Federal Student Aid (2024)

FAQs

What to do if your financial aid is not enough? ›

If you think you or your parents make too much to file the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), you're wrong. There are no income limits on the FAFSA. Instead, your eligibility for federal student aid depends on how much your college costs and what your family should contribute.

You could be eligible for as much as $30,000 of aid

In order to receive their share of these funds, students should complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). Many students mistakenly believe that they do not qualify for federal aid.

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.

If you feel like your aid package isn't sufficient, you can start an appeal process called professional judgment. Your school will review any special circ*mstances and how your financial situation has changed since you submitted your FAFSA. Ultimately, your school decides whether to offer you more money or not.

FAFSA FAQs

There's no income limit that precludes students from qualifying for student aid, so they should complete the FAFSA, regardless of their family income.

What income is too high to receive aid from the FAFSA? There is NO income that a US citizen or qualifying non-citizen can have that will completely disqualify them from receiving federal student aid. As I like to tell my students, Bill Gates' kids could complete the FAFSA and get Stafford loans.

There is no set income limit for eligibility to qualify for financial aid through. You'll need to fill out the FAFSA every year to see what you qualify for at your college.

What is the income limit for FAFSA 2024? ›

What Are the FAFSA Income Limits for 2024? Both students and their parents often think their household income makes them ineligible for financial aid. However, there's no income limit for the FAFSA, and the U.S. Department of Education does not have an income cap for federal financial aid.

The FAFSA formula doesn't expect students or families to use all of their adjusted available income to pay for college. The formula allocates 50 percent of a dependent student's adjusted available income to cover college expenses and anywhere from 22 to 47 percent of parents' available income.

The Satisfactory Academic Progress regulations require that you maintain a minimum cumulative grade point average (GPA) in order to remain eligible for financial aid. This cumulative grade point average is 2.0 on a 4.0 scale. If you drop below a cumulative GPA of 2.0, you will be placed on a financial aid Warning.

You can't receive more need-based aid than the amount of your financial need.

But, the maximum amount can be in the low tens of thousands of dollars per year. Average amounts are about $9,000, with less than half of that in the form of grants. This table shows the maximum and average amounts for various types of federal student aid for undergraduate students for 2020-2021.

Absolutely not! In fact, many financial aid experts recommend that you only accept what you really need. While accepting scholarships and grants is often harmless, you should be careful about how much you accept in student loans.

Your school may decide to pay a student's obligation by returning to the appropriate FSA program account the amount overpaid to the stu- dent. Once your school makes the appropriate return, the student will no longer owe an FSA debt but rather a debt to your school that you can col- lect according to your procedures.