March 3 Is Deadline for College Financial Aid Priority Applications

CSU Students Encouraged to File Early

February 4, 2008

California State University undergraduate students who wish to receive financial aid for the 2008-09 academic year have until March 4 to apply for the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) before the priority deadline.  

While the FAFSA may be filed after March, those filing before the priority deadline increase the likelihood of receiving maximum consideration for all sources of aid. Students also should ask their campuses and schools to submit a verified grade point average to the California Student Aid Commission by March 3 to be considered for a Cal Grant.

After filling out their FAFSA forms online at CSUMentor.edu, students may transfer their application data from CSUMentor’s transfer module directly to the U.S. Department of Education’s FAFSA website.

While the CSU encourages students to file the FAFSA electronically rather than the paper version, it encourages families to complete the FAFSA Web worksheet prior to filing the online version.  The worksheet may be found on the U.S. Department of Education’s website at http://www.fafsa.ed.gov/. The FAFSA needs to be filed every year a student wishes to be considered for financial aid.

“It is important that students and families do their homework to figure out what types of financial aid they are eligible for, and to submit a FAFSA application on time since that is used to determine eligibility for other financial aid programs available at CSU campuses,” said Allison Jones, CSU assistant vice chancellor for student academic support.  “Meeting the March 3 deadline is important to ensure that students will have the largest array of financial options.”

There are four key steps CSU students need to complete to see if they are eligible to receive a financial aid package.  Descriptions of the four tasks and other tutorials are available on CSUMentor.edu.

Students need to first estimate their financial aid eligibility and then file a FAFSA form with the federal government.  After filing the FAFSA, students should research the types of financial aid available while waiting to receive their Student Aid Reports (SAR), the federal government sends to them after evaluating their applications. When students receive their SARs, they should check for errors and make corrections to their FAFSA online, and will then be contacted by the financial aid office.