Students planning to attend a public college, university or technical college should complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).  Once the FAFSA is completed and submitted, you will receive information from your financial aid office if you are eligible to receive the Hope Scholarship.

There are no additional applications to complete, besides the FAFSA Application, in order to be eligible for a Hope Scholarship.  The FAFSA, Free Application for Federal Student Aid, determines how much you should be eligible to contribute towards your education.  It takes your earned income, total family assets, as well as other quantitative measures in order to calculate your contribution towards your education. 

The FAFSA can be completed by downloading the application and mailing it to the Department of Education or you can submit your application online.  In order to complete the FAFSA online, students must have already received their FAFSA PIN.  This PIN is their identity to their FAFSA application and can allow you to either update, submit, or remove your application.  If you haven’t received or lost your FAFSA PIN, you can always request another PIN.  Please keep in mind that it will usually take 2-3 weeks to receive a new FAFSA PIN through the mail, so please plan accordingly.

Once the FAFSA is completed and submitted, your prospective school will contact you with the Hope Scholarship award amount.  Most schools will include you award amount within your college financial aid award letter.  Once you accept the award amount, you will have the option to have all additional funds to be either mailed to your address or directly wired to your financial institution.

Even though there are multiple states that offer the Hope Scholarship and have their own Hope Scholarship requirements, they all require you to complete the FAFSA.  It is highly recommended to submit the HOPE application (FAFSA) as early as possible. The earlier you apply, the earlier the funds are disbursed to your school and credited to your account.  This is an extremely popular scholarship among college students, so to improve your chances of receiving any funding will partially be determined as to when you submitted your application. 

If you are unclear or uncertain about any information related to the Hope scholarship, it’s important that you contact your school’s financial aid office to make sure you are on the correct path.  Any step that is missed or forgotten will cause delays towards your application process.  

HopeScholarshipRequirements.com / FafsaEfc.com / PellGrantOnline.com
PellGrantRequirements.com / PellGrantApplication.com / DirectLoan.net