Application for financial aid is separate from the application for admission.  University of Washington Tacoma students use the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) or the Washington Application for State Financial Aid (WASFA) to apply for financial aid.  Your financial aid application should be submitted before the priority filing date for priority consideration for our aid programs.  You can still submit your FAFSA after the priority filing date, but you will not be considered for priority aid.

Go to https://studentaid.gov/ to apply for a Federal Student Aid (FSA) ID from the U.S. Department of Education. For the 2024-2025 FAFSA, all applicants and contributors must have an FSA ID to provide their consent and information. After setting up your FSA ID, log in to https://studentaid.gov/ and complete and submit your FAFSA (and signature page if directed to do so). File your FAFSA as soon as possible before the priority filing date, noting the University of Washington - school code 003798 on your application.  This school code is used for all UW campuses.

To qualify for financial aid, you must be admitted to the UW at our Seattle, Bothell or Tacoma campuses in an approved degree or certificate program (most non-matriculated students are not eligible for student aid) and meet minimum enrollment requirements.  For priority financial aid consideration, you must meet our priority filing deadline, even if you don’t know whether you will be accepted for admission.

Contributor w/o SSN? Watch this video: 

You're admitted; now what? 

Frequently Asked Questions

Given the 2024-25 FAFSA delays, what are my options in meeting the February 28 priority date?

The FAFSA application and delivery system is changing for 2024-25.  As a result, the FASFA and WAFSA applications were not made available until December 31st.

We understand that the Department of Education’s delays and technical issues can cause concern for you and your family. We want to assure you that we are monitoring the situation and staying informed of any other possible delays or issues with the 24-25 FAFSA.

To accommodate the delayed availability and technical issues students/families are experiencing with the 24-25 FAFSA, we want to remind you that the OSFA Priority Target Date for FAFSA/WAFSA has been extended to February 28th, 2024. We recommend that you submit your financial aid application as early as possible, before the 2/28/2024 priority date, so we can determine your financial aid eligibility in a timely manner.  Due to these FAFSA delays, OSFA will internally adjust our priority target date to include students who were unable to start their FAFSA by February 28 and ensure you are included in our priority group.  We ask that you complete your FAFSA as soon as possible during the first weeks of March so that we can prepare an award offer for you as soon as possible.

My family member does not have an SSN and can't complete the FAFSA. What should we do?

We are aware of the issues with accessing the FAFSA application for students whose family members include a parent or spouse without a Social Security Number (SSN). In the past applicants have been able to complete the FAFSA by entering all zeros for the SSN for that family member. With the changes to the 2024-2025 FAFSA all contributors are now required to create an FSA ID, including contributors without an SSN. Unfortunately, this process is not working properly, and families have not been able to access the 2024-2025 FAFSA.

The Department of Education is working on resolving this. We ask that students wait to file the FAFSA until the process has been fixed, and students can file the FAFSA electronically. Paper FAFSAs will not be processed until after the electronic submissions are processed, and therefore we encourage students to complete the FAFSA online.

We will continue to monitor this situation, and we will let you know when the Department of Education has resolved the issue.  We will adjust our internal process to accommodate students who experienced difficulties completing the FAFSA by Feb. 28.

Student Aid Report (SAR) from the Federal Processor (FAFSA Applicants)

You will receive an email to access the Student Aid Report (SAR) information after your FAFSA is finished processing. You must make any corrections requested on the SAR.  You should correct any estimated income data when actual data is available.  In addition, correct your name (which should match the name the Social Security Administration has for you), social security number, and date of birth if inaccurate.

 

Award Notices

We begin sending award notifications in the spring and continue through the summer.  Generally, this will be sent to you electronically, so please regularly check your UW email and MyUW account.  The award notice shows you the types and amounts of aid you are eligible to receive.  Your financial aid awards may be an estimate until we complete the review of your FAFSA information.  Please accept your aid as directed, even if you are requesting or expecting changes.  Unaccepted awards are subject to cancellation.

 

Review Process

You may be asked at any time to submit documents or other information to be used in the review of your application.  Please respond to any request as soon as possible; review of your file may be delayed until all requested documents are submitted.  The volume of material to be reviewed is substantial, and we appreciate your patience during the review process.