Aid Offer Process

If you are admitted to the University of Washington Tacoma with your Financial Aid application received and you are eligible, an aid offer will be created for you. Then, an email notifying you will be sent. It will have one of the two subject lines below:

• Notice of Preliminary Aid Offer

  This is an estimated aid offer based on your eligibility for aid with current FAFSA/WASFA information. You may accept this initial aid offer; however, we have requested additional documents or information and a review of your FAFSA/WASFA information is needed before your aid offer can be finalized.

• Notice of Aid Offer

  Your application has been reviewed and your eligibility confirmed. Next, must accept your aid offer online in your MyUW by the date indicated to reserve your aid and ensure it will be ready for you when you start the school year.

If you receive another type of message and have questions, you may email us to inquire about the status of your aid offer.

Visit your Financial Aid Status in your MyUW to access your aid offer and review all financial aid related information.

Not sure how to read your aid offer? Visit Understanding Your Aid Offer

Be sure to check for errors in your address, social security number or other personal information. 

Review the Cost of Attendance (COA) section and the assumptions for your student budget such as: 

• State Residency:  If you see in your Cost of Attendance that your initial residency is listed as non-resident and you believe this to be an error, contact the UW Tacoma Office of the Registrar at reguwt@uw.edu. If you are not a Washington state resident but pay resident tuition because of a departmental appointment or Armed Services status, note the tuition benefit in the Resources Review/Update section in Financial Aid Status on MyUW.
• Enrollment Status: Graduate/Undergraduate, quarters listed you plan to attend, default is full-time (do you plan on attending part-time?)
• Housing: If housing is incorrect, you may notify us by email to update your housing information. For example: COA says "Not Living with Parents" but you are living with family for the academic year or COA says "Living with Parents" and you plan to stay in court 17. 

Please contact our office if you find any of assumptions or information that is incorrect.  

Accept your aid offer in your MyUW Financial Aid Status before the ‘reply by date’ (Remember, accepting your financial aid offer is not the same as accepting your admissions offer). You must either accept or reject each form of aid listed in your offer. You are under no obligation until the aid is disbursed; you may accept an award now and change your mind later.  

You may also accept or reject aid individually, you do not need to accept all forms of aid:

• Most students will accept all their grants and 
• Decide whether they would like to accept borrowing loans, or reject them. If you reject them, you can reinstate them if needed later. Loans cannot be replaced with grants. Subsidized loans can potentially be replaced with Work Study, upon review.
• If you have Work Study on your aid-offer and would like to replace this aid with federal loans, please contact our office. If you do not have Work Study on your aid offer and would like this added, you may reach out to the Work Study Office at workstdy@uw.edu to inquire about eligibility.

After accepting your aid offer, you may receive "revised aid offer notice" emails reflecting changes in your contribution and your aid offer. Review these revisions on MyUW and accept or reject any new aid that has been offered to you. Email our office if you are unsure what has changed on your aid offer.

If you don’t accept the aid offer by the ‘reply by date’ then the offer will be canceled. You can email us to request to reinstate your aid offer. Most aid can be reinstated, certain types of aid may not be available for reinstatement. 

For more information on types of aid in your offer:

• Grants
• Loans
• Work Study

For help on how to navigate Financial Aid Status and viewing/accepting your aid offer visit: MyUW - Financial Aid Status & How to Accept your Aid Offer Video Tutorial 

**If your aid offer does not reflect recent changes in personal circumstances or special expenses, you may request a revision to your aid offer through completing corresponding forms that allow your circumstances to be reviewed. For more information visit Request Changes to Your Aid Offer .

Make sure your award correctly reflects any benefits, scholarships, outside awards and other resources you will receive or think you may receive, even if it comes from another UW office. You must report any information about your resources  that you have not already formally reported to our office.  It is imperative that our office has current and complete information on your resources throughout the year; otherwise, you risk being over-awarded and having to repay aid. 

Examples of outside resources can include, but are not limited to: scholarships and stipends, tuition exemption, workplace tuition assistance, veteran waivers/military benefits, Resident Advisor housing subsidies, tribal assistance, and department graduate student tuition waivers, etc. 

You can report this to our office through the "Resources" section of Financial Aid Status in your MyUW. You may email us as well. We will need to know the source of the outside aid, the amount you are to receive, and for which quarters you may receive it for.

Our requests for Required Documents are sent to your UW email. You must respond to any requests we make for certification statements, tax returns, household information, or any other documentation - as it is needed to finalize your aid offer. We cannot disburse any funds until all required information is submitted and reviewed.

We strongly encourage your to reply and submit documents promptly. Certain time periods of each quarter are extremely high volume and documents may take 2-6 weeks for review and are assigned in order of received. Our document processing timelines are listed here.

You may check on the status of your submitted documents in the "Required Documents" section of your Financial Aid Status page. 

• Financial Aid is offered under the assumption that you will enroll full-time (12 credits for undergraduate students; 10 credits for graduate students) and earn credit for the courses you enroll in each quarter. The amount of credits you are enrolled in when your aid disburses, are the amount of credits you are expected to complete. 

  Aid may be available if you are enrolling part-time for the quarter, however, you must email us at uwtfa@uw.edu to review and if available, adjust your aid for part-time. Aid eligibility can change and your aid will not release unless we adjust it for part-time.

• Maintain Satisfactory Academic Progress to remain eligible for aid. This means students will earn 80% (undergraduate) or 67% (graduate/professional) of the credits attempted, maintain a cumulative 2.0 (undergraduate) or 3.0 (graduate/professional) GPA, and complete the anticipated degree within 225 (undergraduate) or 105 (graduates) or 285 (professional) credits.
   
• Report new sources of support and changes in personal circumstances (e.g., changing from non-resident to resident status, divorce, moving to parents’ home) as soon as you learn of them.

Students may want a parent, guardian, or counselor to discuss their financial aid or tuition statement with our office, on their behalf. 

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) protects the privacy of your education records. As a general rule the University will not release your records to a third party without your written consent. To allow staff in Student Financial Aid to discuss the status of your financial aid offer with your parents, spouse, or another person, a release of information form must be completed. 

*Even with a permission to release information on file, we cannot release any Federal Tax Information from the student aid application.

You can complete the Information Release Authorization form online. For more information visit:

Information Release - Student Fiscal Services

FERPA for Students

When your aid disburses, it will look to first pay your tuition statement and once the balance is covered, any remaining amounts are then sent to you. It is preferred by UW that excess funds are sent electronically via direct deposit. 

You only need to set up your direct deposit once before your initial quarter of enrollment, however, it is good to review your direct deposit information annually in the case you have made updates to your bank account preferences.

It will take at least 5 business days to set-up your direct deposit - be sure to do this in plenty of time before the aid disbursement date for the quarter you are making changes.

You will need your UW NetID and password, your bank routing number and bank account number.

For further instructions - visit SFS How to Set Up Direct Deposit

Now you are ready to receive your aid! Learn about aid Disbursement