Financial Aid FAQ
MACU has teamed up with Solutions at ECMC to answer all of your student loan repayment questions. Solutions is a service of the non-profit organization ECMC and is dedicated to helping students manage educational loans. Their resources are available to you free of charge. To contact a Solutions Student Loan Repayment Advisor, visit www.ecmcsolutions.org or call 1-877-331-3262.
Completing your FAFSA is the first step in the financial aid process. It will take seven days to process your form and send you a Student Aid Report (SAR) once all required signatures are received. Your SAR will summarize the data you report on your application. Check this information carefully to make sure it is accurate. Keep a copy of your SAR and note your Data Release Number (DRN) in the bottom left hand corner of the first page; you will need your DRN if you decide to apply to additional schools. If your FAFSA information is complete, an Expected Family Contribution (EFC) will be printed in the upper-right hand corner. Your EFC will be based on the financial information you provide on the FAFSA, and your school will use it to award your financial aid.
For additional help filling out the FAFSA, you can go to Completing the FAFSA on the FAFSA Web Site.
Students who have reached their aggregate loan limit can apply for student loans from an outside source, such as private school loans.
A Federal Student Aid ID serves as your identifier to let you access your personal information in various U.S. Department of Education systems. A FSA ID is required to complete a FAFSA.
Payment periods are similar to semesters.
- Undergraduate students: The payment period for undergraduate students is 12 credit hours and 20 weeks of instruction. Undergraduate students must pass the first 6 hours and begin attendance in 9 hours (third class in payment period) to be eligible for the second disbursement in the payment period. Undergraduate students are charged with 6 hours at a time:
- Graduate students: The payment period for graduate students is 9 credit hours and 18 weeks of instruction. Graduate students must pass the first 6 hours and begin attendance in 9 hours (third class in payment period) to be eligible for the second disbursement in the payment period. Graduate students are charged for 6 hours and then for 3 hours (total of 9 hours for each payment period).
- Note: Graduate students also receive two equal disbursements per payment period. This means that the refund (if any) created by the second loan disbursement of your payment period will generally be larger than the first.
You can reach the MACU Financial Aid Office at 405-692-3204.
Subsidized loans do not accrue interest while a student is enrolled at least half-time in a degree-seeking program. Upon dropping below half-time enrollment, interest will begin to accrue. On the other hand, an unsubsidized loan begins accruing interest immediately regardless of a student’s enrollment status.
Once financial aid has been disbursed, the Bursar has three business days to post funds to your student account. If eligible for an overage/refund check, the Bursar has another 14 business days to issue said check. To receive your excess financial aid, you can elect to have it deposited into a checking or savings account (Direct Deposit) or receive a mailed check from the Bursar.
If you would like to setup your direct deposit, please click on the following link: MACU Direct Deposit
All CAGS (College of Adult and Graduate Studies) students will receive their first disbursement of financial aid approximately 4-6 weeks after the start date of their first course and two weeks of participation has been posted by the instructor. All students receive 2 equal disbursements per payment period.
Because eligibility for student aid does not carry over from one academic year to the next, students need to fill out the free application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) for each award year in which you are or plan to be a student.
The Department of Education requires schools that disburse Title IV funding (financial aid) to verify a certain percentage of submitted FAFSA applications. This should not in any way be contrued as suspicion or doubt on MACU’s part or that of the Department of Education. The FAFSA can be a difficult form and mistakes are very common. This is our way of making sure everything is as accurate as possible.
Professional Judgements
The Student Financial Aid Office is authorized to use professional judgment, on a case-by-case basis for students with “special circumstances” that affect a family’s ability to pay for a college education that is not reflected in the information provided on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).
The FAFSA is designed to determine a family’s ability to pay for higher education by calculating the Expected Family Contribution (EFC) amount. The EFC is a measure of how much the student and his or her family can be expected to contribute to the cost of the student’s education for the year. The information provided on the FAFSA is used to calculate the EFC.
Professional judgment is used to take into consideration factors which have not been reflected on the FAFSA. The professional judgment may either increase or decrease data elements used to calculate a student’s EFC. Expenses may also be added to a student’s budgeted cost of attendance depending on the situation.
Professional judgment cannot be exercised for the following:
- to circumvent the law or regulations
- to waive general student eligibility requirements
- to change a student’s status from independent to dependent
- to adjust the EFC directly
- to alter the need analysis formula or change table values
- to create a new category in the cost of attendance
If you have questions about how to apply for a professional judgment, contact the Student Financial Aid Office at (405) 692-3204.
Dependency Overrides
The Student Financial Aid Office may do dependency overrides on a case-by-case basis for students with unusual circumstances, provided the student can supply documentation supporting the override request.
Please note that none of the conditions listed below, singly or in combination, qualify as unusual circumstances meriting a dependency override:
- Parents refuse to contribute to the student’s education.
- Parents are unwilling to provide information on the FAFSA or for verification.
- Parents do not claim the student as a dependent for income tax purposes.
- Student demonstrates total self-sufficiency.
Unusual circumstances do include (and may cause any of the above conditions) abandonment by parents, an abusive family environment that threatens the student’s health or safety, or the student being unable to locate his parents. In such cases a dependency override might be warranted.
Documentation is critical to the dependency override process. The documentation must support, and include the reason for, the decision and should in almost all cases originate from a third party with knowledge of the unusual circumstances of the student.
A third party that knows the student’s situation—such as a teacher, counselor, medical authority, member of the clergy, prison administrator, government agency, or court—should establish the unusual circumstances. Evidence can be a signed letter or an official document, such as a court order.
Notice to Borrowers
For Students and Parents of students who enter into a Title IV, HEA Student loan: The institution will submit all loan information to the National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS).
All Title IV, HEA Student loan information will be accessible by authorized agencies, lenders, and institutions.
For More Financial Aid Info
For more information concerning financial aid, contact the office of Student Financial Services at:
(405) 692-3204