Federal Student Aid (2024)

FAQs

Why didn't I get any financial aid from FAFSA? ›

If you did not complete the FAFSA for the academic year when you are seeking aid, you won't receive any. If you did complete the FAFSA, but didn't receive financial aid, confirm that you completed the form for the correct year. Contact your school's financial aid office if the wrong form was completed.

FAFSA® requires details about your (and your spouse's, if you're married) financial assets to help calculate how much aid you'll need to pay for college.

Request a Reevaluation of Your Circ*mstances

Sometimes a family's finances are not accurately reflected on the FAFSA^® form because of changes that have occurred, such as job loss/reduction, divorce or separation, or other special circ*mstances.

Once your FAFSA form or correction has been processed, you can get a copy of your SAR by logging in to fafsa.gov using your FSA ID and selecting the “View SAR” option near the middle of the “My FAFSA” page.

According to the office of federal student aid, some applications can be denied because applicants did not meet the basic eligibility requirements. These include: Having demonstrated financial need for need-based federal student aid programs. Being a U.S. citizen or an eligible non-citizen.

It's possible that you might not receive your entire scheduled award for an award year. There are a few reasons for this, the most common of which are that you are not enrolled for the full year or that you are not enrolled full-time, or both. We calculate the percentage of the scheduled award that you did receive.

Students selected for verification of their FAFSA form may wonder, “Does FAFSA check your bank accounts?” FAFSA does not directly view the student's or parent's bank accounts.

The FAFSA gives a parental asset protection allowance between about $30k and $50k. So, if your parents don't have more than that in assets, these resources won't be counted anyway. And above that threshold, it's only about 5-6% of the net value of the parental assets that count toward your EFC.

Based on your answers to certain questions on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA^®) form, you may be given the option to skip additional questions about your income and assets. If you're given the option to skip questions, keep in mind that doing so won't affect your eligibility for federal student aid.

What GPA is too low for financial aid? ›

To be eligible for federal student aid and college financial aid, a student must be making Satisfactory Academic Progress (SAP). This generally consists of maintaining at least a 2.0 GPA on a 4.0 scale (i.e., at least a C average) and passing enough classes with progress toward a degree.

Log in to StudentAid.gov using your account username and password. Select your processed FAFSA submission. Select “View FAFSA Submission Summary.” Select the “Eligibility Overview” tab.

If you used fafsa.gov to correct your FAFSA form, you cannot fix the mistake yet. Even though you have a confirmation number, you cannot submit a second correction until we process the first one and generate your Student Aid Report (SAR). We'll process your first correction within one to three days.

Contact the financial aid office at your school to find out when you'll receive your federal student aid. We don't determine when your aid is disbursed. Once we process your Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA^®) form, we send the information to your school, and your school handles the rest.

It means we found a record for you, but you don't have any federal student aid data on file to display. Contact us for help.

Most students are eligible to receive financial aid from the federal government to help pay for college, career school, or trade school. While your income is taken into consideration, it isn't the only thing your school considers when offering federal student aid.

Look into school scholarships or grants

Colleges and universities can be another source of scholarship and grant funding when you don't qualify for federal financial aid. Many schools offer both options to students who qualify based on one or a combination of the following: Financial need. Academic merit.