Financial aid goes electronic

As part of its continuing effort to make the financial-aid process as fast and easy as possible, the Office of Student Financial Services (OSFS) at UW–Madison has added a new feature. Students now are able to manage their financial-aid awards through the My UW Portal.

In addition to the portal access, students also will begin receiving notification of their financial-aid packages via their campus e-mail accounts.

“This initiative is aimed at speeding up and streamlining the financial-aid process,” says Steve Van Ess, director of OSFS. “Since the changes were implemented, they’ve cut days – and, in some cases, weeks – off of the process of notification and acceptance of the financial aid.”

On the My UW Portal, students now are able to add a module called “Accept/Decline Financial Aid” on the portal’s “Financial” tab, allowing them to use a secure site to accept, reduce or decline the financial aid offered to them.
Students can also use the tab to:

• Link to an online award guide
• View the Stafford Master Promissory Note from the Great Lakes Higher Education Corporation
• View an interactive, first-time borrower entrance-loan interview
• Access an “Administrative Request” link to inform the OSFS of any other aid, such as outside scholarships the student may be receiving, or other information that may cause a revision of the award.

The “Accept/Decline Financial Aid” module works in real time, meaning that there is no delay in the posting of content or changes to the site.

Unless students choose to receive notification by mail, they will also begin receiving information about their financial-aid packages via their UW–Madison e-mail accounts through a system called E-Awards. The e-mail includes instructions for finding the “Accept/Decline Financial Aid” feature.