Applying for Aid - FAFSA

Students seeking financial aid are required to file the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). Our office cannot determine a student's eligibility for financial aid until we have received the results of his or her FAFSA form. To be qualified for most financial aid programs, students must have the FAFSA processed and to our office by March 1st. This means that in order to meet the priority deadline, a student's FAFSA must have been processed by the U.S. Department of Education, and the results of that processed application must have been sent to the school, by March 1st. A FAFSA that is postmarked by March 1st does not meet the priority deadline. Similarly, a FAFSA that is submitted online by March 1st does not meet the deadline unless the student has received an email confirmation from FAFSA that their application has been processed and the results have been sent to the school. Please keep in mind that our office will not receive the results of a FAFSA until the student has been admitted to the University.

Our office recommends that students seeking financial aid file the FAFSA no later than February 15th. FAFSAs may be filed as early as January 1st, and students seeking to receive priority consideration for federal grants and work-study should apply as soon after January 1st as possible. Student and parent taxes do not have to be completed prior to a student filling out a FAFSA form. Families may use their taxes from the previous year to estimate the tax figures requested on the FAFSA. When completing a FAFSA form using estimated figures, simply answer, "I will file, but I have not yet completed my return" to the question asked at the beginning of the section requiring tax information. If you missed the March 1st priority deadline, you can still file the FAFSA form to apply for financial aid. The date a FAFSA is processed does not impact the amount of Pell Grant (if eligible), or student and parent loans that a student is offered. Filing the FAFSA form after the priority deadline only jeopardizes the amount of funding an eligible student may receive from programs with limited funds; such as, SEOG, Perkins Loan, FSU Grant, and Federal Work-Study.

We strongly encourage students to complete the FAFSA form online to avoid processing delays. FAFSA on the web has built in edit checks that guard against some errors that may occur when filling out the paper form. Additionally, FAFSAs filed online are normally processed in 72 hours when both the parent and student sign the form using a PIN. The normal processing time for a paper FAFSA is three to four weeks. Please see the section of this website entitled "PIN" for more details about what a PIN is and how to obtain one. To complete the FAFSA online, please visit FAFSA on the web by clicking the link below.