Frequently Asked Questions

At UNMC, financial aid awards are driven by the academic scholarship process. Each academic program has a different scholarship award process. The Office of Financial Aid does not determine or award scholarships. The academic programs are solely responsible for this process. Once your academic program has notified our office of their award scholarship sections, we will proceed with finalizing financial aid awards.

Historically, financial aid awards have been finalized as listed below. Anticipate your award letter based on your program affiliation.

• Late May: College of Medicine
• Late June: College of Nursing, College of Dentistry, College of Pharmacy, College of Allied Health Professions
• Late July: Graduate Studies

Grants are only available to undergraduate students without a first bachelor’s degree. Students must submit their FAFSA by May 1, 2024 for the 2024-25 academic year to be eligible for the Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant (SEOG), Nebraska Opportunity Grant (NOG) and/or Nebraska Promise.

View the list of grants available at UNMC.

You are required to complete the FAFSA every academic year you would like to be considered for Federal Financial Aid.

Each student’s financial need calculations are based on several factors. Awards are determined by the information on the FAFSA, submission of the FAFSA before deadlines, program eligibility for awards, resident/non-resident status, unmet need, etc.

Graduate and Professional students are not eligible for Subsidized loans as of 2012.

Once you have registered for classes, the details of your tuition/fee charges will appear on your MyRecords under the Student Financials tab. Bills are typically generated by the Student Accounts office three weeks before the semester begins.

The Cost of Attendance (COA) provides a breakdown of all fees assessed by each college/program. Once on the COA page, click on your college/program for a complete COA breakdown of all costs by semester. Learn more about student fees.

No, if you are not requesting loan aid for the year you will not need to complete the MPN (Master Promissory Note) and Entrance counseling. However, you must decline the loan aid to ensure the MPN and Entrance Counseling requirements are removed from your MyRecords To Do List.

All financial aid should be accepted no later than July 20 to ensure sufficient time for processing the aid requests for the fall semester start date. Students may want to delay accepting loan aid until the federal student loan interest rates are announced in late May; program scholarships are finalized in mid-June; tuition/fee rates are approved by the University of Nebraska Board of Regents in late June. The Office of Financial Aid will routinely remind students of financial aid processing completion requirements prior to the deadline. For students starting in the spring semester, aid should be accepted by December 15 to allow ample processing time prior to the start of the spring semester.

Financial aid is accepted for the entire year. If your program ends during the middle of the year or you started in the middle of the year, then you might only be accepting aid for one semester. For students in 12-month academic year programs (fall/spring/summer required enrollment), your financial aid is package is set up for all three terms with most of your aid being disbursed across all three terms.

For students in 9-month academic year programs (fall/spring required enrollment), your aid is set up for those two terms only. Students enrolled in 9-month programs that decide to enroll in summer sessions can contact the Office of Financial Aid to request summer aid. Summer registration must be completed before requesting this aid. Summer aid is requested based on summer sessions of enrollment and cost of attendance will be based on the session dates of enrollment (living expenses) and direct costs (tuition/fees/books).

No, students are encouraged to review their costs, their living expense needs and borrow accordingly. We encourage students to develop a monthly budget and stick to that budget. The financial aid refunded to you after tuition and fees are paid can be a sizeable amount if you borrow enough to fund 100% of your living needs. That lump sum refund of financial aid must fund your living needs from August to December or January to May. It is critical to establish a budget and live within that budget to ensure your funds last through the semester.

You may be awarded more than one type of loan to help cover your cost of attendance at UNMC. When reviewing these awards on MyRecords, a detailed description of each type of aid is available by hovering your cursor over the award. If more information is needed for you to make your decision, please visit Types of Financial Aid to learn more about the aid you were offered.

We suggest you accept loan aid (if offered/eligible) in this order:

• SUBSIDIZED: Undergraduate students only.
• UNSUBSIDIZED: All students who have not reached their annual or total aggregate maximum loan limits
• GRADUATE PLUS: Graduate/professional student only. These have the highest interest rate of all federal loans.

Tuition and fee rates cannot be calculated until you are registered. These calculations are generally not performed until after August 1. If you only want to borrow loans for your tuition/fee balance, you will have to delay your loan acceptance until your tuition/fee bill is calculated. Office of Financial Aid cost of attendance budgets are estimates and should not be used for borrowing for exact or close to exact tuition/fee costs. Provided you borrow as soon as possible after your tuition/fees are calculated, your funds should arrive in time for payment of tuition/fees.

Remember, loan aid is not offered by semester. If you accept $5,000 in loan aid, it will be split over fall/spring or fall/spring/summer depending on your program of enrollment. Your tuition/fee balance AND transaction calculations will be available on your MyRecords student portal under the STUDENT ACCOUNTS link when tuition/fees are calculated for the term.

No: UNMC will offer funds for living expenses but it is not required to accept loan funds for this expense. See the Loan Processing Tutorial for accepting/reducing/declining loan aid.

If your program requires you to attend a summer semester (dentistry, physical therapy, etc), your cost of attendance for that semester is automatically factored into your financial aid award at the beginning of the year.

If you are not required to take summer classes but have chosen to do so, please contact our office after you have registered for your summer sessions. Financial Aid must be able to view your credit hours of enrollment in summer sessions to build the cost of attendance and award aid for those sessions.

If you do not want aid for the Fall semester, you will need to decline your aid request. Due to federal sequestration regulations, loan aid requests for SPRING only disbursements cannot be processed until after October 1.

Email our office to request your loan aid be reinstated for the Spring semester only. We will award Spring-only aid and provide you with a new award notification to accept/reduce/decline the reinstated loan offers. Grant/scholarship aid will not be set up on a Spring-only basis.

Generally speaking, to use a 529 account, the student must provide the trust advisor a copy of their tuition/fee statement. This should be done before any financial aid is applied to the student account. Most often these trusts are set up to pay only tuition/fees. Once financial aid is applied to the account, the trust may only authorize payment for any outstanding balance. Once you are registered, contact the Student Accounts office and request a copy of your tuition/fee statement be mailed to you or the trust advisory. The account statement will include mailing address and tuition due date information.

Yes, UNMC offers a deferred tuition payment plan by making monthly payments through the Student Accounts office. Semester tuition and fee balances are required to be paid in full over three months or by the end the semester. Students cannot register for subsequent semesters until the current semester balance is paid in full.

If you have been offered federal student loans there may be additional applications and processes to complete. Your award notification will direct you to your PeopleSoft Self Service screens to review your additional requirements. A comprehensive tutorial will be provided with your award notification to guide you through the process of accepting/declining your awards, completing additional requirements, and familiarizing you with federally mandated financial aid policies and procedures.

Adjustments can be made to your loans during the same academic year. Loan aid can be returned or paid back if you have borrowed too much. If you did not accept all your aid, you might be able to request the remaining balance. Please contact the Office of Financial Aid for more information.

Yes, declined loans can be re-instated provided other aid has not been received to replace the loan offers. If you are offered a student loan for $5,000, and decline that loan because you are receiving an outside scholarship for $5,000, you may no longer qualify for the $5,000 loan offer when you request it be re-instated.

Provided you have completed all financial aid processing requirements and you are registered full-time for the semester, your financial aid should be delivered seven days prior to the start of the semester. If you are registered less than full-time, your aid may need to be reviewed to ensure your aid eligibility remains correct.

All financial aid is delivered in even, multiple disbursements. Generally that means 50% for the Fall semester and 50% for the Spring semester. Financial aid is credited to your Fall and/or Spring tuition and fee account to reduce the cost of your tuition and fees. Credit balances are refunded to students either by check or direct deposit to checking/savings accounts. Credit balances are generally the value the student has borrowed for books and equipment and living expenses for the semester.

Your loan funds are divided up for each semester of enrollment. The amount that is given for each semester can be found on MyRecords. Funds for each semester will not be disbursed if you are not enrolled in courses. Use the Aid Processing Tutorial to review how your financial aid will be delivered each term and how your estimated costs are set up for each term. If you use the MyRecords – Financial Aid Summary link, you can see how the aid is set up for all semesters and your costs for each semester.

No. After your student tuition/fee bill is paid, any remaining aid balance is issued to the student as a credit balance refund. It is the student’s responsibility to budget the refund to cover any living expenses for the semester.

The date and method of receiving the refund will depend on when you accepted your loans and how you have your account set up. Please view the Student Accounts page for more information.

Students are given 14 days from the date of disbursement to reduce or cancel the amount they requested. If after this time you have funds left over, it is recommended that you use that money to make a payment on your loans through your servicer or reduce your aid for the next semester by that amount.

This is ultimately the student’s decision. Interest does accrue on Direct Unsubsidized loans and Grad Plus loans from the date of disbursement and can add up quickly. Every student situation is different and should be determined on an individual basis.