that student starting in the summer term, the FAFSA calendar year would cover the student's summer, fall, and spring term enrolled. This next slide is dedicated to students who may be starting their enrollment in the fall semester, or the fall term rather instead. So with respect to the fall term, this is an important piece because for purposes of a FAFSA year as it pertains to financial aid eligibility, for a student that begins their enrollment in the program as of the fall term, essentially their financial aid eligibility determination is covered over the span of two financial aid years. So for a student that is going to begin their enrollment as of the fall term, again using this upcoming 26-27 academic year as my base for this example, the student's enrollment is going to include filing two FAFSA applications for two different academic years. So using the example of this upcoming 2026-2027 academic year, for a student that begins their enrollment as of the fall term, their fall and spring term would be covered under the 26-27 FAFSA application that is presently available. For the student's final term enrolled, what would be their summer term, that would be then covered under a new FAFSA year, in this example the 27-28 FAFSA. So the idea is based on when you begin your enrollment, the cohort ultimately, whether it's a summer term start or a fall term start, know that if you are enrolled as of summer, the expectation is that you're only going to be filing FAFSA one time, which would cover your three terms of enrollment. For a student considering enrollment that would begin in the fall, know that that would mean you will ultimately be filing FAFSA and its application two times. Your fall and spring terms would be covered under one academic year for FAFSA, your final summer term would be a new academic year as it pertains to the FAFSA. Decisions, as Sandy had mentioned previously in her portion of the presentation, about merit scholarships that come from School of Professional Studies are competitive and shared at the time of a student's admission. After support is offered by the program, that's when the Office of Financial Aid will then work to determine a student's eligibility for federal student loans, specifically the Federal Direct Unsubsidized Loan, based on us of course having your FAFSA application. Please know that there is no hard deadline for a student to file their FAFSA. Ultimately, the sooner our office is able to receive an application, the sooner we're able to begin reviewing a student's eligibility for borrowing. This next slide talks about the cost of attendance for the Master's in Healthcare Leadership program, based on the totality of the program, the full 12 months enrolled. So for informational purposes, based on the most current academic year that is to begin, the upcoming 26-27 academic year, the current per credit tuition rate for this program is $8,820. On this slide, we've separated the breakdown of the cost of attendance between two separate factors, direct costs and indirect costs, and this is important for students to understand when they are understanding budgeting and financing for costs of their program. So a direct cost essentially are direct billable charges that a student can expect to see upon enrolling. So specifically for a student in this program, that would be your tuition and fees, and then a one-time academic record fee that is assessed the first term in which you're enrolled. Indirect costs are costs that are not directly billed to a student, but they are assumed expenses that a student may have if they enroll in a given program. So indirect costs can span from housing and food, books and course materials, transportation while enrolled, as well as personal expenses that a student may have. Please know that these figures that we offer are estimates based on the area in which Brown is located in Providence. This is not, again, a hard and fast number or an expectation of a charge for a student. This is a relative idea of what a student could expect their indirect expenses to be while enrolled as a student. For this next portion of our presentation, I'm going to go ahead and hand it over to my colleague, Matt. Thank you, Fran, Jessica. I really appreciate it. I want to thank Emma and Sandy as well for allowing us to be part of this presentation. Thank you very much. And I want to thank all of you today for joining us. You know, definitely healthcare is very important in this country, and I want to thank all of you for that and elsewhere as well. And let's quickly, let's get into it. So basically, Fran set the groundwork for my part. Fran, you'll face it again to review. She talked about what we are here to help you with. Differences between the Student Financial Services and the Office of Financial Aid and what we do and what they do. Pre-application for the Federal Student Aid, which is the FAFSA. Not to be confused with, some people say FASFA. It's an FSA, not SFA. And then understanding FAFSA a year, either between summer and fall. Department of Merit Scholarships, estimated cost of attendance for the MSL program, and of course, cost per credit. Thank you so much, Fran, for all of that. So now let's get into how we're going to fund these things and how we're going to be able to figure that out. As someone had mentioned, the first part of this is going to be talking about the unsubsidized Federal Direct Student Loan for domestic students. And I think someone actually had a question in there asking, basically, the fact that international students do not have access to these loans. And we'll talk more about that in a little bit. So when you take a look at the unsubsidized Federal Direct Student Loan for domestic students, I want to point out that this right now was from this 25-26 year. So the numbers we are giving you are, right now, our numbers based off of this year. One of the reasons why is because the federal government is on a fiscal year calendar. Fiscal year meaning, for many who might know this already, fiscal year being from June, excuse me, July 1st to June 30th. So some of the numbers don't come out until after June. As you can see at the bottom of this, it talks about the new interest rates for 26-27, usually if they come around June or near the end of June. But right now, we're going to use this year as an example. So interest rate for this year was 7.94%, and the origination fee was 1.057 across the board. And that was pretty much even the same for undergraduate students as well. Origination fees, meaning that these are fees that the federal government takes off the top of the loan. So if you borrow about, for every $1,000 you borrow, that's about $10 or so, $11 or so that they're going to take off as a fee. So let's give you an example at the bottom down here. So $20,500, which is the maximum up to you can borrow if you qualify, and it would have a fee of $217, meaning that it would have a net disbursement of $20,283. This means that, again, you'd be paying on the $20,500 gross amount, but what would be disbursed to your account would be the $20,283. So you got to kind of keep that in mind as well. Thanks, Fran. Next slide. Now let's talk about our unsubsidized federal direct student loan, annual loan limits, and loan eligibility, a basic formula. So basically, as I mentioned earlier, you can qualify for up to $20,500. And as Fran mentioned earlier, in order to access that amount, you must complete the FAFSA, as she had mentioned earlier. Loan amount may be prorated. Again, it's very important that it may be prorated if you're less than half time. So again, excuse me, I'm sorry, less than full time. You got to keep that in mind. So up to $20,500 is what you can borrow in a year. If you make any changes while you're in and you end up going less than full time, you could change that amount as well. Loan eligibility, basic formula is this. We have a cost of attendance, which Fran went over earlier, minus Brown School of Pressure Relief scholarships, so any departmental funding you may be receiving, minus any outside scholarships you might receive, equals your loan eligibility. Fran, thank you. So we're going to quickly talk about this, but we are going to at the end of when I'm done talking, I'm actually going to do a quick demonstration of this FAFSA choice loan comparison tool. So we're going to loop back to this again in a little bit, but basically private education loans. Now we're going to start talking about the question that someone had earlier about as an international student. And this is really where you really want to pay attention because this is going to be you as well as the domestic students as well. So basically as earlier, as I had mentioned, the cost of attendance minus those other departmental funding minus any outside scholarship. And then if you borrow, if you're qualified for up to the $20,500, you're therefore what's left over in that cost of attendance is what you could borrow in a private loan to cover other expenses as well. As I said, we're going to loop back to that in a moment. Fran, if you don't mind going to the next screen. So loan eligibility is a soft number. And so again, communicate any changes throughout the year. Basically again, and what we mean by that, again, as I mentioned earlier, if you make a change, if you decide to change a course, or if you decide to go from one class to two, excuse me, two class to one or whatever classes you have and you drop a class, again, that's going to affect your, what we call enrollment pattern. And that is going to affect your status as far as full-time, less than half, excuse me, less than full-time, less than half-time, that's going to affect things, okay, and what you can borrow. So please, if you decide that's something you're going to do, we kindly ask that you contact our office and you speak with us first about it so we can kind of explain to you what's going on with that. And as we're going to put here, again, changes which may affect your loan eligibility, again, enrollment changes, tuition changes, and the scholarship changes as well might affect your loan eligibility. Thank you. Loan disbursement, loan funds for summer term, you disperse 7-1 of 2026. So again, we're kind of getting to that fiscal and calendar year type of thing here, but again, 7-1-26. Loan funds for fall and spring disperse a few days before the semester begins. Refunds of excess loan funds begin processing on the first day of classes in fall, spring, soon after disbursement for summer. And plan carefully for living expenses based on refund schedules. So basically what that means is that student financial services, if you borrow above your direct causes that Fran talked about earlier, and you have a refund or a credit on your account for other expenses, then you can get that back as a refund. But it does depend on the term that you're in. So for instance, if you're in a summer term, then when the summer classes start, if you have a credit balance in the summer, then that would go back to as a refund to help with those summer expenses that you might have. Same thing goes for fall and spring. You possibly could have a credit balance for fall or spring. And again, student financial services cannot release that funding until after your class starts. So again, if you have any questions about that, you should contact student financial services. As I put in the chat up there, I did put their link in there and with the information to contact them as well. And as we mentioned here, please plan carefully because you may not be able to have access to your refund while you're here. So an example, let's say that you start running someplace or you had those living expenses before classes start, and you have to pay those. So you might have to pay those out of your pocket up front. And then once you're able to get your refund, you can pay yourself back. So again, you really need to carefully plan for living expenses based on the refund schedule. And again, that information would be on student financial services website. Installment payment plan. Another great option that the student financial services has is what we call an installment payment plan. Some people call it an institutional payment plan, but most people of us here at the university call it the IPP. So that might be something you want to get used to. So basically what you would do is you enroll in our IPP plan through Brown's e-bill payment system at payment.brown.edu. What will happen is once you have access, if you decide you're going to come here and you matriculate into Brown, student financial services basically will give you access to the payment.brown.edu. You would sign up through there and basically it's a payment portal that you could sign up through to be able to make payments and so on and also get refunds from there as well. And most importantly for this slide, sign up for our IPP. There is a $75 fee per term for this. So basically while the IPP does not charge you interest or anything like that, it's whatever balance you have, that's what you're paying. So again, we'll talk about the bottom part chart in a moment, but again, it's an interest-free type of plan that allows you on a monthly basis to make payments, either a three-pay or a four-pay or a two-pay as the chart below indicates. But again, to sign up for it, it is a $75 per term fee you have to pay. And it's a non-refundable meaning that if you decide to sign up for it and all of a sudden you say, you know what, I don't want to do this, two days later, you're not getting $75 back. That's what it pretty much means. Enrollment and payment dates are estimated and subject to change. So basically I'm trying to read the small print here, but you can see that there, right? Professional master's students may choose to enroll in a... Thank you, Fran. In a payment plan or IPP through their student account system once they have registered for classes and charges have posted to the student account. Students must be billed for courses prior to IPP enrollment, kind of what I mentioned earlier. See our student enrollment payment system guide for help navigating our system. And again, you can go and refer to the installment payment plan facts page on the student financial services for additional information. But basically what you notice down here is these are the payment, these are the number of payments, enrollment dates, and payment dates. So for summer, we'll just quickly look at that one. For summer, you can either sign up for a three-pay or a two-pay installment payment plan for summer. And if you sign up by May 7th, before or on May 7th, then that's a three-pay. Then what they'll do is they'll take your balance you have left, they'll break it in three, and you pay three months worth. And you can see the payment dates or schedule you can see out there as well. And it's, again, works the same way for fall and spring. What's important is that you sign up for this on those dates. That's what's very important. Because if you miss the date, then you won't be able to sign up. So that's what's also very important with that as well. Thank you. Oh, so one of my favorites as being a veteran, this is one of my favorite topics. We have our VA veterans, so our post 9-11 GI Bill, or some may refer to it as our Chapter 33, and Yellow Ribbon GI Education Enhancement Program. It's been a wonderful program for our undergraduates, and now we actually expanded it and it's a great program for our graduate students as well. Now there are unlimited spots where there used to be only a certain amount of spots that we would accept in the graduate program, but now there are unlimited spots. The VA could provide tuition support up to $30,908.34 per the VA fiscal year. Students receiving post 9-11 GI Bill benefits may also be eligible for the Yellow Ribbon GI Educational Enhancement Program for an estimate Senate Certificate of Eligibility dated within the past six months. So basically what this is saying here is that if you have the VA benefit of the GI Bill, 9-11, post 9-11 GI Bill, and if it's at 100%, and if you have about nine months worth, that would cover you for like a year in the graduate program. Basically what this meaning is, is that at 100% with the GI Bill, this would basically cover your tuition and fees, and then the VA would also, if some of you might be used to this maybe in your undergraduate years, also would send you a stipend. I do want to point out, this is VA money. The VA makes final determination, not Brown University. They make final determination as far as what they're going to pay. So again, this is where that Certificate of Eligibility comes into play, where you might want to send that to our office and we can take a look at that, and we can maybe take a look and see what we think that you would qualify for. If your post 9-11 GI Bill is not at 100%, then you wouldn't qualify for the yellow ribbon, and you wouldn't qualify for the tuition and fees covered. So again, send us that information in, let us look at it, and then we'll let you know what we think you'll be covered for. I don't know, Fran might have something else to say, I think. Go ahead, Fran. Yeah, I was just going to chime in and say before we head to our wrap-up slides, I would like to revisit the student, the private student loans, so we can especially include our international students that are joining us today. Yes, yes. And if you don't mind, Fran, I think what I want to do, Fran, is, I like, Fran, if you can just unshare, if you don't mind, and then I will share the FAFSA Choice. So what I'm going to do, folks, right now is I'm going to share our FAFSA Choice screen here, and this is going to be a little bit more information about how you, even for international and domestic students, can sign up for private loans. So I'm going to share here, and I am going to come over here, and we're going to do this. So I hope everyone can see that. Can you see that, everyone, Fran? Everybody can see the FAFSA Choice? So this is our FAFSA Choice private lending for higher education. I do want to point out as well that we're going to go to the next, so what you do is you'll log in here, and Fran, if you don't mind putting that, the link in the chat, I would appreciate that. So basically, you're going to, when you, when you go into this, it's going to come to this, welcome to FAFSA Choice, and you're going to hit next. You're going to have a disclaimer here, and what this disclaimer basically is saying is that Brown University highly recommends you speak with the Office of Financial Aid to determine if you have any federal loan eligibility prior to borrowing a private credit-based loan. Of course, again, that would be more for the domestic students, of course. If you have to consider a private loan, Student Financial Services has compiled a historical list of private loan lenders through which our undergraduate students and graduate students as well have borrowed from five or more times in the past three years. So this is not, this isn't what we call a preferred list. We are not telling you who to go with. We're just showing you this, okay? So that's very important. Brown University adheres to the Code of Conduct as established by the Higher Education Opportunity Act, as well as the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrator Statement and Ethical Principles and Code of Conduct for Institutional Financial Aid Professionals. And we have a little link here that would take you to the Code of Conduct. So if you want to go through all that and read that, feel free to. But once you've done that, you can then click on I have read and I understand this policy, and we're going to go to the next. So what this tool basically will do, if it ever gets us there, there we go, is that what this allows you to do is this allows you to basically compare lenders that offer loans. Again, this would be for domestic and international as well. I want to also just point out that if there's a loan company that you're interested in, then I would recommend, and I'll show you a little bit, there's actually will be a phone number that you can actually call them and you can discuss any of their policy with them as well. But let's just pick a few here. So before we pick, we're going to go to our filter. And as a filter, you can go up here and you can say you're going to be graduate. So you would click off the graduate right there. If you're interested in a fixed or variable rate, you could click on that. I'm just going to click right now on fixed right now. The meaning of that basically means that if you have a fixed rate that stays that rate that you determine with the bank for the life of that loan, and they can't change that for the life of the loan, a variable rate could mean that you might start off, let's say a 7% or a 5%. And then whatever their max is, and we're going to show you that in a moment, they can, any time for the life of the loan, they could change that. So that's what's good to be fixed and variable. I don't see, we have some more filters in here. So then we can come down here. We can say full-time enrollment. We're going to stay here. We're going to actually put, we're going to click all these off here. And then we'll leave those alone. And then we'll just say, filter all this out. And this is going to give us loans based off the information that we put in. So what I did was, as you saw, I put in there the different things. Plus I also added in there for US students, also our US permanent residents. And I also put in there for international students as well. So this should bring up loans that cater to that population, those populations. So let's just pick a few. I'm going to go here and I'm going to pick Empower. And again, I'm just randomly picking. So again, I'm not telling you to pick. And then we're going to go here. And we're going to say, we're going to go to this one here. Let's go down to Sallie Mae. And we're going to go here, College Ave. We'll just click on, let me see here, graduate student loan. We'll pick like a loan variable and fix. And we'll just pick one more. I don't want to get too complicated here. Let's go with Rizla, Renown Student Loan Authority. We'll go with this student loan deferment repayment. What that basically means is that you have time to pay this loan after you graduate. So let's go back up to the top. Notice at the top here that those loans that I picked all come up with this comparison list. And they right away kind of give you interest rates right away. And you'll see on here that one of them that I picked earlier does have a variable rate compared to, and the other ones kind of don't have, because I didn't pick that obviously. So we're really for Empower, Sallie and Rizla, we're looking at fixed rates. And then for one College Ave, we're also just looking at variable and fixed as well. So now what we're going to do is we're going to compare those. And this is going to really bring up a lot of information. And this is really the meat that you're going to find out what you can borrow and what's out there for you. You'll notice again, I'm not going to really go into this too detailed because I don't want anybody thinking that I'm telling them what they should go with, but just pay attention to interest rates. Also, I'm going to say this up front, most banks will require a co-signer. Some of them will say that a co-signer is not required, but most banks are going to ask you for a co-signer. There are some out there that might not, but most will. Usually what you find on a personal note is when you have a co-signer, I co-signed for my son, or excuse me, my daughter when she was in graduate school. And when she went in, she had a pretty high rate. And then when I co-signed, it actually dropped it down a little bit. So again, you might notice that as well. But again, this is going to talk about grace periods. As you can see, six months, this college actually has nine months. What this means is that you have this many months after you graduate to start paying back on the loan. Do they have fees? As I talked earlier about the federal fees, about the 1.057% fee, this right here is talking about they don't have any fees. So I'm going to get too deep to save time here so we have time for questions and answers. But as you can see, it talks about who's eligible. It goes through loan borrowing benefits. If you borrow and you do an automatic payment, you get a 0.25 quarter percent off your rate. And then real quickly, it talks about co-signer which can be released. Basically meaning that if you do have a co-signer and they're a little bit concerned about signing a co-sign for you, you can always know, hey, you can be released from this after a certain amount of time of payments that I make. And that gives you all that information there. And as I mentioned real quickly up here at the top, here's their phone number. So if there's someone that you're interested in, I recommend you give them a call and you can talk to them and they can give you more information about their loans. I don't know if, Fran, if there's anything else you want to bring up about that. If not, then I'll stop sharing and I'll turn it back over then. Thank you so much, Matt. So I think just to finish off our portion of the presentation, what we would say is especially for any student that may have a specific question that they are either not comfortable sharing today or if they're not sure if they're ready to start asking questions and they need some time to digest the information, please know that we are available. We are a resource that can help answer those various concerns at any point, whether it be a phone call, a remote meeting one-on-one, we're happy to do that and walk you through the process individually. So again, please know that we are an available contact at any point while you are considering your enrollment. Thank you both so much. It's such important information and I know your office really helps students navigate a very complicated process, so thank you for that. And I'm gonna ask Emma to help us out with the questions that are being posed in the chat. Yes, just a reminder, if you have any other questions, please add them to the Q&A. It looks like our first question in here is independent financial institutions are also very selective, as such they have even stopped offering financial loans to foreign students, including people from Canada. So what are the options for students from the UK? I'm happy to take that. So I think stemming off of what Matt was just showing on the preferred lender list, for international students, it is correct that they do not have access to filing the FAFSA application for federal loan consideration. With that, in terms of avenues with the multitude of international students that we work with, generally the financing options are that of either utilizing the installment payment plan, assuming one's means are able to do so, otherwise the other avenue is that of private loan borrowing. I think a really important feature that Matt showed earlier on the preferred lender list tool is having the ability to use the filter option, specifically as being an international resident. I couldn't advise utilizing that filter more because you're essentially only paying attention to lending products that are going to be available to you as an international student in the first place, especially because the process of looking for a private loan can feel overwhelming, especially if it's brand new to you. That is the best place to start, so that way you're only looking at options that would pertain to you based on your residency. From there, the other piece to be very considerate of is that most U.S.-based lenders are going to require a cosigner for an international student applicant. That could be a family member, a friend, it doesn't necessarily matter who the person is, but they do have to be a U.S. resident themselves. There is one lender on that preferred lender list that Matt had actually selected on the comparison tool called MPower, who is a lender that does lend to international students without the requirement of a cosigner. It can be a complicated conversation because with something like that, there's also expectations that arise of higher interest rates, so it's quite a juggling act. I think in a scenario where a student is unsure which avenue is best for their personal circumstances, and if they are considering private loans, which lender would be a better fit for them. That's a perfect example of a conversation that our office would happily have with the student to navigate those options one-on-one based on that student's exact circumstances. Thank you. The next question I'm seeing here, does Brown accept outside scholarships for the professional master's as opposed to an outside loan? Most certainly we do. Yes, absolutely. In the chat, I previously had sent out a link from our Office of Financial Aid graduate financial aid site that offers resources for external scholarships that may be available for you to apply. Ultimately, the link that I have included in the chat is a vetted resource list of legitimate opportunities and organizations that are offering students the ability to apply for external scholarship. In transparency, there are a limited number of outside and external scholarships that exist for graduate-level students in general, but this is a resource list that sort of helps, again, hone you in on actual opportunities for you to be looking at and applying for now. With respect to outside scholarships and external funding, I always advise the sooner you start the process of reviewing opportunities, the better, because you're giving yourself a head start to be amongst the first applicants in a new academic year pool that's applying. So having that competitive edge is helpful for yourself. But yes, graduate-level students can absolutely apply external scholarships as received towards their costs. That is applied towards your total cost of attendance, so that still fits within that formula Matt showed earlier in the presentation, assuming you're also borrowing loan. But yeah, it's a wonderful resource and opportunity if available. Thank you. And it looks like the last question that we have here is asking about the in-person residency requirements. So the three-week requirement to attend class in Rhode Island, is that mandatory? Also, where should students live for those three weeks, and who pays for housing and expenses? Great. Well, there is a one-week residential session as part of each semester at the beginning of the academic term that we call them here at Brown. And so you are in Rhode Island for seven class days from Sunday to Saturday, and those sessions are posted on the website for the full calendar. Yes, they are required. It's kind of an important part of the hybrid format of the program, in the sense that we want you to be able to meet your faculty in person, your fellow students in person, and really engage with people in real life before you go to that fully online space. I think this might be an international student question, but yes, you are responsible for your own transportation, lodging, et cetera, while you are in Providence. There is the official visa process for international students to be permitted to come here, and that is, we have a very, just like we have this amazing resource in our financial aid counterparts, we have an Office of International Student Services that is really very adept at navigating the visa process. So those are those things. The last thing I would note is that you are in class for those seven days, and we do provide breakfast and lunch for those seven days. Where can I sign up, Sandy? Application's open. Go ahead, Matt. If you don't mind, real quick, I know we're leaving here, but I just want to mention, someone had mentioned about Empower not offering international. I don't know, I don't want to bring up the point that this fast choice tool is not updated by us. The fast choice tool is actually updated by the banks. So that is their responsibility to update that. We don't do that here because we just don't know what they do. So we don't know anything about what they don't offer. Like I said, the phone number's there, call them, and let them help you out. But again, that's up to them to update that information, not us. Excellent. Thank you. It looks like that was our last question in the Q&A. All right. Thank you for a really informative session. I hope this was helpful to all of you who attended and for any of you who are listening to this at a later time. So we appreciate your attendance today. Thank you, Francesca and Matt, and especially Emma, for helping coordinate everything. And everyone, enjoy your day.