FAQ

The Title IV School Code for SFA is 003624.

Depending on how you submit your FAFSA, it can take anywhere from 3 days to 3 weeks for the U.S. Department of Education to process your application and send you a Student Aid Report (SAR) with your expected family contribution. SFA will receive a copy of your FAFSA, and we’ll use that information to create your financial aid package offer. That process can take two to three weeks.

We’ll send all of your financial aid communications to your mySFA email address. If you’re a financial assistance applicant or recipient, we recommend checking your mySFA email at least once a week so you can respond to messages and make sure your financial aid processing isn’t delayed. If you receive financial aid offers, you’ll need to accept each of them individually before they can be disbursed to you.

If you are a one-term only student, your Direct Loan funds will disburse in two separate disbursements.

If you are denied federal student aid because of missing information, you will be informed and given an opportunity to update your FAFSA. If aid is denied because you are not eligible, we encourage you to talk to a representative from our office to discuss your options.

When you take out a subsidized federal loan, the U.S. Department of Education pays your interest while you’re in school, for the first six months after you leave school and during deferments (when loan payments are postponed). If you receive an unsubsidized loan, you will be fully responsible for paying the interest, which will start accruing as soon as you take out the loan.

Absolutely. The decision to accept individual financial aid offers is entirely up to you. You won’t be penalized for your choices. We encourage you to carefully review each assistance offer that you receive to determine if it’ll sufficiently cover your college expenses — and how it’ll impact your finances after you graduate.

If you need to take out a loan, we suggest starting with federal loans when possible. The interest rates on federal loans are fixed and tend to be lower than other loan options, and they usually give you flexible repayment options. No matter what types of loans you’re considering, we strongly encourage you to carefully review all fees, terms and conditions. We want you to understand exactly what you’re committing to and for how long.

The answer to this question depends on your particular loan(s). If you take out a federal loan, you won’t have to start repaying it until you leave college or drop below half-time enrollment. Some loans also have a grace period — a set time after graduating or leaving school — before you have to start making payments.

Your loan servicer or lender will be required to provide you with a loan repayment schedule that informs you when your first payment is due, the number and frequency of payments and the amount of each payment.

Log in to mySFA to accept or decline the offer.

If you decide to accept the offer, view open work study job postings and follow the application process.

Yes, you will need to complete a FAFSA for every year you’re enrolled in college. But that can work in your favor. Your eligibility for certain programs may increase from one year to the next, and that could result in more and/or improved offers of assistance. Also, after completing the FAFSA for the first time, you’ll be able to use an online renewal form that prefills your basic information (institution, address, date of birth, etc.).

Yes - you may repeat a course and have it count toward enrollment for financial aid eligibility purposes. However, due to federal repeated-coursework rules that began in 2016, each course attempt counts toward your pace of completion, and all previous attempts with lower grades will count as unsuccessful credit hours attempted.

Note: The federal guidelines mandate that you can only receive federal financial aid for one repeat of a previously passed course. So if you decide to repeat a course to improve your GPA, you can repeat it one time and receive financial aid for that class. However, if you want to repeat it a second time, it won’t count for financial aid purposes, and you could lose your eligibility for financial aid, depending on how many hours you are taking. If you are in this situation, please contact the financial aid office for more information.