Financial aid forms 2020-2021
Messiah University's Title IV Code is 003298.
This financial aid forms page for the 2020-2021 academic year contains all the information you need to know regarding the financial aid process.
Please use our secure file upload system to submit any forms that the Financial Aid Office requests from you. Your FAFSA results will be sent directly to us from the federal processor so, in order to submit this to us, all you need to do is list our school code (003298) in Step Six.
Use this link for instructions on how to use the system
Please start out by reading the Financial Aid Application Cover Letter and the Financial Aid Instructions.
To complete your FAFSA, click here.
For a helpful tutorial on completing the FAFSA on the web, visit 7 Easy Steps to the FAFSA. The 2020-2021 7 Easy Steps to the FAFSA will be available after October 1st, 2019. (Note: This is not a U.S. Department of Education website.)
You can view another helpful tutorial on using the IRS Data Retrieval Tool, while completing your FAFSA on the web at IRS Data Retrieval tutorial. This tutorial is helpful when completing your initial FAFSA or when going back later to use the Data Retrieval Tool if you did not use it during your initial filing. (Note: The IRS Data Retrieval Tool tutorial is not a U.S. Department of Education website.)
For more information on the IRS Data Retrieval Tool and other recent financial aid news, please visit our Hot Items page.
In addition to completing the forms on this page, we recommend that all students review the Scholarships, Grants and Loans page. This link will allow you to learn more about Messiah University's institutional scholarships and to search for scholarships from a wide range of private organizations. Every student should try this scholarship search at least once.
Note: All documents available from the links below are in PDF format, unless otherwise specified.
The Federal tax code includes a number of provisions designed to reduce or partially offset the costs of higher education for students and families. Among those are the American Opportunity Tax Credit (AOTC) and the Lifetime Learning Tax Credit, both designed to help families pay for at least a portion of higher education tuition and fees and related costs. However, based on both anecdotal information and data from the IRS we believe many students and their families do not take advantage of these tax credits that could save them thousands of dollars.
For more information about these tax credits go to:
http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/Education-Credits-AOTC-LLC
Financial aid application cover letter
This letter accompanies the other documents in the financial aid application packet. It serves as an introduction to the financial aid process and an important source of additional instructions about the application process.
Financial aid instructions
This document contains instructions for the completion of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, and information about other aspects of the financial aid application process.
Complete this worksheet if you plan to use FAFSA on the web to apply for financial aid. Use this worksheet to collect your (and your parents') information before beginning your 2020-2021 online Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). Last year 98% of our families applied using FAFSA on the web and we recommend it as the best way to apply.
We encourage you to complete your FAFSA on-line at fafsa.gov, which you can do beginning on October 1, 2019.
If you cannot or do not wish to complete the FAFSA on the web, you can use this PDF version of the FAFSA. The PDF FAFSA must be mailed for processing. The PDF FAFSA is available for you to print and fill out manually or is screen-fillable. Screen-fillable means you can enter your data on the screen before printing. Please note that if you choose this option you will not be able to save your data to your PC. To print a PDF FAFSA file from within your reader, we recommend you use the PDF’s print button rather than the browser’s print function.
Download 2020-2021 Free Application For Federal Student Aid.
Use these forms if the U.S. Department of Education has selected your FAFSA for review in a process called "verification." Do not complete these forms unless the financial aid office instructs you to do so. Students will be notified via email if verification documents are required.
For each form you have been asked to complete, the student will first access the form and complete the student section. If a parent signature is required for an electronic form, after the student section has been completed the form will be forward to the parent via email. When all sections are completed and appropriate signatures have been entered, the parent submits the form. The form is then routed to the financial aid office for review and acceptance.
The electronic forms system collects the required legal electronic signature on each form. Therefore, the parent cannot complete and sign the form on behalf of the student. The student must start the form and the above process must be followed in order for the form to be valid.
Miscellaneous forms
Messiah University recognizes that many families experience unexpected financial strain when preparing to pay for college. This financial strain might be for many reasons, but is often due to a reduction in income. This year the COVID-19 pandemic will likely cause even more families than normal to experience a reduction in income.
If you do expect that your 2020 income will be less than what was received in 2018 (the year on which the FAFSA information is based for the 2020-2021 academic year), we want to make sure that you are aware of the availability of our Change of Circumstances Form (CCF). The purpose of the CCF is to collect information on expected 2020 income and unreimbursed medical expenses so that we may recalculate your eligibility for financial aid for the 2020-2021 academic year. You are welcome to complete and return the CCF to our office as soon as you feel you can provide a realistic estimate of your total 2020 information. Please be sure that you are considering all potential sources of income, including unemployment benefits, when determining your estimate of income.
Please submit the CCF by mailing or faxing it to the address or fax number listed at the bottom of each page of the CCF. If you prefer to submit the CCF electronically, please use our secure file upload system. We will then review the completed CCF, recalculate your eligibility for financial aid if appropriate, and inform you of the results.
There is no guarantee that your circumstances will warrant a recalculation or that any additional aid will be available to you if we do a recalculation.
If your CCF does demonstrate the need for additional aid, we will respond to you as quickly as possible with an amount by which we can increase your aid, but we need to set realistic expectations. Depending on the amount of the projected loss of income, a student might expect to receive anywhere from an additional $1,000 to $2,500 from Messiah University. It is also possible that the student could become eligible for additional federal financial aid as a result of this adjustment.
We do need to ensure that we are using Messiah University funds with careful stewardship, so at the end of 2020, we will ask you to submit documentation to confirm your actual income. At that point, if appropriate, we will re-adjust additional aid amounts which could mean that we take back some of the additional aid that was offered. Please be assured that our goal will be to not reduce the additional award amounts unless there is an extreme mismatch between the estimate and the final outcome.
Please also know that the CCF is not for the purpose of providing information on unusual expenses that you have incurred (except unreimbursed medical expenses), including those brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. All expenses related to the COVID-19 pandemic should be reported using our CARES Act Student Emergency Fund Application, and other unusual expenses or financial situations of which you wish to make us aware should be reported via a letter signed by both the student and one parent. This letter should provide specific dollar amounts and dates regarding the situation you are reporting.
Download Change of Circumstances Form
Covenant Grants are awarded to full-time undergraduate students who are members or regular attendants of Brethren in Christ churches. An application is required. The amount of the Covenant Grant is $500 per school year. A travel allowance, ranging in amounts of $75 to $300, is available to non-Pennsylvania residents who also qualify for the Covenant Grant.
One application is sufficient for all four school years.
The Dean's Scholarships for Continuing Students application will be made available in March 2020 for the 2020/2021 school year.
Dean's Scholarships for Continuing Students are awarded to current Messiah University students who have distinguished themselves as outstanding leaders in specific activities while attending Messiah University.
Fifteen $1,500 Dean's Scholarships for Continuing Students are awarded each academic year.
DEAN'S SCHOLARSHIP FOR CONTINUING STUDENTS
1. Must be a full-time student at Messiah University.
2. Must have completed at least 30 credit hours of work at Messiah University.
3. Must have a cumulative grade point average of 2.5 or better.
4. Need not demonstrate financial need, but financial need will be taken into consideration.
Messiah University students already receiving an academic scholarship (not a need-based grant) equal to or greater than 60% tuition are not eligible to receive Dean's Scholarships for Continuing Students.
Application deadline is May 15.
The Dean's Scholarships for Continuing Students application will be made available in March 2020 for the 2020/2021 school year.
Download Dean's Scholarship for Continuing Students Application
Students, age 30 years or older, will be granted a 25% mature student discount on tuition only, for all courses for which they enroll.
This document highlights portions of the financial aid application packet to which international students should pay close attention.
The purpose of this form is to collect information from you about any non-institutional/private scholarships you will be receiving. This means scholarships that are NOT from state, federal or Messiah University sources.
The Nursing Loan is only applicable to nursing students. Priority is given to applications received by June 1st each year. Nursing students must complete a new application each year. To see what required verification forms must be submitted to determine a students’ nursing loan eligibility, please view the students’ outstanding requirements area.
If you plan to take some courses this summer and want to apply for financial aid, you’ll need to complete the Summer Financial Aid Request Form.
Students planning to apply for financial aid for summer classes should consider the following:
- Messiah University institutional grants and scholarships are not available during the summer session. Instead, your institutional financial aid comes in the form of a significantly reduced tuition charge.
- Generally, you need to be enrolled at least half-time (6 credits) over the summer in order to qualify for summer aid. Enrollment over both terms of the summer can be combined to reach half time enrollment. For example, a student taking three credits in Summer Term I and three credits in Summer Term II can combine both terms to meet the half-time enrollment requirement.
- Most students can receive federal direct subsidized or unsubsidized loans during the summer, but these will count against your lifetime limit for loan eligibility.
Those limits are:
Dependent Students- $31,000
Independent Students/Students whose parents can’t get a PLUS Loan- $57,500
Most students will not experience a problem with these limits, but you should consider how many semesters are still required to complete your degree and whether or not you could reach these limits before you are finished. You can view the status of your loans on the National Student Loan Data System student access site.
If you are a Pennsylvania State Grant recipient, you can apply for a Pennsylvania State Grant for the summer, but you should be very cautious about using your Pennsylvania State Grant eligibility for summer courses. The Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency tracks eligibility limits by term (semester), not by a total dollar amount. You get eight terms of Pennsylvania State Grant eligibility, regardless of how much money you actually receive in a given term. So, if you use a Pennsylvania State Grant for the summer, you would most likely be using half of a one term eligibility (since you’d probably be at half-time enrollment), but the amount of dollars would be based on your lower summer term costs. So, you would probably get less money for the summer term and you would be sacrificing that half term grant that you could have gotten in a future full-time term at the full Pennsylvania State Grant amount. This only makes sense if taking the summer classes will allow you to reduce your enrollment in a later term, or skip an entire term. We recommend you consider paying for your summer courses with a Federal Direct Stafford Loan and preserve your future Pennsylvania State Grant eligibility.
Please complete the Summer Financial Aid Request Form if you wish to have your eligibility for summer term financial aid determined, and contact the Financial Aid Office if you have any questions.
Students who are residents of the state of Vermont can apply for the Vermont Grant through the Vermont Student Assistance Corporation at http://www.vsac.org/.
If you are a veteran, or the dependent of a veteran, and plan to receive veterans' benefits to help pay your educational expenses, please review Messiah University's policy entitled Military Benefits and Institutional Aidso that you will understand how your veterans' benefits will interact with Messiah University institutional financial aid programs. In some cases, Messiah University institutional financial aid will need to be reduced to allow your veterans' benefits to fit into your institutional financial aid package. After reviewing the policy, please complete the Veterans' Benefits Reporting Form and return it to Steve Gross, Suite 3010 on the third floor of the Kim Phipps Welcome Center.
What Will I Owe?
This is probably one of the top three questions we hear in our office. The Student Financial Services Office will send you information in May on the Interest-Free payment option, and in late July you will be able to view statements online for the fall semester.
We have included this worksheet to help you understand approximately how much you will need to pay from your own resources or through additional student loans. This worksheet produces only an estimate. It is not your bill from Messiah University and should not be viewed as equivalent to a bill. Your actual bill will be provided to you from our Student Financial Services Office and is the official calculation of what you need to pay.
This worksheet is included only for your convenience; you do not have to return it to the Financial Aid Office.
Here are some things you need to know before completing this worksheet:
- This worksheet is based only on the fees that you will be charged by Messiah University.
- The figures are estimated based on the highest possible costs for enrollment, housing, and meal plans as shown in the left column under Amount; in other words, a worst-case scenario. You can use these figures or you might wish to adjust some of the costs if you know exactly what they will be in your case. Things like tuition and fees will be the same for most people.
- The calculation in this worksheet does not include costs for things like books, travel and personal expenses. You will need to allow for these items as you plan for your college expenses, and you can include them in the 'Other Costs' field of this worksheet if you wish to do your own estimate of these costs.
- We estimate that books and supplies could range from $500 to $1280 for one year.
Download the What Will I Owe Worksheet here.
Students who are eligible to apply for benefits under the Yellow Ribbon Program should complete the Yellow Ribbon application. Yellow Ribbon applicants should read and understand the Messiah University Policies and Procedures for the Yellow Ribbon Program before applying for Yellow Ribbon Program benefits. The policies and procedures for the 2020-2021 year have not yet been finalized. We will make this link available to you when we are notified of any changes.