To apply for financial aid in the DCCCD, applicants must complete the following items in a timely manner. In general, all application materials must be fully completed no later than these deadlines:

*Students who meet these deadlines will be notified by the start of the semester of their eligibility and approval of financial aid. If these deadlines are missed, the student will be expected to make payment arrangements with the Cashier's Office using personal resources at the time of registration (a payment plan is available). Late aid applications will be processed for aid as it becomes available after registration closes. Most scholarship programs have individual deadlines that must be met in order to be considered for an award from a particular scholarship program. Program deadlines may supersede the general deadlines given above.

Critical Information for College Transfer Applicants:

Federal Regulations require that courses transferred into a program at the DCCCD must be considered in determining the transfer student's eligibility for financial aid. All official college transcripts must be submitted to the Admissions and Registrar Office to provide the information necessary to determine the student's maximum eligibility for student aid.

1. The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) is available upon request from the college financial aid office or from a local high school. Applicants should complete information on themselves and their spouses or parents (if applicable) and obtain the appropriate signatures as outlined in the directions for the FAFSA. The FAFSA can be filed with government processor in one of the following ways:



• By mail: This method will require four to six weeks to receive a Student Aid Report (SAR) or
• By FAFSA On The Web: Submitting the FAFSA to the government processor can be done over the Internet. The address to the Web site is www.fafsa.gov. This method can take less than a week for the government to process.



2. Financial aid awards will be made only after the FAFSA results have been sent to the college by the government processor and the entire financial aid application process has been completed. If a student's record is selected for verification (a review of the FAFSA data), all required documentation and corrected FAFSA information must be received before the application process is complete. Applicants will be notified by e-mail that additional information is needed to complete the application process. Students will be instructed to log on to eConnect and review the "Missing Information" that must be submitted.



3. An Award Notification is sent to each student who completes the application process and for whom aid eligibility can be determined. The Award Notification contains the names and amounts of the financial aid awards that the student is eligible to receive. The notification also contains important information about restrictions and conditions that can affect the ability of the student to receive the amounts awarded. When a student's award package is available for review, the student will be notified by e-mail to log on to eConnect to accept the terms and conditions of the Award Notification and to activate the awards for payment. Financial aid awards will not pay to a student's account unless the student has activated his or her awards on eConnect.



4. Financial aid awards will be disbursed by the Business Office of each college according to the regulations of each award program.