Financial Aid

Your aid offer is found at CougarNet, under the Financial Aid tab.

CougarNet is the student portal at SIUE. CougarNet provides students with access to their records at SIUE and is available through any Internet service provider. Accessible features include access to the student’s schedule, transcripts, final grades, account balance, last bill, current transactions, financial aid status and addresses. Students can change their local address and non-SIUE email address. Course searches are also available on CougarNet.

Aid offers are normally for the standard academic year, which includes the fall and spring semesters. If you are graduating at the end of the fall term, then your aid offer will reflect the fall semester only. If you did not attend SIUE in the fall semester, but you are attending for the spring term, your aid offer will be for the spring term only. The summer term is considered separately. Once you have enrolled in at least six credit hours, our specialists will package you for the summer term. Your eligibility for summer aid will be based on your aid use during the fall and spring terms.

An aid offer is a detailed listing of the financial aid for which you are eligible. If you filed a FAFSA, you will be offered Federal Direct Loans, and PELL and MAP Grants, if you qualify. You may also be able to access the Parent PLUS Loan and/or an  Alternative Loan. You can see your aid offer on your CougarNet account under the Financial Aid tab. Select Award, the appropriate aid year, and then the Accept Aid Offer tab. If you do not see your aid offer, please check the Eligibility tab for any required documents. If you would like to know your eligibility for the Parent PLUS Loan or an Alternative Loan, please contact our office.

If you are a dependent student, you can ask your parent/guardian for assistance by asking them to complete the Parent PLUS Loan at studentaid.gov. The parent/guardian will sign in with their FSA ID to complete the application process. If the government denies your parent/guardian, you may be eligible for additional unsubsidized loan. Independent or dependent students can apply for a private, alternative loan. You should also speak with the Office of the Bursar about available payment plans.

Per federal regulations, aid cannot be posted to your account until 10 days before the term begins.

If the initial payment for the term is not made by the due date, your classes for that term will be dropped. You will be allowed to re-register if you do not owe a balance from a prior term. If the subsequent payments cannot be made, a small late fee will be added to your bill for each missed payment. The Office of the Bursar assesses late fees. A missed first payment for the term is the only missed payment that results in dropped classes.

The Office of Financial Aid does not place holds on accounts. The Office of the Bursar may have placed a hold on your account if you still owe the University a balance. Please contact the Office of the Bursar to see why a hold was placed on your account. If you owe a balance because your financial aid has not processed, please contact the Office of Student Financial Aid. If your financial aid disbursed but did not cover your bill, please contact the Office of the Bursar to make payment arrangements.

The scholarships will not pay until enrollment is a minimum of 12 hours. If the student is a continuing recipient of the scholarships, a minimum of 12 credit hours must be completed each term and a cumulative 2.9 GPA maintained.

There are links to institutional and private scholarships on our website.

Tuition waivers exist for children of eligible employees of SIUE, as well as qualifying state employees. Having a related alumnus in your family does not qualify you for a tuition waiver, however you may apply for an alumni scholarship.

The Office of Student Financial Aid posts tuition waivers after the Office of Human Resources has processed the paperwork. If you have questions about the paperwork, please contact the Office of Human Resources at [email protected] or 618-650-2190. Usually, the waivers are posted to student award letters within 3-5 business days after we receive the information from the Office of Human Resources.

A transfer student’s aid eligibility is determined by the results of the FAFSA and which term the student begins attendance. If a student transfers mid-year, between the fall and spring terms, the student should transfer the FAFSA information to SIUE. The aid offer will be determined by any remaining eligibility for the academic year. Transfer students who will be entering the fall term and meet the qualifications as determined by the Office of Admissions may be eligible for a Cougar Pride Scholarship. The Office of Admissions selects recipients of this scholarship, and students should contact their admission counselor to discuss eligibility.

Graduate students can use federal or private funds. If the student wants to use federal funds, the most current FAFSA must be on file. A graduate student must be enrolled in a minimum of five credit hours to be offered the federal unsubsidized loan. The maximum annual amount of the unsubsidized loan is $20,500. Graduate students may also have the opportunity to apply for the credit-based Graduate PLUS Loan. The total amount of loan eligibility is dependent upon the budget for the specific graduate program. Increases to the budget may be considered if the student has extraordinary costs beyond the posted budget via a Special Expense form, available in the Office of Student Financial Aid. Private loans are obtained by the student independently of the FAFSA and will be processed by the school. Alternative loan applications are also available.

Possibly. If completion of the first baccalaureate degree did not result in reaching the lifetime loan limit for the student, they may be eligible for additional federal loans. A FAFSA must be filed, and the dependency of the student is determined by the FAFSA application. If the student is under the age of 24 or cannot answer “Yes” to any of the dependency questions on the FAFSA, the student will be marked dependent and required to provide parent/guardian information. If the student is determined to be independent by the FAFSA, no parental information will be required. In either case, grants are not provided for students pursuing second bachelor’s degrees.

You must visit the Office of Student Financial Aid and speak with an advisor about your situation. It is best if you come during our office hours, which are Monday-Friday, 8 a.m.-4 p.m. A determination about your situation will be made based on the conversation between you and the advisor, and, if necessary, your FAFSA information will be changed to reflect a changed circumstance. This may result in a changed aid offer.

Yes. Students with a FAFSA on file for the current academic year may submit a Study Abroad Student Request for Assistance form completed with detailed information on study abroad costs associated with the program to which the student is applying. This form is available in the Office of Student Financial Aid and in the Study Abroad Office. If a student does not wish to file a FAFSA, they may pursue private funding through alternative loans.

Short-term loans are available, as funds permit, to aid students with emergency needs or unexpected expenses related to educational costs(must be repaid 30 days of the receipt). Short-term loans are not available for tuition and/or fee payment. Please visit the Office of Student Financial Aid to discuss your emergency with a financial aid advisor. 

Families and students who have experienced a drastic change in their income are invited to complete the Special Circumstance: Loss of Income request. Please visit or call our office to determine the information we will need to process this request.

Possibly. If the lifetime PELL limit has not been reached, a summer Pell award is available to students who are enrolled in six credit hours or more for the term.  If the student has not used all of the available Pell Grant during the previous fall and spring terms, the remainder of the year's Pell can be offered to the student.   A full academic year can result in a student receiving 150% Pell Award (fall plus spring plus summer), but these amounts do count against the student’s lifetime limit of PELL.

Financial aid eligibility for the summer is determined by a student’s grade level and use of aid during the fall and spring terms. If an undergraduate student’s grade level changes after spring grades post, the student may be eligible for an additional loan amount for the summer, as long as they are enrolled in at least six credit hours. Students who did not utilize the full fall/spring loan amounts may be offered any remaining loan eligibility provided the undergraduate student is enrolled in at least six credit hours and the graduate student is enrolled in a minimum of five. Undergraduate students who are PELL-eligible during the fall and spring may also be eligible for an additional award of summer PELL.

Federal Work Study does not pay toward your bill. Your employer receives funds from the government for employing you, which goes toward your paycheck. You may use your paycheck however you choose, including making payments toward your bill.

This happens for a variety of reasons. The most common of these is the lack of a Master Promissory Note (MPN), Entrance Loan Counseling (EC) and/or the Annual Student Loan Acknowledgement. These can be completed at  www.studentaid.gov. Sign in with your FSA ID (what you used to complete your FAFSA) to complete both processes. Additionally, your loans may not pay to your account if you are below the required number of hours. For undergraduate students this number is six credit hours. A graduate student must be enrolled in a minimum of five credit hours before federal loans pay to their account.

When you borrow Direct Loans offered on your aid offer, your lender is the federal government. Your loan is assigned to a loan servicer, who contacts you after the initial disbursement of the loan.  You may also view your loan servicer's contact information under your loan history at www.studentaid.gov. 

The Office of Student Financial Aid does not take payments of any kind. All Direct Loans are payable to your loan servicer. Alternative loans are repaid to the chosen lender.

The Master Promissory Note, or MPN, is a signed promise to pay back the loans you borrow from the federal government to use for your schooling.

Entrance Loan Counseling is a mandatory information session that must be completed before you receive your first federal student loan. Entrance Loan Counseling explains your rights and responsibilities as a student borrower.

Beginning in fall 2021, every borrower (including students and parents/guardians) must complete the Annual Student Loan Acknowledgement EVERY year they anticipate to borrow federal loans for that academic year. The Acknowledgement reviews how much of eligibility you have used, what your current repayments would be and more. 

Alternative student loans are funded by private lenders and are not based on need. The Office of Student Financial Aid will process any loan application from any lender that the borrower chooses. Carefully choose the lender that best meets your needs.

If you have accepted Federal Direct Loans on CougarNet, and you have completed your Entrance Loan Counseling (EC) and Master Promissory Note (MPN), it takes 3-5 business days for the funds to pay into your account. Alternative loans will pay approximately three weeks after they are created on the aid offer.

If you drop a class during the first two weeks of the fall or spring term or during the refund period of your summer class, the cost of the class is refunded to your account. In addition, your financial aid will be adjusted to reflect your new enrollment. Your loans, PELL Grant and MAP Grant could all be adjusted up or down during this period, depending upon your total number of hours. All of these types of financial aid are awarded based on your enrollment hours, so please check with the Office of Financial Aid to determine the effect on your financial aid before you drop a class.

Each college/university may have a different deadline. Check with the institutions in which you are interested in attending. You may also want to ask your institution about its definition of an aid application deadline. It may be the date the school receives your FAFSA, or the date your FAFSA is processed. SIUE uses the processing date of the FAFSA.

Federal law limits the amount of Federal PELL Grant funds you may receive over your lifetime. You are limited to 600%. Since the maximum amount of PELL Grant funding you can receive each year is equal to 100%, you may be able to use PELL Grant for up to six years, unless you are awarded Pell Grant during the summer term.  All terms of use of the Pell Grant count toward the lifetime limit of 600%.  Loans are offered to students based on their grade levels and dependency status as determined by the FAFSA. Lifetime loan limits have been established by the federal government as follows:

• Dependent undergraduate: $31,000
• Independent undergraduate: $57,500
• Graduate student: $138,500
• Pharmacy/Dental students: $224,000

How does adding or dropping courses affect my Pell Grant?

At the end of each term, every student is monitored for Satisfactory Academic Progress (SAP) regardless of intent to use financial aid. You will be notified if any action is required on your part.