Steps for Newly Admitted & Current Graduate Students
The 2024-2025 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) is now available. We encourage you to complete the application as soon as possible.
The U.S. Department of Education is sending processed FAFSA records to institutions of higher education and UAlbany's Office of Financial Aid is working diligently to resolve several outstanding technical issues.
Please continue to monitor your email for additional updates. Visit New York FAFSA Ready for additional resources.
Financial aid awards are processed on a rolling basis as students complete all requirements.
Newly admitted graduate students will be notified of their financial aid awards after they have matriculated into a UAlbany graduate degree programs.
Current graduate students who are continuing their studies must register at least half-time or for at least 4.5 credits to receive an award notice.
Award details are also posted on MyUAlbany, where students must accept, reduce or decline their awards.
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The Free Application For Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) should be completed and submitted online.
The FAFSA opens each year on October 1 and graduate students can complete the FAFSA before they are admitted to UAlbany.
The University at Albany Federal School Code to be entered on the FAFSA is 002835.
Graduate students only need to report their income and, if applicable, their spouse’s income.
If prompted, use the IRS Data Retrieval Tool (DRT) to automatically load your federal income information to the FAFSA. This streamlines the application and eliminates the potential need to submit tax documents to the Office of Financial Aid.
Have your Federal Student Aid ID (FSA ID) ready to electronically sign the FAFSA.
Shortly after being accepted to the University at Albany, students are assigned a UAlbany pin number. Instructions on how to use the pin and log in to MyUAlbany are sent by Information Technology Services (ITS).
Once UAlbany receives and processes the FAFSA, items may appear on the MyUAlbany Important Notices list. Financial aid processing cannot continue until these Important Notices are completed.
Important Notices can be documentation requests, problems with your FAFSA that need to be fixed or processes that need to be completed by the student or parent.
The student will receive notifications until the items are completed. Students can click each item in the Important Item list to get more detailed information on what’s needed to move forward.
Important Notices can appear at any point during the aid processing cycle. Items most commonly appear on the Important Notices list after the FAFSA is filed and also after students accept their Financial Aid Award.
Once you submit the requested documentation, or satisfy the outstanding request(s), we aim to review your documents within two weeks. Peak times, such as August, may result in processing delays. Please monitor your email for important updates or subsequent requests for information.
If Important Notices are not resolved, it could prevent your award or refund being processed and/or applied to your account.
Requested documents should always be submitted online, unless otherwise noted. You will receive notification via email and/or text message on how to upload these documents. If at any point you need to speak with a financial aid advisor, please feel free to contact our office at [email protected] or 518-442-3202.
The student's nine-digit UAlbany ID should appear on each page submitted.
Note: For the protection of your information, students are advised not to send documents with private information such as tax data, social security numbers or citizenship verification via email.
On MyUAlbany, students can review their financial aid and accept, reduce or decline their financial aid award offers. For information on how to accept awards, please visit the Accepting Awards page.
Once you’ve completed all the above steps, please visit our Financial Aid page for information on securing the aid you're awarded and applying for additional financial aid.
Note: For financial aid purposes, an academic year is defined as 12 months, in which the Summer session is three months long, the Fall semester is four months long and the Spring semester is five months long.
Students’ financial aid awards are generally packaged using a traditional nine-month expected family contribution (EFC) calculation, as determined by the FAFSA.
Students who need or want to receive financial aid for the Summer session must complete a supplemental application provided annually by the University.