Stevenson hosts annual financial aid night; experts walk families through FAFSA, net-price tools and scholarships

Adlai E. Stevenson High School District 125 hosted its annual financial aid night in the Stevenson High auditorium, where Jerry Sobrinski, associate vice president for financial aid at Lake Forest College, described how families should use the FAFSA, net-price calculators and outside scholarships to estimate college costs and apply for aid.

Sobrinski opened by addressing the central question many families bring to the process: “Is college affordable these days?” He answered, “The short answer is yes. The longer answer is college is actually more affordable these days than it was even 10 years ago,” and then outlined tools and timelines families should use to compare offers and apply for aid.

Why it matters: Families often reject colleges before seeing actual aid because of “sticker shock” — published tuition, fees and room-and-board totals that do not reflect grant and scholarship aid. Sobrinski emphasized that gift aid (grants and scholarships) typically makes up a majority of financial aid packages and that net-price calculators and the FAFSA are central to understanding what each family will actually pay.

Key guidance and tools - FAFSA and FSA ID: Sobrinski said the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) is available online at fafsa.gov and requires each student and one parent to create a Federal Student Aid (FSA) ID at studentaid.gov. He warned families to avoid copycat sites that charge for filing and recommended using the IRS Direct Data Exchange to import tax data into the FAFSA.

- Timing and tax year: The presenter noted the FAFSA opens Oct. 1 and currently pulls 2024 tax information for the 2026–27 award year (commonly referred to in aid offices as “prior prior” year data). He advised students to list up to 20 colleges on the FAFSA so schools receive the results simultaneously.

- Net price and college data: Sobrinski recommended collegecost.ed.gov’s College Navigator and each school’s net-price calculator to estimate typical out‑of‑pocket costs. He used Lake Forest College and Loyola University as examples: both have high sticker prices but widely different net costs for typical students because of institutional gift aid.

- Types of aid: He described the financial-aid umbrella — gift aid (grants and scholarships), self-help (loans and work study) — and distinguished merit-based awards (based on application credentials) from need-based aid (based on family financial information submitted on the FAFSA). He encouraged students to pursue outside scholarships because such awards are generally added on top of institutional aid.

Local and state programs - State grant: Sobrinski explained Illinois’s Monetary Award Program (MAP) grant is administered by the Illinois Student Assistance Commission (ISAC) and, when a student qualifies, is worth up to $8,000 per year for eligible Illinois colleges.

- Supplemental forms: For schools that require more detail than the FAFSA provides, Sobrinski described the CSS Profile (a supplemental application used by about 500 colleges) and college-specific forms offices use to consider special circumstances such as loss of income, health-care expenses or multiple children in college.

Stevenson follow-up and help - The district’s college and career staff — Dan Miller and Sarah Hanson, postsecondary counselors — announced a FAFSA workshop next Wednesday in the college-career center, by appointment, and encouraged families to create FSA IDs in advance. Miller said counselors and ISAC representatives will be available to help families attempt to complete FAFSA that night. The school provided a registration QR code and a contact phone number: (847) 415-4517.

Questions families asked during the event covered who must be included on the FAFSA for divorced or remarried parents, how assets are treated (including foreign assets), and whether outside scholarships affect institutional offers. Sobrinski reiterated the FAFSA’s residential rule for divorced parents: report the parent the student has lived with most during the past 12 months; if time is equal, FAFSA instructions say report the higher-income parent.

What the session did not decide No formal district action, vote or policy change was proposed or approved at the meeting. The event was informational; the only concrete next step announced was the appointment-based FAFSA workshop and the promise to post the presentation slides and a recording to the district website.

Ending: The district said it will publish the slides and a recording within a few days. Families were urged to contact Stevenson’s college-career center for appointments or follow-up questions.