Conditions For Receiving Aid

The financial aid application process does not end when you accept aid.  You must complete additional application steps and must also understand how changes in your enrollment can change your aid offers.  

Verification

The U.S. Department of Education selects approximately 30% of all FAFSA applications for verification. If your application is chosen, federal aid regulations required you to complete a TU Verification Worksheet and to provide authorized documentation of your tax data.

• Because of changes in federal regulations, tax data documentation that was acceptable in 2011-12 is no longer acceptable for 2012-13.

• For 2012-13, do NOT submit copies of your tax returns.

• Follow the new instructions on the 2012-13 Verification Worksheets.

• For 2011-12, follow the instructions the 2011-12 Verification Worksheets.

Check your Towson Online Services To Do List or TU e-mail account to see which worksheet we are requesting. 

Verification Process Steps:

1. If you or your parents filed taxes, you must follow the tax data documentation instructions on your Verification Worksheet.
2. Submit the completed TU Verification Worksheet and all required documentaiton to the TU Finanical Aid Office.
3. If the verification process identifies errors in the data you listed on your FAFSA data, TU will transmit FAFSA corrections to the federal FAFSA processor.
4. The FAFSA processor will process the corrections, and will transmit a revised FAFSA transaction back to TU.
5. TU will reevaluate your financial aid offers and amounts based on the corrected FAFSA data.
6. If we have to revise your aid offers based on the corrected FAFSA data, we e-mail a notice to your towson e-mail address. (...@towson.edu).

Please respond promptly and completely to all verification requests. If you made errors that will change your aid offer amounts, we want to notify you of these changes as soon as possible. . 

We cannot finalize your aid and authorize the payment of funds to your university account until the verification process is complete.  If you complete the verification process after July 1, you will not receive a fall term disbursement until after the beginning of the fall term.  If you do not provide all requested documents within 30 days from the date of our initial request, your aid offer will be cancelled.  If you complete the verification process after your aid is cancelled, a new aid offer will contain only aid available at the time your verification process is complete.

Documentation of Independent Student Status

The Financial Aid Office will require documentation of your independent student status if you applied for 2012-13 aid as an independent undergraduate student and will not reach the age of 24 by December 31, 2012. You must provide documentation to verify that you meet the Federal Title IV definition of an independent student in accordance with the requirements in the following table.

Enrollment

The number of credits you take will affect your aid in two ways:

1. The initial aid offer for an undergraduate student always assumes that the student will enroll full-time.  If you will attend less than full-time, your cost of attendance will change. For example, the cost of attendance for three-quarter or half-time enrollment is less than the cost for full-time attendance. 
2. In addition, various types of aid require minimum enrollment levels (usually 6 credits per term).

Some programs will permit less than half-time enrollment.  However, the cost of education for less than half-time is limited to tuition, fees, books, and an allowance for transportation. If you enroll less than half-time, you may have a greatly reduced need or no calculated need.  In addition, educational loans enter repayment after a six month (Federal Direct Loan) or nine month (Federal Perkins Loan) grace period that begins when you drop below half-time enrollment. The donor of a scholarship (private or university) will establish enrollment requirements for that scholarship (usually full-time). Recipients of Maryland State Scholarships and Grants should check with the Maryland Higher Education Commission about minimum enrollment requirements.

Completing To Do List follow-up steps

You must complete additional steps before receiving the following aid: Federal Work Study, Federal Perkins Loan, and the Federal Direct Loan.  It is your responsibility to meet the requirements shown below.  We will cancel your aid offer if you do not complete the steps after a reasonable period of time.

Federal Perkins Loans:

1. Complete an on-line entrance loan counseling session each year for which you receive a Perkins Loan borrower at Towson University  
2. Complete the Borrower's Questionnaire at the end of the loan counseling session
3. Complete a Federal Perkins Loan Master Promissory Note

Federal Work Study (FWS):

1. Find an FWS job. The Career Center maintains maintains a list of current FWS job openings. Community Service jobs are available as well as Reading/Literacy or math tutor jobs in local public elementary schools.    
2. As soon as you have found an FWS job, receive clearance for employment by the Towson University Payroll Office.

Federal Direct Loan Program:

You must complete the following steps when you are a first-time borrower at Towson University:

1. Complete an on-line entrance loan counseling session when you are a first-time borrower from this program at Towson.  The U.S. Department  of Education requires this counseling session to advise you of your rights and responsibilities as a borrower.
2. Properly complete an Electronic Master Promissory Note (EMPN).  The EMPN is a promissory note that you can use to make one or more loans for one or more academic years while enrolled at Towson University.