Federal Student Aid



PSC-ED-FSA-TISD

Moderator: Christal Simms

November 19, 2015

3:00 pm CT

Coordinator: Welcome and thank you for standing by. At this time all participants are in a listen-only mode. Today's conference is being recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time. Now I would like to turn the call over to Mr. Fred Stennis. Sir, you may begin.

Fred Stennis: Thank you very much. And welcome everybody. We want to thank you for choosing to tune in to our Understanding the New FSA ID Webinar today, November 19. And again, I want to welcome each and every one of you and thank you for attending.

Hopefully this session will be very informative for you. And we will be taking your questions and answers at the end of the session. Let's move forward.

Today we're going to talk about a few topics and those topics being exactly the FSA ID, how to create an FSA ID and what to do if you forget your FSA ID; a little bit about the username and password. And, as I mentioned, we will also handle your frequently asked questions. And we will hopefully be able to resolve any concerns you may have.

But this process has been designed to be really simplified and easy for everyone. We want to encourage you all to participate. And if you are preparing to attend college during this upcoming school year to go ahead and get you FSA ID now and wait before FSA season begins in January.

Why the change to the FSA ID? A lot of questions around the country have been asked of us about this whole change from our PIN to the new FSA ID process, which really will now entail a username and password.

This whole process or change took place May 10, 2015. And we made this change primarily as we indicated here on the screen because of security. We really are interested in our customers and protecting their personal identifying information. And we are not interested in experiencing any breaches.

And so we made this change in an attempt to better secure our customer information and to serve our customers and applicants even with a more improved status symbol for.

So this new process basically having a username and password is much more secure, as I stated earlier, than the PIN we used previously. But we also have the option. And we'll discuss that at the appropriate time.

For those of you who may be returning students who currently have a previous PIN, we have the option where you can utilize that PIN in this FSA ID process to help you obtain a new FSA process.

Again, the social security number and the name and the date of birth, these are new personal identifiers that we will no longer be asking as frequently as we may have asked in previous times. So again, security, security, security.

Where can I use my FSA ID? And on the screen you'll see a few sites - few Web sites where the FSA ID can be used and must be used to access these various Web sites.

And of course the first one is , which is where the actual application is housed. And you will need a FSA ID to sign the actual application. So you won't be able to submit your application without that pertinent information.

As well as NSLDS stands for National Student Loan Database System. This is a Web site where everyone's loan's history in the country is stored and you can find pertinent information about your loan servicer, contact information, look up your balances and your history, over what types of loan, how many loans you had and where and when.

So this is a Web site that's very - it's highly secure and you will need a FSA ID to access the information. And of course (using) the other two, as well as the teach agreement to serve Web site. And you have to sign your agreement to serve if you're obtaining a teach grant by using your FSA ID.

So again, security, security, security. And whether you use these sites now in the current year or the upcoming year or at some point in the future, you will need an (FSI) ID to access the information. Wanted to point that out.

Okay. Is it highly - excuse me. It is highly recommended, and I mentioned it earlier, encouraged to create the FSA ID now prior to the FASFA season starting, which begins January 1, 2016.

So again, we really want to encourage everyone now -- this is now November -- to go out and obtain a new FSA ID and hold it. You know, get your username and password and stop at that point.

And then when the FASFA season begins in January 2016, you can use that to submit your application. You've already gotten it and you'll be ahead of the game.

Now if you choose to wait, you do have that option. You won't be penalized for waiting or anything like that. But we just strongly encourage you to go out early now and get that FSA ID whether it be the parent's FSA ID and the student. They both must have their own separate FSA ID when it comes to submitting the FAFSA application.

So again, the parent has to have their own FSA ID separate from the students. So again, we encourage you to start that process now and just have it ready for - before when the new FASFA season begins.

Again, create an FSA ID. We have the Web site URL here on the screen, fsaid. This is one of the main locations where you can obtain the FSA ID. And again, you can no longer use the PIN to sign the FASFA. We indicated that earlier already.

It's now the new FSA ID in place of the previous PIN, which now will go to a username/password; similar to what you might use for a bank ATM card and sign up for those cards. You have to use a username/password. We've moved pretty much to that same type of system for security reasons.

How to create an FSA ID linking your previous PIN. Okay. Some people, as I mentioned earlier, may have gotten a PIN in previous years and now they have to go over and get a new FSA ID. We want to show you here on the screen. And when creating the FSA ID, we will give you the option to link your PIN to your new FSA ID.

And you'll see on the screen a box where we will ask you to enter your PIN and you can click to verify and we'll go out and verify your PIN and your identity and so forth. And you can continue the process.

This is a simplified way and really one of the key benefits to this is that if you already have gone through the PIN process, which means you've already gone through our Social Security Administration check and we will bypass that process because if you had a PIN, you've already gone through that; you won't have to go through that a second time.

So if you've forgotten your old PIN, you can even on this page click a button that says forgot PIN and we can go out and ask some verifying questions and you can get that PIN and link it with your new FSA ID. It's not a requirement. But we recommend that if you have a PIN that you use the linking option. We'll talk more about that as we move along in the presentation.

Again, if you've forgotten that PIN, there's an option on there where you can enter your answer in there, a challenge question answer and we can go out and allow them to continue with that linking process.

Only if you already have a PIN - I mentioned earlier linking your PIN allows you to avoid or the Social Security Administration process, which is a one to three day verification process, we've already - would have done that if you had a PIN.

And your information will simply be transferred from that PIN to the new FSA I process. Again, it's no requirement that you link your PIN. You can create that FSA ID without linking. It is your option.

As I mentioned earlier, there is a one to three day Social Security Administration match. We want to verify that you are who you say you are. We will require you enter this information, all your contact information and that will get you started.

That was a similar process you went through when you previously created a PIN. So we're going to have you go through the process again if you haven't already successfully completed.

How to create an FSA ID. Now we're going to go into the part of the presentation where we're going to do a demo and we're going to ask our - my colleague, Ms. (Myisha Challenger), to take over. (Myisha).

(Myisha Challenger): Hello everyone. And thank you for joining us today. And so what I'm going to do is show you how to start from the beginning. If you haven't already created an FSA ID, we're going to show you how to do that.

And so here's what we're going to do. As you can see on your screen, you have two options. Fred mentioned earlier there are different places that you can go to create your FSA ID; ; you can go to or you can actually go to fsaid. and it will take you to this screen.

So what we want to do again is just show you how to create an FSA ID from scratch. Now here on the screen you can see it says that you are required, not required but email is an option.

So emails are important but definitely not mandatory to create you FSA ID. We're going to talk a little bit later why providing you email is a good thing to do. But it's definitely not mandatory.

So what I want to do for intent and purposes of the demo is we're just going to put down an email address. And so the email address we're going to use is fsa, the number 4, jill at . A lot of you have Gmail accounts. Again, it's recommended to put an email account that you actually are going to use.

We'll also want to confirm this email by typing again fsa - and again, some of us type really fast. I'm guilty of that. But make sure you look at what you're putting in that - the email and confirming your email are identical.

So that's fsa4jill@. Now comes your username. And here's where I want to point out that there are question marks to the right of the boxes. These question marks are invaluable.

If you're not sure what you need to put - I'm going to click on the text box and it tells you you must enter - I'm sorry, the question mark. You must enter a username. The username must be from 6 to 30 characters long. And so what we're going to come up with is an FSA ID.

And so what we want to put down is fsa4jill. Now when I put that, it says the username is available. Do you all see that? If the username is not available, it will tell you that. Okay. So we're going to do fsa4jill.

Now we have to come up with a password and this is really key. Down at the bottom there is a show text box. When you are putting in your password, there's certain criteria, and as I start writing, you'll see that it's going to come up.

So I have FSA ID. You see that at the bottom I'm going to scroll down. It's looking for a number, upper case letter, lower case letter, special characters and then 8 to 30 characters. Again, if you look at the question mark, it'll tell you what it is looking for. Okay.

So we've got upper case F -- sorry about that -- F, SA -- again, typing too fast -- ID. And we're going to use an asterisk. Again, do you see that some of my criteria has been met but not all of it. Remember, we're going to type in the numbers 345 and now we see all the criteria has been met. It is then asking you to retype this to confirm. So we're going to have FSAID*345.

Fred Stennis: I like that (Myisha). It does give you a criteria met and tells you. I like that option.

(Myisha Challenger): It does. And then here at the bottom it asks you the question are you 13 years of age or older. For an FSA ID, you're required to be 13 years of age or older. So we're going to click yes. And then we're going to click continue.

So of course due to technical difficulties the session has timed out. No worries. We'll just start on over. So let's try it one more time. And be patient with us as we do this over again. Okay?

So the FSA ID account is going to be fsa4jill@. We're going to type it in one more time fsa4jill@. The username is going to be fsaid4jill. Says it's available like we just did. And then the password is going to be upper case FSAID* and then we show you the text, 345. This should work now.

We want to confirm the password one more time, FSAID*345. And we are 13 years of age or older. We're going to click continue and everything looks okay. Perfect.

So now we're moving onto the next stage of creating our FSA ID. Personal identification information. At the top it tells you all the different sections you're going to go through; identity, profile, review and confirm and done.

But right now when we look it's asking for our social security number. Again, for purposes of the demo, don't worry, we're not sending out any personal information. This is a number that we've made up. So the number is going to be 110-99-4444. And again, you want to make sure you review the information.

The date of birth we're going to use is 11-18-1997. This person had a birthday yesterday. Okay. And then the first name, Jill. The middle initial is M and the last name is going to be Joan. Okay. So again, we've got your social security number, the date of birth, first name, middle initial and last name. We're going to click continue.

Great. So now that we've provided this information, we now are looking at the profile information. So as you can see - and again, that show text box I really appreciate because you can see what you've put down if there are any errors.

Okay. It's showing your password, confirming your password. You've got an email address. You're confirming your email address. And now you need a mailing address. And so again, this is personal information.

So for Jill she lives at 10 Ellison Way. And she is in the Washington, D.C. area so we're going to type Washington, D.C. Again, there's a drop down box for you. And her zip code is 20202. A phone number is necessary. So we're going to put down 202 -- again, it would help to have the phone number there --- 555-4691.

It also asks for an alternate phone number. You do not have to put that down. But again, if you want to, it's optional. Also at the bottom it asks you for the information or language preference.

Some of you may be Spanish speakers or may need to see this information in Spanish. So we give you the option of English or Spanish. Okay. We have all our information and we're going to click continue.

So, as part of your creation of you FSA ID, you are required to create a challenge question. Okay. As you see here, challenge questions are - and answers are used to retrieve your username and password if you forget them or you (unintelligible) to unlock your account.

And so for your challenges questions there's five questions. There's a drop down for two of the questions. And you can see, there's a variety of different questions that you are asked that you need to answer in order to answer some of your challenge questions.

And so what we're going to do is for the first challenge question we're going to say what is the name of Jill's elementary school. So Jill grew up in New York City. And so we're going to say PS146. Okay.

The next question is going to be what is the name - again, let's pick another question. What is the nickname of your youngest sibling? Well, Jill has a sister and her name is Clare. So we're going to make Clare the name of her younger sibling.

So again, there's a drop down for those questions. Now here is where you can create your own question. And some of you this requires a little bit of creativity or it can be something as simple as what is the color of your room. Right. Because that's something that you know that some people may not know.

Well Jill loves the color purple. And so what we also want to do again is that show text box because it helps you to see what you're writing. So the color of her room is purple.

And then what is my mom's or my mother's first name? That's another question that you could potentially ask. For intents and purposes of the demo, Jill's mom's first name is Lisa. Okay.

And you can come up with any a variety of different questions that you know are just specifically applicable to you. What's your favorite movie? Anything that is descriptive that is something that only you will know. Again, you want to create questions that other people won't know the answers to. It's really important to remember that.

Fred Stennis: So again, (Myisha), not to cut you off. The first two questions are given to you and the next two questions are questions that you the applicant make up.

(Myisha Challenger): Correct. Correct.

Fred Stennis: Just wanted to make sure that was clear.

(Myisha Challenger): No. Definitely. Thank you for reiterating that. And so the last challenge question is type a significant date in your life. And I'm going to click on the question circle because this is important. It says you must answer this challenge question.

Keep in mind the characters. But here's the thing I want you to see. The last bullet says you're significant date cannot be your date of birth. That would be so easy but unfortunately that's not the case.

So type a - sorry. We're again having a little bit of technical difficulties. We're here. Type of significant date. And so we don't want it to be your birthday. And so it could be a - what I'm going to put here is -- again, we want to show text box so that helps -- is Christmas. It could be New Year. Something that you definitely will remember.

So we're going to say 12-25-2015. And then we're going to click continue. So now we're at the review and confirm box - section. So it lists your Social Security Number but only shows the last four digits, your username, your email. It also lists all of your profile information, the address, the phone. And then your language preference. And then the questions that you created.

At the bottom it's asking you to certify this information. Again, if you read right here it says by submitting this application you agree not to share your FSA ID with anyone. Again, your FSA ID is yours. You should only be creating an FSA ID for yourself. And as the parent, you should only be creating it for yourself as the parent and no one else.

If we scroll down, it says if you agree to these terms by certify that the above information is correct and accept the terms and conditions, we're going to click on the box down here and click continue.

Great. So now we're at the point where we've reviewed and confirmed and they are giving you options to verify your email. Now remember earlier I mentioned that your email is not mandatory. It is optional.

But here is where I want to mention that your email is really important. So what I want to do is - you don't have to have it. So what I want to do is continue first without verifying the email and then go back and tell you - show you how you can verify your email. Okay.

So we're going to continue without verifying. Again, remember, you don't have to verify your email. And let me just say very quickly when you don't verify your email, there may be certain circumstances where you cannot access your personal email.

You may be at school or you may be somewhere they block your - you can't access outside information. And if that happens and you need that email, it's okay. You can still continue and verify and create that FSA ID right then and there.

So here we are. Our FSA ID has been created. A username and password has been created. So now it's telling you - Fred mentioned earlier that it's been created but we have to send your information to the Social Security Administration for verification - that one to three day verification.

So let's be clear. Right now if it's - if you're a high school senior and you're completing the FAFSA, when it's available - let's say for you high school seniors out there in January when it's available, you can complete your FAFSA right then and there.

However, if you let's say need to make a correction, there is a one to three-day wait time because of the verification. So the only thing that you can do right then and there once you create your FSA ID is complete the FAFSA.

Now after the one to three days, you can access all the information we're talking about here. NSLDS. Fred mentioned the National Student Load Data System. That's where all your loans are housed; where you can view your loan servicer information.

your agreement to (serve) for the teach grant. So again, once the verification occurs, you can then access this information. But now that the ID is available, you can complete you FAFSA.

So now this is where we didn't verify the email. Let's go back and now let's go back and we have our username so we know our username is fsaid4jill, right. And we know our password is fsaid*345. And now when we click login, now we're in our profile, right. We've gone back to our profile.

Now if we look at our profile summary, it gives our name, our address. And if we scroll down at the status, you can see here that the email has not been verified. This is where it's important now where we want to verify our email.

We can send - remember earlier we did give an email address. So what I'm going to do is click on here, resend my verification email. So I did not mention in the beginning that when you are setting up your FSA ID, it's important to also have a tab open for your email account; a separate tab because that's the email, if you're going to use it, that you want to go to to retrieve your secure code.

So here we are. I have my FSA ID email. So we're going to look at what was sent to me. And here it says - let's refresh because sometimes it takes a while for the information to come.

So when we go back in - here we go. Important. Your FSA ID email validation. So now it says Dear Jill, to complete your email verification (the) secure code.

So what we're going to do is we're going to copy our secure code in the tab. Remember I said the tab is important - a separate tab to be - we're going to go back to the FSA ID. We're going to put our clicker there. We're going to paste the number in. We're going to click continue.

So now it says you must enter a secure code exactly as it appears. So it seems like that number isn't working. Well here's the good news. You can request a new secure code. So let's request a new secure code. Go back to the email. Click reload. And here we go. Another secure code has been sent to us.

So let's copy the secure code. Go back to FSA ID and pray this does the trick. We're going to paste that number in there. Press continue. And it says at the bottom you have successfully verified your email address. You can now use your verified email address as your username.

So understand when you verify your email address, you can use the email address as your username or you can use your previous username. Again, it's just as your username.

So again, that's just to show you that you can continue without verifying and now you've verified you email address. I want to show you a couple of other things as far as editing your FSA information.

Now that we're in our profile, you have two options. You can edit my FSA ID or edit my challenge question. You may decide you want to change your challenge question. But let's go into edit my FSA ID.

And so now what we have is our information. And so let's look. We've got our username. We've got our first name, middle initial and last name. Well let's say even though Jill's birthday was yesterday. It really wasn't yesterday. It was the day before yesterday.

And so let's say we want to change the 18 to 17. If we change any type of personal identifier or last name or date of birth or your social security number; let's click continue to see what happens.

There's a box that prompts you that says you made changes this to your personal identifier. If you proceed, you will have to send your information back to the Social Security Administration for verification.

So again, remember we talked about that verification process earlier in the presentation. It takes one to three days. Any time you change any personal identifier, it - the verification process will have to happen again. Okay.

So it's really important that you understand if you edit any of those personal identifiers, the verification process will have to happen again. So we're going just click no. I just wanted to show you again if you wanted to edit your information what that looks like. So we're going to hit cancel.

So now we've got our FSA ID. We've got our username and our password but many of us forget that information. Right. Many of us don't remember it. So I want to show you what will happen if you forget your FSA ID, username and password.

So we've created our password so we don't need to create a new FSA ID. But we may want to edit it. And so when we're talking about forgetting a username or password, here's where you can go.

So let's start with I forgot my username. Okay. So there's a button here again. Use the prompts that you see. We're going to click on forgot my username. If you forget your username, it says to retrieve you FSA ID username use one of the following options.

We give you two options; an email and also - you can have an email sent. Remember when we talked about that secure code.

Fred Stennis: Oh yes.

(Myisha Challenger): Or you can use challenge questions.

Fred Stennis: I see why here the email is very critical and useful.

(Myisha Challenger): Exactly Fred. So that's why I said even though it's not mandatory, if you have an email and you forget, this is a really quick way to get the information...

Fred Stennis: Right.

(Myisha Challenger): ...so that you can remember your username. So let's put in our FSA ID. Our FSA, excuse me, email address. So it's fsa4jill@. We've got a - so right here we're going to click on email secure code.

So it says to retrieve your - it says it has been sent so make sure you open - remember earlier I said make sure you open a browser. It tells you to do that right here. So let's go back to our Gmail account. Click on the inbox and sure enough it says you forgot.

Look. It tells you in your email you forgot your username. So this is a username request. Again, all you have to do is highlight. You don't have to type in the number. You can just highlight the number, cut and paste it into the box here that asks for the secure code and click submit.

And look. It gives you your username, fsaid4jill. See how easy that was. So don't worry if you - don't worry if you forgot your username. You can retrieve it with the email address or...

Fred Stennis: That was fast. (Unintelligible).

(Myisha Challenger): ...that was very, very fast. Or your challenge question. So this is just one way to show you how - if - what happens if you forget your username. Now let's talk about if you forget your password because again, that may happen as well.

So let's look on forget your password. So again, it gives you the same two options. You can either - now at the top - look how it says to reset your password. So if you forget your password, we are not going to send you back the same password. You have to reset it. Okay. It's important to remember that. You're going to have to create a whole new password.

So again, the options are you can use your email and the email - in the email you'll be sent a secure code. Or you can answer your challenge question. So let's read what this says.

It says answer three of your five challenge questions. And I didn't mention that earlier that even though you've answered five questions, you'll be given three. This note is very important for security purposes. If you reset your password using the challenge question option, just your password, you will not be able to use your password for 30 minutes.

So again, you have both options but if you can't access your email for whatever reason, understand that you can't use your ID once you reset using the challenge questions for at least 30 minutes.

For the demo purposes I just want to show you what that looks like. So we're going to click on challenge questions. So now here before you can answer you challenge questions, it is going to ask you for your FSA ID.

So it's going to be fsa4jill. And then we're going to click continue. Now obviously I did something wrong. So let's look again at the username. So it looks like we have the username in here properly. Let's type it one more time for fsaid4jill. Let's see if that works. Perfect.

So obviously if you type something wrong, it's going to tell you that it's not working. So here we are. They've asked you three challenge questions. So again, I think it's important when you're entering the challenge questions to show a text - to use your show text box.

So the name of your elementary school. Do you all remember where Jill went to elementary school? She's from Brooklyn. So she went to PS146. What is the nickname of Jill's youngest sibling? Here name is Clare.

And let me also say this. I didn't mention that for the answers they're not case sensitive. So it's really important that whether it's upper case or lower case you can use - it's not case sensitive for your answer. So it doesn't matter how you put it in as long as the answer is accurate.

And then what is my mother's first name? So again, it's Lisa. Okay. So we've answered three of the four questions. And then we're going to hit verify.

So see. This is what you receive. So you get a new password. So again, you're resetting your password. You're not going to get an old password. Now we're not going to go through this because as I mentioned, as you saw earlier, it takes 30 minutes. But it's going to ask you for a new password and then confirm your new password. So this was just a short and easy way to show you the process.

So Fred started off with showing you how to link your PIN. For some of you, you have your PIN and you're going back in to fill out your FAFSA. So you can link some of your personal information into the FSA ID versus manually putting it in.

I just showed you how to create and FSA ID from scratch. These are all new users. Putting in your personal identifiers, your profile information. You don't have to use - the email is not mandatory so you can continue without verifying your email. And then I showed you how to verify your email. And then what happens if you forget your username and what happens if you forget your password?

So now what I want to do is share with you what happens if you forget -- and Fred, has this ever happened to you -- if you forget your username and your password and the challenge question.

Fred Stennis: Yes.

(Myisha Challenger): You don't remember anything.

Fred Stennis: Yes. It has happened to me once before. And it was an interesting experience.

(Myisha Challenger): So what we want to do is show you how we can do that. And so what we're going to do now is go back to the presentation and share with you how you can do that. Okay.

Fred Stennis: What I see here as you continue (Myisha), this whole process is really not as laborious or hard as I heard. Really simple. And you've gone through it with relatively ease. And I'm really excited.

(Myisha Challenger): No. It's an exciting process. A lot of people - there are more steps. Let's be very honest. But the steps are easy and it's about you. So you can make this experience very simple.

Fred Stennis: And again, security, security, security.

(Myisha Challenger): And so here is what happens. If you've forgotten your email and challenge question answers, which can happen - and I'm going to read this. If the email challenge questions and username or password has been forgotten, which is (unintelligible), the user needs to call the Federal Student Aid Information Center -- we call it (FSAIC) -- at 1-800-(4fedaid); 1-800-433-3243 and ask to be transferred to an FSA ID specialist.

That specialist will do an identity verification, which involves the individual sending some government issued photo ID to be verified. This can usually take up to seven days.

Fred Stennis: Like a driver's license or something like that?

(Myisha Challenger): Exactly. So again, don't fret because the reality is a lot of us don't remember things. And it's possible to remember one but not all or forget all. And so if that occurs, you can call the 1-800-(4fedaid) number. Ask for a FSA ID specialist. You will be asked to provide some type of government issued ID and then the verification process again will happen. It'll take up to seven days. Okay.

Fred Stennis: (Yes). (Here) this is example of how security plays into this whole process. And that's ensuring that the applicant is who they say they are.

(Myisha Challenger): Exactly. Exactly Fred. So just to kind of give you all an overview, I did it earlier but you've learned a lot thus far and we're not done. We're going to test your knowledge on what you have seen.

And so we learned how to create a new FSA ID username and password. But we also showed you how to link your PIN. And if you've forgotten, a challenge question or a question you can answer to retrieve that information; how to edit your FSA ID profile information.

Remember, any personal identifiers that you change are going to have to go through that one to three day verification process once again. So again, you can - the verification process is going to happen with any information you put in.

But if you change any of those personal identifiers, it'll be another one to three day verification. And then how to reset your username and password by emailing using a secure code or by answering the challenge questions. Remember, it's one or the other, not both.

So at this time we really want to test your knowledge even though we can't hear you. We think that these are some scenarios based on the information that we provided that you should be able to answer.

Fred Stennis: (Yeah).

(Myisha Challenger): So Fred...

Fred Stennis: Okay.

(Myisha Challenger): ...let's share some of the scenarios with the participants.

Fred Stennis: Gladly. I am a parent who wants to create an FSA ID for my child. So I can access their account. Can I do that?

(Myisha Challenger): What do you think people are thinking out there? I'm hoping people are either - they're shaking their head one way, either up or down or left and right.

Fred Stennis: Right. Right. I remember your answer in the presentation. But let's see what the survey says.

(Myisha Challenger): Survey says.

Fred Stennis: No. Only the owner of the FSA ID can create or use the account. We talked earlier about the importance of the student having their own FSA ID separate from the student. The student and parent may not share the FSA ID. And also an email address cannot be used for more than one FSA ID. So the parent and student must have their own separate email address as well.

(Myisha Challenger): That's a great point. Thank you for sharing that Fred. How many of you guys got that right? Hopefully that was an easy one. Let's give you another scenario. Okay.

Here's the next scenario. I just created my FSA ID and I want to complete the FAFSA. Do I have to wait?

Fred Stennis: Good question. Good question.

(Myisha Challenger): So we talked about some of the other sites that have to be accessed, NSLDS. If your...

((Crosstalk))

(Myisha Challenger): ...dot gov. So what do you think the answer to this is? Do you have to wait? We talked about one to three day verification. I wonder what the answer is.

You can use your new FSA ID immediately to complete and sign and submit a new FAFSA. Okay. If you did not link a PIN when you created your FSA ID, it takes one to three days to confirm your FSA ID information with Social Security.

Once the Social Security Administration confirms your information, you will be able to start using your FSA ID for all FAFSA (apps) such as starting your renewal FAFSA or making a correction.

And so what I want to reiterate here is as we said, once you create your FSA ID, you can use it immediately to submit a new FAFSA. However, based on the FAFSA's not available now. Okay everyone? So let's be clear. Once the FAFSA's available for those rising seniors in 2016, 2017, you can create you FSA ID but there is not a FAFSA to submit.

Now however, if someone wants to go to school in January per se, then there is a FAFSA that is available now that you can fill out. So again, based on when you are going to school, you can submit your FSA ID or you can submit your FAFSA using your FSA ID immediately.

But if you want to access some Web sites or make any corrections, you've got to wait for that one to three day verification process. I hope that helps.

Fred Stennis: Yes. That helps a lot. Yes. Thank you for letting us know that.

(Myisha Challenger): Okay. One more scenario Fred.

Fred Stennis: What if I changed my last name? Do I need to change my FSA and the account information? And I remember you talked about some specific personal identifiers.

(Myisha Challenger): I did, didn't?

Fred Stennis: Yes. Do I need to change my whole account information? Good question. What's the answer? Yes. Notify FSA ID of a change to your personal identification information or log to FSA ID profile and to let the - edit my FSA ID's link found on the top left side of the (My FSA ID) profile page.

So I guess again as mentioned here, you're changing those personal identifiers like your name - first or last name, date of birth or social security number. Then yes, it would require a new verification by the Social Security Administration.

But if you're not changing one of those personal identifications - identifiers, then the answer would be no.

(Myisha Challenger): Perfect. Thanks Fred. There's a note.

Fred Stennis: If you make changes to your name, as I mentioned earlier, your date of birth and you social security number, your updated information will be sent, as I said, to the Social Security Administration. And it also says you have limited access to certain applications until your information has been verified by again the Social Security Administration.

It's all about identity. We want to make sure everybody's protected. Their personal information is not violated or used erroneously. So we really want to make sure we have - are compliant with that verification process.

(Myisha Challenger): Perfect. So what we want to do is share with you some places - some information that you can use as resources when it comes to your FSA ID. We mentioned the 1-800 number, which you can call about any type of FAFSA questions but specifically about the FSA ID. We talked about that FSA ID specialist.

But there's a 1-800 number if you have questions; 1-800-(4fedaid). We mentioned that to access the FSA ID you can go to fsaid or fsaid. or when you go to , there's a prompt where you can create your FSA ID.

And then also on there's a frequently asked questions page where people ask questions about the FSA ID. We didn't mention this but after three tries if you put in incorrect information, your FSA ID will lock.

And so there's a way to unlock your FSA I. And all that information is provided to you on our page under frequently asked questions for FSA ID.

Fred Stennis: Very good.

(Myisha Challenger): And then (IFAP) has an announcement where how you - gives you some guidance as far as how to create the FSA ID as well. So lots of really great information out there for you.

Fred Stennis: Good choices.

(Myisha Challenger): So there's no reason for you to fret about this change. We've given you a lot of information that you can...

Fred Stennis: Very helpful information. Now it's time for our questions and answers. And we have a few questions and answers that have come in. And we want to thank you (Myisha) again for showing us how to obtain our own FSA ID.

Here's a quick question here. I had a question come in from a young lady that asks what is the teach grant. And (actually) we don't really go to in depth here in this Webinar. But just in a nutshell, the teach grant is a federal grant that one may obtain after a course (unintelligible) FAFSA and maybe a grant that you may be interested in.

But just understand a part of that grant there is an agreement to serve requirement. So if you do obtain or awarded that grant, there is an agreement that comes with it. And there's a Web site where you can sign that agreement to serve and you will need a FSA ID in order to access that Web site.

So that's why again the FSA ID is so critical because there are various sites you will - you can go to or need to go to and you will have to have your FS ID to access and the teach grant service agreement form is on the Web site but you'll need to FSA ID to access.

A lot of good questions are coming in. What do we do or how do we input a social security number if we don't have one?

(Myisha Challenger): A question that I see. So for intent and purposes of the FSA ID, you do need to have a social security number. You need to have a valid social security number.

So some of you may hear for undocumented parents, they can put zeros in. That will not work for the FSA ID. So you do need to have a social security number - a valid social security number in order to create your FSA ID. If you do not, you will not be able to create it.

Fred Stennis: That is correct. You have to have a valid social security number. I see a question here (Myisha) you might want to answer this one. Did you say that there is a one-day lag time between creating an FSA ID or being able to complete a FAFSA?

(Myisha Challenger): Well that's a good question. So there is no lag time between creating your FSA ID and completing the FAFSA. You can access your FAFSA and complete it with the FSA ID.

The distinction that we're making, that one to three days, is to verify the information that you have placed - that personal information in your FSA ID. So you can complete your FAFSA right away. You don't have to wait the one to three days.

The verification of your information will take one to three days. I will say this to you all. I showed you how to edit your profile once you have your username and password. You - I believe that once you create that username and password and you look at your profile information, it'll let you know there whether or not that information has been verified.

So that one to three days, again, that's why we give the range of one to three days. We can't tell you exactly how long it'll take. But once you go back into your profile, you should be able to tell when your information has been verified. But the FAFSA can be completed right away.

Fred Stennis: Right. Thank you for making sure you clarified that for us. Here's a question here that says my spouse and I have only one email. Can we use the same email for the FSA ID?

(Myisha Challenger): You answered that question earlier Fred, didn't you?

Fred Stennis: I thought I did, yes.

(Myisha Challenger): You want to reiterate what you said?

Fred Stennis: No. You cannot use the same email address when trying to obtain an FSA ID. So it might mean that we may have to go out and obtain a second email address, Gmail or yahoo or something that you feel comfortable with or Hotmail. But you will need a separate email address that you will use and that you won't forget and it just becomes deactivated. So you have to have a second or separate email address.

(Myisha Challenger): And let me say this. The system will know if the email address has been used already.

Fred Stennis: Right.

(Myisha Challenger): It'll give you a message saying this information has already been used or someone is using it. So again, it's just as simple as creating a Gmail account. It doesn't take that long to create an email that you can - again, it's optional. You don't have to use it but we recommend using it so that you can receive those secure codes of you forget a username or password.

Fred Stennis: Do you have to wait for you FSA ID to be confirmed before you can use the data retrieval tool? We didn't get - we didn't get into that much here. But I believe you will be able to utilize the tool once you are - have submitted a FAFSA application and your tax information has been properly analyzed and processed by the IRS agency. Okay.

I think we have another good question coming in as well. It says if a student creates their FSA ID say in March, March the 2nd, without a PIN, will that cause the student to miss the March 2nd deadline? And I don't know what deadline that is. I know there's state - a lot of state agencies who will give state grants and each state may have their own separate deadline date.

So you want to make sure you're aware of what those deadline dates are. So - and that goes back to my initial point in the very beginning of the presentation where I really just encouraged everybody and I still encourage you to obtain you FSA ID now and this is November. And just have the information and hold it and wait until the application - the FAFSA application process begins in January and you can use it.

That way you don't have to worry about February or March or whatever. You already have gotten your FSA ID. So that would be my recommendation. But it is key and critical to know your state deadlines and your - any institutional deadline dates. You want to make sure you're on time to meet their deadline requirements.

(Myisha Challenger): And as Fred mentioned earlier, because you're not linking your PIN, you still have to go through that verification process. So as an example, if the deadline for a particular state is March 1 and you created your ID that same day, you're still going to have to go through that one to three day verification process.

So you just don't want to test the waters in essence. You want to create that FSA ID like Fred said prior to because there will be a one to three day verification that has to occur. And you don't want to miss that deadline waiting on that FSA ID to be there by.

Fred Stennis: Okay. Okay. Just got time for just a couple more. Our time is winding down. And another question that comes in. What if the parent does not have a social security number? I think we already touched base on that and just basically said that everyone has to have a social security number or they will not be able to utilize or sign the FAFSA application without FSA ID.

Another person asked a question. What is the purpose of the 30-minute wait to reset the password?

(Myisha Challenger): That's a great question. So again, that's just the nature of the challenge question. For whatever reason the system requires that 30 minute delay before you can use that password. That's just the nature how the FSA ID is set up.

I know a lot of people would like that lag time to decrease but just know that for the challenge questions that is just the timeframe that you have to wait in order to use your password once it's reset.

Fred Stennis: Okay. Excellent. Thank you for that answer (Myisha). I see a question here from a concerned parent indicating that I guess their student, a senior completed the wrong application, the '15/'16 application as opposed to the '16/'17 application by mistake erroneously and what they can do to fix that.

And there's a question on the FAFSA that asks you when you plan to attend college. So if you're - if you mistakenly selected the '15/'16 application and you won't be enrolled in college then, nothing will happen.

I think you will need to - you can go back in and submit a '16/'17 FAFSA application and still change that FSA ID. Or if you already have the FSA ID, you can use that ID still on the '16/'17 application.

So no worries. And again, if all else fails and you have questions, you can give our customer service or (FSAIC) Center a call at 1-800-(4fedaid) and they can assist you through that process and they'll ask you some identifying information. Any more questions you see (Myisha) coming in?

(Myisha Challenger): This is a good question. Someone asked if an email for a parent is not entered, will they still be able to submit the FASFA with the FSA ID being created?

So this is a good question. Remember earlier I mentioned you do not have to have an email address. You can just have a username. So if you have a username and password created, then your FSA ID is indeed created.

You can use that FSA ID to complete your FAFSA. So as we mentioned earlier, the email is not mandatory. If you do give the email, it needs to be your own unique email and so it can't be the same email as the student and the parent. Remember they can't have the same email.

So you don't have to use the email when creating the FSA ID. The ID can still be created just using the username and password. Once you create that, you can use it to complete the FAFSA.

Fred Stennis: Okay. I see one more question here. This is from I guess a financial administrator. Says if you leave an institution - one institution and begin working in another institution, do you - does you FSA ID stay the same? Yes.

Your FSA ID will stay the same. It's not really germane to what institution that you work at or transfer to. The same would be true with a student who started at one institution and changed to another institution. They will still be able to utilize that because it's all tied to that Social Security Administration match, which is your personal identifiers, your name and your date of birth and your social security number. So if that matches up, then you'll be okay.

(Myisha Challenger): We're just looking at questions that we don't want to be redundant but something that maybe we have not spoken to as of yet.

Fred Stennis: Yes. I see a lot of questions here still and it is kind of redundant related to the parents not having a social security number or email address. And the question is whether or not they can still participate in the process.

Now we mentioned again, everyone will have to have their own separate email address and separate FSA ID in order to sign the FAFSA application and get that properly processed.

(Myisha Challenger): Here's another question. If the student has used one email for FAFSA with a PIN and they're now signing up for a FSA ID, can a new email be used?

And I wonder if you're asking can the old one be used. But FSA ID is a completely new process. Okay. So whatever you've used for the PIN unless you link the PIN...

Fred Stennis: Yes.

(Myisha Challenger): ...that information will be provided. But if you haven't linked the PIN, then you can use a new email to create you FSA ID.

Fred Stennis: Okay. Yes. This person's asking has the use of the PIN been completely phased out. And the answer is yes. In other words, if a student wants to check financial aid information, would the system automatically prompt them to create a FSA ID?

So if they don't have - if you're referring to the financial information in the FAFSA information, then yes, you will have to access that information if you want that information with the FSA ID.

So you won't be able to utilize that PIN. But in terms of creating a FSA ID, as (Myisha) mentioned earlier, you will be able to link that PIN if you already have a PIN to this process and your information will be transferred over because you've already completed the Social Security Administration when you (give) the PIN and that information is already there so you don't have to do it again. And that will expediate the process.

(Myisha Challenger): Here's a question. I missed the part on how to unlock a locked account. So that's a big thing that can happen. If you are locked out, you will get a message that says you've been locked out of your account. And then there'll be a prompt that asks you to log in. If you can't remember any information and you remember your email address, they'll send a secure code and then you can unlock your account.

So it'll prompt you if you've locked your account. For more information about how to unlock your account, remember I mentioned on under frequently asked questions, there's a specific question that speaks to unlocking your account. So please go there if you would like more information.

Fred Stennis: And I see - this is a really interesting question. And I don't think we covered this in today's session. The person asked does the student's FSA ID need to match the same as it appears in the social security card. I would say yes. I know people get married and names change, last names change and so forth.

But we're going to go by what the Social Security Administration has on file for you. So if your name was John Doe today, then that's what they're going to look to match against. If you change your last name from Doe to Smith or something else, then you would have to re-go through a verification process a second time because a match would not have been made initially.

So and that's a very good question. It is critical that everything match up so we can make sure that every - that you are who you say you are. Again, security, security, security. We want to make sure that everyone's information is properly secure.

(Myisha Challenger): Here's a question. So if a person creates their FSA ID and starts their new FAFSA but the page times out before they finish, will they have to wait one to three days for social security verification to get back into their FAFSA application?

I think they're - I think you guys are confusing maybe two different processes. The FSA ID is one to three days verification. If the FAFSA times out, you just would go back in, put in your password and then all the information should be there or you would fill in the information.

But you can use the FSA ID. The verification process, the one to three days is just specifically for the FSA ID. It does not have anything to do with actually completing information and putting it in the FAFSA form.

Fred Stennis: So that's really again the one when you're applying for a new FSA ID. You have to be verified first. This is a question here a person's asking. Do they still have the option? I believe they're referring to the signature page on the FAFSA itself. Do they have the option to complete or print - to print a signature page and sign it?

And the answer is yes. That option is still available. In fact we do a majority of our applications online at . However, we also still have the paper process or paper application available. So if one elects to use that process - the paper process, that still is available and the signature page can be signed by both the student and parent in paper form.

(Myisha Challenger): Here's another question. Where can I find the audio presentation? It sounds like some of you are wanting to get this information. And so the audio will be made available. It is on the financial aid toolkit is where you can find this information regarding the FSA ID Webinar; financialaidtoolkit. is where you can go. Type in FSA ID and the Webinar should come up.

Fred Stennis: Okay. And (Myisha), I think that's about all the time we have. Our time has unfortunately wound down. And we're going to have to exit this Webinar. And we want to thank everybody for signing on and participating. I hope this has been helpful and educating for you. And we hope you will get through this process with success and ease as we just did. We know you can.

And again, if you didn't get a chance to complete this Webinar, if you have family or friends or colleagues who did not get an opportunity to participate in today's Webinar, we'll be featuring another Webinar on the FSA ID in the month of December. So stay tuned for that.

During the registration process we indicated or gave you the option to sign up for the November or the December option. But on the screen it indicates December the 10th at 3:00 pm Eastern Standard Time. And the same link that you used for today's registration will be available for the December 10th Webinar as well.

So again, we want to thank you again and everyone have a blessed day.

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