OSRHE Release
Completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) is your gateway to access federal financial aid, including grants, scholarships, and work-study programs. If you are a high school senior or college student, it is important to submit your 2023-24 FAFSA as soon as possible.
The FAFSA is used to determine how much financial aid you may be able to receive to help pay for college. A completed FAFSA is also required for some state aid, including the Oklahoma’s Promise scholarship and the Oklahoma Tuition Aid Grant program. Many students underestimate their financial need or assume they won’t qualify for financial aid, but every student should complete the FAFSA as soon as possible after Oct. 1 of their senior year of high school and every subsequent year that financial aid will be needed during college.
“We encourage high school seniors and our current college students to complete the new FAFSA as soon as it becomes available, as some types of state and federal financial aid are awarded to eligible students on a first-come, first-served basis,” said Chancellor Allison D. Garrett. “Students who complete the FAFSA have access to numerous state and federal scholarships, grants, and work-study programs.”
You can complete the 2023-24 FAFSA online at StudentAid.gov. The online FAFSA features skip-logic technology that eliminates irrelevant questions based on your previous answers, and you can choose to use the IRS Data Retrieval Tool, which will automatically transfer your 2021 tax return information to your FAFSA.
To complete and submit the FAFSA online, students and one parent will each need to create a Federal Student Aid ID, which serves as your electronic signature on the FAFSA and certain student loan applications and allows you to access other federal student aid websites. It is beneficial for families to create FSA IDs before starting the FAFSA to speed up the application process. The U.S. Department of Education estimates the form will take most families less than one hour to complete.
Campus financial aid offices can confirm school-specific deadlines and provide assistance to families during the application process. There is no charge to complete or submit the FAFSA, so you should be wary of organizations that charge a fee for these services.
The Oklahoma College Assistance Program (OCAP), an operating division of the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education, offers free FAFSA materials, tools and workshops to support school- and campus-based FAFSA education for families across the state. For more information about the FAFSA process and to access free educational resources, including tutorial videos in English and Spanish, visit OCAP’s FAFSA completion website, startwithfafsa.org.
