Federal regulations stipulate that your total annual financial aid, including loans and work study, not exceed a student's annual cost of attendance. However, if your education-related expenses exceed your current Cost of Attendance and you find yourself in need of additional funds, you can request a Cost of Attendance Appeal. This appeal is intended to increase your overall Cost of Attendance (i.e., budget) so that you may obtain additional loan funds to meet these education-related expenses. This appeal does not result in non-loan funding. The purpose of the appeal is to permit you to borrow additional loan funds to meet your higher-than budgeted expenses. Examples of these expenses are increased childcare expenses, unexpected housing costs, etc. 

The SFS Dashboard is primarily accessible to students who have filed the FAFSA. We encourage all eligible students to file, but if you are unable to file a FAFSA, please contact [click-for-email] with the subject line "COA Appeal - No FAFSA." A representative will reach out to you to discuss your next steps.

Housing Costs

If you reported 'Off-campus' or 'On-campus' for your housing choice, your Cost of Attendance includes a budget for housing and food. This budget is based on a 9-month enrollment period, which is the length of the Fall and Spring semesters combined. You can appeal this budget if your off-campus housing expenses for this 9-month period exceeds what is budgeted. Please see our Cost of Attendance page for this year's housing budget. We cannot include summer housing costs in the Fall/Spring budget, as Summer is a separate term. We also can only consider your costs for the terms in which you are actively enrolled. 

If you are living on-campus and your residence hall is more expensive then what we budgeted, we encourage you to submit this appeal. You can submit a copy of your student account statement displaying your residence hall charge as your supporting documentation.

There is not a deadline for submitting a Cost of Attendance Appeal. As long as you are actively enrolled, you may request the appeal during your registered term(s). However, there comes a point when we cannot provide a thorough review before the semester ends. As such, we recommend submitting your appeal no more than one week prior to the end of term to ensure our office can review before your enrollment ends for the year. Please see below for those suggested dates. We also strongly recommend providing all requested documentation with your appeal to ensure an efficient and timely review.

Due to condensed time frames, we cannot guarantee a timely review during the summer enrollment terms. Appeals requested during the summer sessions are reviewed on a case-by-case basis to ensure we can review and respond before the end of the term.