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Professional Masters Degrees

What About Finances?

Applying for Financial Aid

Most forms of federal, state, and institutional aid are applied for with the FAFSA.
The FAFSA is the application you use to apply for grants, work-study, and educational loans at nearly every university in the country. The best way for most students to submit the FAFSA is on-line at FAFSA on the Web. In order to submit the FAFSA, you’ll need the following information for yourself and your parents (if you’re a dependent):

  • Your Social Security Number and/or alien registration number
  • Your driver's license (if you have one)
  • Your last year’s W-2 Forms and other records of money earned
  • Your (and your spouse's, if you are married) last year’s Federal Income Tax Return - IRS Form 1040, 1040A, 1040EZ, 1040Telefile, or foreign tax return; if you have not yet filed, you’ll need good estimates of the amounts involved
  • Your last year’s untaxed income records - Social Security, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, welfare, or veterans benefits records (if applicable)
  • Your bank statements
  • Your last year’s business and investment mortgage information, business and farm records, stock, bond, and other investment records (if any)

We strongly recommend that you submit your FAFSA on-line. The on-line application has a number of built-in audits to help you avoid some of the most common errors people make on the paper FAFSA. Like the paper application, the FAFSA on-line must be signed. There are two ways of signing your FAFSA if you are submitting it on-line. First, you can sign it with your Department of Education PIN number, for which you can easily apply on the FAFSA web site. Second, if you don’t want to use the PIN, you can print out a signature page at the end of the on-line application - sign this page and mail it in.

Once your FAFSA has been submitted, you’ll receive a Student Aid Report (SAR) from the FAFSA Federal Processor, either by e-mail or postal mail. When you receive the SAR, carefully review it to make sure that all the information is accurate. If everything is accurate, you don’t need to do anything else with the SAR. Shortly after you receive your SAR, The Nicholas School will receive the same information from the Federal Processor. At that point, we may select you for verification and ask you to submit additional documentation to our office, or we may simply offer you some awards.