To be eligible for financial aid, undergraduate students must meet those criteria as outlined on the Eligibility page of the Financial Aid Office website.
To apply for financial aid, students must complete the following steps:
- Obtain a Federal Student Aid ID (FSA ID) from the U.S. Department of Education at fsaid.ed.gov. Parents of dependent students will also be required to apply for a FSA ID. If you or your parent(s) have misplaced your original FSA ID, please visit the FSA ID website for assistance.
- Complete and submit a Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). SUNY Poly’s Federal School Code is 011678. Students are encouraged to complete the FAFSA as soon as possible after October 1st. The FAFSA now uses prior-prior-year federal income tax return data. For example, when completing the 2018-2019 FAFSA, federal income tax data for 2016 will be used. Please use the “IRS Data Retrieval Tool” when completing the FAFSA. This will allow you to bring certain income/tax information from the IRS website into your FAFSA.
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New York State Residents ONLY can apply for the Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) as part of their online FAFSA application process. SUNY Poly’s NYS TAP Code is 4975. From the FAFSA submission confirmation page, select the link that says “File Your TAP Application Now”. If you exited the FAFSA before selecting this option, you can complete the online TAP application after HESC (NYS Higher Education Services Corporation) receives your FAFSA data (after three business days).
Complete information about the financial aid application process is available on the Financial Aid Office website under the Apply for Financial Aid section.
The primary responsibility for meeting educational costs rests with the student and his/her family. The Financial Aid Office uses the expected family contribution (EFC) generated from the FAFSA as the basis for the student/family contribution.
SUNY Poly gives priority in the awarding of financial aid to those students with the greatest financial need. Financial need is determined by subtracting the expected family contribution from the student’s estimated cost of attendance.
While SUNY Poly does not have a deadline for applying for financial aid, we encourage our students to apply by December 1st each year. Applications are processed on a rolling basis starting in early October.
A financial aid award letter will be sent to each student who has been accepted and whose financial aid application is complete.
The U.S. Department of Education randomly selects some financial aid applicants to be verified. In those cases, the Financial Aid Office will request additional documents including an institutional verification worksheet and W2 forms. If you were unable to use the IRS Data Retrieval Tool when completing the FAFSA, an IRS Tax Transcript will also be required. These documents must be reviewed and necessary corrections made before financial aid is awarded.
If there has been a significant decrease in the student’s (if independent) or parent’s (if dependent) income from the prior year, a Special Condition form may be submitted to the Financial Aid Office along with supporting documentation. The Financial Aid Office may be able to use the prior year’s estimated income rather than the prior-prior year’s actual income to determine your eligibility for federal financial aid.