Financial Aid Offer

The Financial Aid Offer page is displayed when you have one enrollment and select the Financial Aid Overview menu item or when you have multiple enrollments and then select the View Financial Aid Offer button for a specific enrollment. The FA Overview tab is highlighted. You can return to the Financial Aid Overview page by selecting the Back to Financial Aid Overview link at the top of the page or selecting the Financial Aid Overview menu item.

FSSOverview - Header

Administrator Note: The content displayed on the Financial Aid Offer page can be configured in Anthology Student under ConfigurationStudent ExperienceFinancial Aid Overview.

To import the configuration data from an existing Portal instance, log in to the Portal Admin Console, select the Import Config link in the Administration section on the Admin Console Home page, and select the Import Configuration for all campuses button. If you do not want to upgrade the configuration for all campuses, select the Import button for a specific campus. See Migration to FSS Configuration.

When the Student Portal has been migrated from an existing Portal, the content from the existing Portal is displayed when there is an exact field mapping. New default content is displayed for new fields.

You can override the defaults by updating and saving the configuration in Anthology Student.

You can select the Renewal Requirements tab at the top of the page to review the institution's requirements for renewing the different types of financial aid (grants, loans, etc.) in your next year of study.

Renewal Requirements

Administrator Note: The content displayed on the Renewal Requirements tab of the Financial Aid Offer page is configured in Anthology Student under ConfigurationStudent ExperienceFinancial Aid OverviewRenewal Requirements tab.

Select the Glossary tab at the top of the page to view the glossary of financial aid terms configured by the institution as part of your financial aid offer.

Glossary

Administrator Note: The content displayed on the Glossary tab of the Financial Aid Offer page is configured in Anthology Student under ConfigurationStudent ExperienceFinancial Aid OverviewGlossary tab.

Select an Academic Year

First, you need to select an academic year. This selection determines the data that will be displayed on the page.

FSSOverview - AY

The academic year is defined by its start date and end date. By default, the drop-down displays the academic year associated with the current date and lists additional academic years in descending order.

You can then determine the status of the financial aid for the selected year. The status value indicates whether your financial aid for the selected academic year is Packaged - Ready for Approval, Fully Packaged,  Not Packaged, etc.

  • If financial aid funds are available to you for the selected academic year, the page will display additional sections with details about the cost of attendance and the financial aid offers. You can then accept or decline specific funds or all funds. The sections that are displayed will depend on the information you provided in your application (FAFSA) and the financial aid offered and packaged by your institution.

  • If there are no funds available or packaged for the selected academic year, the following message is displayed: "There is no Financial Aid Offer available yet for the selected Academic Year. Please contact your Institution if you have any questions or need to inform us of a change in your status."

Administrator Note: The Academic Year drop-down list displays the academic year sequence with the start and end dates specified in Anthology Student in the student's profile under Financial Aid > Awarding > Academic Years tab.

Select a Housing Option

If you are enrolled in multiple program versions and have not selected a housing option, the Financial Aid Offer page displays the Housing Status pop-up. Select one of the following options: On Campus, Off Campus, or With Parents. The pop-up is not displayed if you have already selected an option.

The housing status field is pre-populated if your housing status is already available from a prior award year. This also applies when you select a program version of a future award year. If you change and save the housing status, the updated value will be populated for the academic years in the applicable award year.

Housing Status pop-up

After you have selected and saved an option, the Financial Aid Offer displays the housing status for the academic year.

Housing Status

When you have already updated the housing status via the housing status pop-up or the housing status was retrieved from a previously selected housing status value, the page displays an information icon next to the housing status value with a tooltip. If you want to change your housing status, you need to contact your financial aid advisor.

Housing Info Icon Tooltip

Administrator Note: You can configure the tooltip in Anthology Student under Configuration > Student Experience > Financial Aid Overview > Housing (tab).

Need Help?

Select the Need Help? button if you want to learn more about the financial aid process. Scroll down to view the help information provided by your institution. Select the Close button to hide the help content. 

FSS Offer Help

Review the Page Sections

The Financial Aid Offer page displays the following sections as configured by the institution:

Select or to expand or collapse all the disbursement details for the fund sections below. You can also expand or collapse the disbursements within the fund sections individually.

Accept, Decline, and Submit Fund Selections

Review your financial aid offer for the academic year and take the following 3 steps:

Step 1: Accept or decline the offered funds.

When the Accept and Decline buttons are displayed, you can accept or decline a fund. At this stage, the fund status at the institution is Estimated.

Accept-Decline

Select the Accept button button to accept a fund. The Accept button turns green to indicate that you selected it.

Select the Decline button button to decline a fund. The Decline button turns red to indicate that you selected it.

Before you accept or decline a loan, you can reduce the value in the Gross Amount field. After you have edited the Gross Amount, select outside of the grid to view the recalculated bank fees and total loan values as shown in the animation below.

Reduce loan amount

Step 2: Submit your fund selections.

After you have accepted or declined the funds, select the Submit Funds button to submit all your fund selections to the institution for further processing.

Upon selecting Submit Funds, you will have an opportunity to review your funding information. The funding information is displayed in the "Submit Funds" pop-up at the top of the page and includes a grid with the following details:

  • Funding Description

  • Fund Status (Accepted Amounts and Declined Amounts)

  • New loan amount if you opted to decrease the offered amount

The grid will not list details of funds that you previously accepted or declined.

When a fund is distributed over multiple Academic Years, an icon (Icon - Fund source overlapping AY) indicating overlapping funds is displayed.

Accept All - Decline All - Pop-up

To proceed with the final submission, select the Submit Funds button. To return to the Financial Aid Offer page, select the Cancel - go back to adjust button.

When you select Submit Funds, the following message appears: Submit Funds - Success

Once you've submitted the funds

  • The Accept and Decline buttons will no longer be displayed for the individual funds on the page

  • The fund statuses will be updated to Accepted or Declined depending on whether you selected Accept All Funds or Decline All Funds.

  • For declined funds, the Net Amount, Fee Amount, and Gross Amount/Total Amount will be updated to zero (0).

Administrator Note: When a student selects the Submit Funds option, a Contact Manager task is created in Anthology Student. The status for the respective funding is set to 'Accepted' or 'Declined' depending on the option selected by the student.

Step 3: Review the fund statuses.

Once you select the Submit Funds button, the Accept and Decline buttons are no longer displayed and the fund statuses are updated.

Fund status

Accepted indicates that you accepted the fund and the institution has set the status to Approved.

Declined indicates that you declined the fund and the institution has set the status to Canceled. The amounts of the declined funds are zeroed out.

Pending indicates that you accepted the fund and a financial aid advisor at the institution needs to approve it. Once the approval is granted, the status is set to Accepted.

Administrator Notes:

Configuring the Display of Fund Sources

The option Display Award in Student Portal under Configuration > Financial Aid > Fund Sources determines whether a fund source is displayed in the Student Portal and whether the option Student Portal Acceptance Changes Award Status to Approved is enabled or disabled.

  • If the option is selected (default), the fund source will be displayed in the Student Portal, and the option Student Portal Acceptance Changes Award Status to Approved will be enabled.

  • If the option is not selected, the fund source will not be displayed in the Student Portal, and the option Student Portal Acceptance Changes Award Status to Approved will be disabled.

Configuring Award Status Changes

The option Student Portal Acceptance Changes Award Status to Approved under Configuration > Financial Aid > Fund Sources determines the award status after a student accepts and submits a fund offered in the Student Portal.

  • If the option is not selected (default), the status will be set to “Pending". Once a financial aid advisor approves the award, the status will be updated to “Accepted”.

  • If the option is selected, the status will be set to “Accepted".

Configuring Notifications and Tasks

You can configure the Portal to create notifications and tasks for financial aid advisors or administrators when a student accepts and declines a fund source on the Financial Aid Offer page. To configure notifications and tasks, go to Anthology Student, select ConfigurationStudent ExperienceFinancial Aid Overview, and expand Internal Administrative Notifications.

Download a Report

Select the Download button at the top of the page to view and print a Summary Report or Detailed Report of your financial aid offer. The reports include the information that is displayed on the Financial Aid Offer page.

Download button

The report headers contain the following information:

  • Title: Financial Aid Overview.
  • Name of the School
  • School Logo
  • Student Name
  • Student Number
  • Campus
  • Program of Study
  • Academic Year
  • Printed Date

The Detailed Report includes the Disbursement Schedule information for grants, scholarships, and loans. The Summary Report does not include the disbursement details.

If there are no awards packaged for the selected Academic Year, the Download button is not displayed.

Administrator Note: The Detailed and Summary reports include a placeholder for the institution's logo. To configure the logo, in Anthology Student, navigate to Configuration > Financial Aid > College Finance Plan. On the  Logo / Address tab, select the campus, select the Update Campus Logo button, and upload the logo image. The logo dimensions must not exceed 300 x 80 pixels. The supported image formats are BMP, GIF, JPG, JPEG, TIF, TIFF, and PNG.

You can view and print the financial aid offers in Anthology Student from the Student Profile > Financial Aid > Academic Years (tab) > Print Financial Aid Offer (button).

If you navigate away...

The Financial Aid Offer page displays the following messages if you navigate to a different Portal page, to the Summary Report or Detailed Report, to the Renewal Requirements tab or Glossary tab, or select a different Academic Year:

  • After you've edited a fund amount but did not select Accept/Decline for the fund and did not select the Submit Funds button:

    Dirty check - Continue

    • If you select Continue, your changes will be lost, and you will be moved to the chosen page or tab.

    • If you select Cancel, you will stay on the Financial Aid Offer page.

  • After you've edited a fund amount and selected Accept/Decline for the fund but did not select the Submit Funds button:

    Dirty check - Submit Funds

    • If you select Submit Funds, you are redirected to the Submit Funds Confirmation pop-up.

    • If you select No, you will be moved to the chosen tab or page, your Accept/Decline selections are deselected, and the edited fund amount reverts to the original value.