The May 1st deadline for undergraduate students to submit the online Request for Summer Aid form on Growl has now passed. Late applications will only be accepted for graduating seniors who will complete by the end of winter quarter 2013. Incoming Teaching Credential students (new admits) may continue to apply for summer financial assistance on Growl through June 30, 2012. You must also submit all documents required to complete your financial aid application by May 15, 2012 in order to be considered for summer financial assistance (June 1 for IRS/FAFSA data retrieval). The following categories of students are eligible for summer financial assistance:
• UC Riverside undergraduate students
• Current Teaching Credential students and new Teaching Credential students who are admitted on a regular or conditional basis for fall quarter 2012
Undergraduate students are required to enroll on a full-time basis (12 units minimum) for financial aid consideration. (Enrolled units for all sessions will be combined to determine your enrollment status. Most students enroll in 2 or more sessions. An academic advisor must approve more than 10 units in one session.)
An exception will be made for seniors who will graduate by the end of winter quarter 2013. Graduating seniors must enroll on at least a half-time basis (6 units minimum) for financial aid consideration.
Undergraduate students may qualify for summer Pell Grant, summer UCR Grant, a portion of 12-13 Stafford Loan, and parent PLUS Loan.
Cross campus applicants (UCR students who plan to enroll at another UC campus during Summer Session 2012) must also meet these application deadlines and enrollment requirements. This includes students who plan to enroll in summer travel study programs through other UC campuses.
Summer UCDC, UC Sacramento, Education Abroad, Opportunities Abroad, and UCR Summer Travel Study participants may be eligible for financial aid but should NOT complete the Request for Summer Aid. The Financial Aid Office will be notified directly by your program of your summer enrollment. If you have completed your FAFSA application and submitted any required documents to the Financial Aid Office by our May 15, 2012 deadline, you will then be awarded any aid for which you may qualify.
Teaching Credential students are required to enroll on at least a half time basis (6 units minimum) to qualify for summer financial aid. These students may qualify for federal loan aid.
Summer disbursements
Summer financial aid disbursements will begin approximately June 26, 2012. Financial Aid refunds (for non-fee expenses) will not be available until after the first week of the summer session. Financial aid awarded to students who drop below 12 units (6 units for graduating seniors) is subject to revision and the student may be billed for any aid disbursed to pay fees or issued in a refund. Awards will be reduced or cancelled for students who never begin attendance in classes in the number of units or sessions reported on their summer aid application.
Summer aid applicants must maintain satisfactory academic progress in order to be eligible for summer funding.
UCR financial aid undergraduate students whose parents are tax filers are now being asked to follow a new federal procedure to link IRS 2011 tax data to the 2012-13 FAFSA. This request is shown as “Parent IRS data retrieval” (see Growl, Financial Aid Application Status). The deadline for this has been extended to June 1, 2012.
For the IRS data retrieval, your parents must authorize the transfer of their 2011 federal income tax information from their IRS tax return to your FAFSA instead of submitting a paper copy of their tax return to the Financial Aid Office. Here’s how:
Instructions for Corrections and Updates to your FAFSA
Once your parents have completed their taxes, wait the appropriate length of time (two weeks if filed electronically and 8 weeks if by mail), then follow these steps:
1. Using your student Social Security and PIN number, log back into www.fafsa.ed.gov.
2. Click on “Make FAFSA Corrections”.
3. Click on “Financial Information” tab.
4. Change parent item #79 from “will file” to “already completed”.
5. If you then answer “None of the above” and are eligible to use the IRS Data Retrieval Process, click on the “Link to IRS” and click “OK”.
6. On the IRS Web site, enter the requested information exactly as it appears on parents’ 2011 tax return (name, street address, etc.), and click submit.
7. Click the box under the “Transfer My Tax Information into the FAFSA” and then click “Transfer Now”.
8. You should then receive a message “You have successfully transferred your 2011 tax information”.
Be sure to finish going through all the steps and electronically sign (one of your parents also needs to electronically sign) and “submit” your FAFSA. You are not finished until you have successfully submitted your FAFSA and received a confirmation number.
A few days after this process is completed, an updated copy of your FAFSA with the IRS data will be sent to UCR automatically, and Growl Application Status will be updated to show that the UCR document request is “completed”. This process must be completed by June 1st and will be used to generate your official 2012-13 financial aid award. For incoming students, official awards are generated within about 1 week of completing this match, and for continuing UCR students awards will begin around June.
For a 3-minute YouTube presentation of this FAFSA/IRS process, click here.
There are a few situations in which applicants are unable to use the IRS Data Retrieval Process:
• Married and filing separately – (submit tax return for each spouse)
• Tax filing status is Head of Household
• Filed an amended tax return
• Filed a Puerto Rican or foreign tax return
• Parents do not have a US Social Security Number
In the above cases, a signed, paper copy of the parent 2011 federal income tax return may be submitted to the Financial Aid Office in lieu of the IRS data retrieval, by May 15th for “on-time” status, or as soon as possible after May 15, for consideration of remaining available aid.
Otherwise, your parent should be able to link to the IRS. If your parents are unable to link to the IRS website by June 1st, please notify our office between May 28th and June 1st at finaid@ucr.edu. Include your UCR SID number and the reason your parents are unable to use the IRS Data Retrieval.
We regret that UCR did not receive additional Federal Work-Study (FWS) funds for the 2011-12 year. Therefore, there are no additional FWS funds to offer to students. Students can, nonetheless, use the job postings at Career Services for both on and off campus non-FWS jobs.
The Governor signed the California Dream Act II on October 7, 2010. Under AB 130, effective January 1, 2012, all students who qualify for AB 540 nonresident tuition exemptions, including those who are undocumented, may qualify for UC scholarships funded from private sources. Examples of such funds include many of those listed in the Continuing Student Scholarship Application (the 12-13 application is open online from January 3, 2012 to March 2, 2012), merit scholarships for incoming students (e.g., Regents Scholarships awarded in February 2012 for students admitted to UCR for Fall 2012), and any other UC gift and endowment funds that may become available throughout the year (see scholarships.ucr.edu for more detail). Unfortunately, most of these funds were awarded to students for 2011-12 prior to this effective date.
AB 131 will be effective a year later, on January 1, 2013. For this same group of students, state funds will become available. The most significant of these are the state Cal Grant program (for 2013-14) and the UC USAP funding (UCR Grants) for Winter and Spring 2012-13. Both of these are need-based programs.
Starting April 2, 2012, students who do not complete the federal FAFSA aid application due to their non-citizen status will complete a California Dream Application. Because the number of UC students newly eligible for these funds is expected to be less than 1% of the population, no significant impact on aid to other UC students is expected.
If your financial circumstances have changed since you filed your FAFSA, several appeal options are available to you. Contact our office for more detail. For an overview of the types of special circumstances that may be considered, click here to view a short video.
Between January 1 and June 30, 2012, certain federal Direct Loan borrowers (Stafford, PLUS) will become eligible to consolidate federal loan debt into a single loan and a single payment. This program does not apply to most UCR students, who already have a single loan holder through UCR’s Federal Direct Lending. It applies to students with both a Direct Loan and a commercially-held FFEL loan (e.g., a Stafford Loan from another college, for some UCR transfer and graduate students). These students will be sent more detail by the federal loan servicer in January. For more information, go to www.studentaid.ed.gov.
If you see that some or all of your financial aid on Growl Current Activity is “Aid on Hold”, you can click on the Growl “Holds” item on the menu bar for a description of the hold and how to resolve the hold (e.g., loan documents to be completed). Once you have resolved the hold, allow at least a few business days to see the updated aid status on Growl. Your aid will then appear as “Estimated Aid” until it is ready to “credit” your account. After the quarter begins you may view any financial aid refunds or direct deposits that are issued to you for any credit balance on your student account after your charges have been paid. Please note that one financial aid award on hold will not necessarily prevent disbursement of other awards – for example, a loan on hold for completion of loan documents will not prevent the disbursement of a grant.
It’s always a good idea to check Growl Current Activity for the latest information on your quarterly charges and aid credits, to check your latest account balance and to ensure that your aid is not on hold.
Don't let finances keep you from attending the University of California. With grants, loans and other financing tools, we can help put a UC education within reach. This site helps explain the options available to students at all income levels.
Undergraduate California residents whose family income is less than $80,000 per year may be eligible to receive grants and scholarships to cover the full amount of 2011-12 system wide fees (up to $12,192). Click here for more information on UC's Blue and Gold Opportunity Plan.
Your financial aid award may include a Federal Direct Parent PLUS Loan. The PLUS Loan is a loan which is made to your parent. If your parent decides to take out this loan, the parent borrower needs to submit a PLUS Request, and if your parent is a new (first-time) borrower, complete an electronic Master Promissory Note online. ( more)
All Perkins Loan borrowers must submit an electronic Master Promissory Note online and complete loan entrance counseling before Perkins Loan funds can be disbursed. Please allow two business days from the date that you accept your Perkins Loan award for your loan to be activated at the ACS website before completing your promissory note and entrance counseling.( more) |