The process of disbursing financial aid for the semester has begun. What does this mean for you? 
The date of August 13 is the earliest date that Student Financial Aid could begin moving aid funds from our office to pay your student account in the Cashier’s Office.  Federal regulations allow schools to begin the process 10 calendar days before the beginning of the term (August 23rd, 2010), but your aid will not pay if you have not responded to our requests for additional documents or information.  Therefore, it is extremely important that you regularly check your UMSL e-mail address and your “Things to Do” list in your MyView account.  Once you have submitted all of your required documents and completed all of the required steps, you should allow up to 10 business days before you will see your aid applied to your student account.  After the financial aid funds are applied to your student account, the Cashier’s Office will begin the refund process.  You will only receive a refund if your financial aid payments exceed the total charges on your student account.  In general, the processing of a refund takes an additional 3-5 business days for direct deposit and 7-10 business days for a paper check to arrive to a student.  Students that owe a past term balance will have their refund sent to the Cashier’s Office for pick up.  Once you see your MyView account at a zero balance the refund generation can begin.

To students on the Federal Work-Study Wait List:  All Federal Work-Study funding has been awarded to students for the 2010-2011 academic year.  Students who received a work-study award have been notified via their UMSL e-mail address and will be able to see their award in MyView.  Federal Work-Study funding is extremely limited each year, so if a student did not receive work-study for 2010-2011, they are encouraged to re-apply for the 2011-2012 academic year. The Federal Work-Study application for next year should be available in early April of 2011.

Beginning with the Summer 2010 semester, UMSL will participate exclusively in the Federal Direct Stafford Loan (subsidized and unsubsidized), Federal Direct Parent PLUS Loan, and Federal Direct Grad PLUS Loan programs.  Students and parents will be required to use the Direct Loan program for all federal student and parent loans.  As a result of recent legislation, the traditional Federal FFELP (Federal Family Education Loan Program) loans through banks, credit unions, and other student loan lending companies will no longer be available.  Under the Federal Direct loan programs, students and parents will borrow from the federal government through their colleges like they did with lenders.For more information regarding Direct loans please visit studentloans.gov

STEPS TO COMPLETING YOUR STUDENT LOAN

UMSL's Student Financial Aid office has developed a quick and user-friendly guide to completing the important steps for securing your student loans. **UPDATED WITH DIRECT LOAN INFORMATION** Download the Student Loan guide.

SCHOLARSHIP APPLICATION

The scholarship application for the 2010-2011 Academic year is now available. Use our scholarship tool to review scholarships that you are interested in and complete the general scholarship application