Getting Your Aid FAQs

To help students and parents figure out the money you owe or money you’re getting back, our office will put pending aid amounts on students’ billing accounts for the fall and spring semesters. Pending aid amounts are replaced with actual funds 10 days before the start of each term.

Financial aid is made up of loans, grants, and work-study. Therefore, student loans are considered aid. To learn more about student loans that are available, please visit Types of Aid.

Financial aid offers may be changed because:

  • Your residency has changed.
  • Your enrollment status has changed.
  • You have declined one or more offers.
  • We have been notified that you received other aid/resources after our aid decision. 
  • Your data on the FAFSA was incorrect and the error has been corrected.
  • Your winter or summer financial aid has been processed.

If your living situation is going to change, please contact us to report your housing status.

Aid eligibility is determined by many factors such as, adjusted gross income, assets, etc. This is calculated based on information you and your family provide on the FAFSA, which can change each year.  If you feel nothing has changed, contact our office.

The amount of aid each person receives is calculated as the difference between the annual cost of attending a school and the Student Aid Index (SAI) for the 2024-2025 award year. Other colleges and universities are likely to have different costs as well as different amounts of financial aid to offer to students. 

Differences between you and a sibling, if both attend UMD, could be from your earnings/assets. It may also be that you are at different academic grade levels. 

You may have to pay back some or all of your financial aid if you drop credit hours. We have a minimum credit level required for aid eligibility. Review our Withdrawal & Financial Aid page, as well as the  Satisfactory Academic Progress policy for more information.

If you will be attending as a part-time student or if you are considering dropping a class, it is important to contact our office and discuss with an OSFA staff member first. 

Sorry, we do not offer discounts to children whose parents graduated from UMD.

Financial aid cannot be "transferred" from one school to another—each college or university will review your need and eligibility based upon its own costs and its own aid programs. It is important that you send a copy of your FAFSA to the college you are transferring to.