Your Offer

Email Notification of Financial Aid Offer

You, the student, are sent an email notification with your financial aid offer. Emails from our office will always be sent to your wisc.edu email account, unless you haven’t yet set it up, then it will go to your preferred email. Once you have the email, you’ll also be able to view the offer through your MyUW Student Center.

About the Offer

Screenshot of a 2023-24 Financial Aid Offer.

This is an accordion element with a series of buttons that open and close related content panels.

Cost of Attendance

You can expect to have both direct costs (billed by UW) as well as additional expenses (expenses we estimate and you’re likely to have, but are not billed by the UW). As the additional expenses are estimated, we strongly encourage you to plan your own specific budget based on your housing choice & dining plan, transportation needs, etc. Visit the Cost of Attendance page for more information.

Housing/Meals Assumption

Your housing and meals expenses were assumed based on several factors. If this assumption is incorrect, please submit the Update Housing/Meal Cost eForm in your MyUW Student Center so that we can update it.

Grants & Scholarships

FREE money to help lower your cost to attend UW-Madison. Grants and scholarships are not repaid.

*Depending on when you review your offer, any scholarships you’ve been offered from UW-Madison may or may not yet be reflected.*

The total amount of need-based sources of financial aid (grants, scholarships, subsidized loans, and work study) cannot exceed a student’s financial need.

Assistantships & Fellowships

Assistantships

Graduate Assistants may receive financial support through tuition remission and a stipend in exchange for performing teaching, research, or administrative duties. The tuition remission is considered a form of financial aid and will be included as what’s available to help cover your cost of attendance, whereas the stipend will not. 

Fellowships

Fellowships offer both a tuition remission and stipend and both are considered forms of financial aid. Therefore, both will be included as financial aid to help cover your cost of attendance and will impact your eligibility for federal student loans.

Impact on Other Financial Aid

Contact our team for help understanding specifically how a fellowships or assistantships may affect your federal student loan eligibility or other financial aid.

Contact the Graduate School for more information about how to receive an Assistantship or Fellowship..

Can additional scholarships impact my offer?

Sometimes.

Because grants, scholarships, and subsidized loans cannot exceed a student’s financial need, if your current financial aid offer is already meeting your full financial need and another scholarship is reported – other financial aid will have to be reduced to make room for the additional funds.

So you’re not getting any less financial aid overall, but you’re not able to get any more than your financial need.

We will always notify you via email of any changes made to your financial aid.

Federal Pell Grant Census

Federal Pell Grant regulations require that our office confirm your enrollment at a single point in time during the semester called the Pell Census.  For each semester, we will confirm all Pell Grant recipients’ enrollment at 11:59pm on the last day to add a class.

If your enrollment status changes during this period, we will adjust the amount of your disbursed Federal Pell Grant accordingly and we will notify you via email.  If the adjustment results in a reduction to your Federal Pell Grant, you will be required to repay the excess funds you received to the Bursar’s Office.

Net Price

This is your estimated cost of attendance minus any grants and scholarships that you were offered.

Student Loans

You must be at least half-time to receive student loans. Accepted loans are repaid after you complete your degree or drop below half-time enrollment. Subsidized loans do not accrue interest until after you graduate or drop below half-time; unsubsidized loans start accruing interest at the time of disbursement. No student loan requires repayment until either you drop below half-time enrollment or graduate and your grace period has expired.

Other Resources to Help You Pay

Federal Work-Study – Provides the opportunity to work part-time for any UW-Madison department or for approved community business or non-profit organizations to help pay for college costs. Wages earned are paid directly to you via direct deposit. However, a student doesn’t have to have work-study to be able to work on-campus. https://financialaid.wisc.edu/types-of-aid/work-study/

Parent Loan for Undergraduate Student (PLUS) – a credit-based educational loan available to parents of dependent undergraduates directly through the U.S. Department of Education at participating schools, like UW-Madison. Parent borrowers are defined as a student’s biological mother or father, adoptive mother or father, or step-parent who was listed on the FAFSA.  Requires a separate application. https://financialaid.wisc.edu/types-of-aid/plus/

Private Educational Loans – credit-based loans offered by private banks or credit unions that can supplement the financial aid offer.  Most students will need a credit-worthy cosigner to be approved. https://financialaid.wisc.edu/types-of-aid/private-loans/

BadgerPay Payment Plan – a convenient option for paying tuition, fees, and on-campus housing charges through regularly schedule payments. https://bursar.wisc.edu/student-tuition-account/payment-methods/badgerpay

Additional Funding Sources*

*This is not a comprehensive list.

Summer Offers

Summer financial aid is based directly on your summer enrollment, both the number of credits you’re taking as well as the number of weeks you are enrolled.

Contact our office before you change your summer enrollment! Changing your summer enrollment may change your financial aid offer and cause you to repay some, or all the summer financial aid you’ve received.

Next Steps

Access your Student Center through MyUW:

For MOBILE access – click on the Financial Aid tile and look for your Outstanding Offers.
For DESKTOP access – click on the Financial Aid tile. Under Awards, look for Accept/Decline to review, edit, and accept or decline your offer.

The FREE money, grants and scholarships, within your financial aid offer are automatically accepted on your behalf.

For first-time loan borrowers:

Federal Direct Loans all require a signed Master Promissory Note (MPN) and many will also require that you complete Entrance Counseling.

Institutional Loans also require a Promissory Note (PN), but you’ll sign it online through Heartland ECSI.

You are obligated to notify us if you receive any type of financial assistance not already listed as part of your financial aid. We may need to adjust your financial aid as a result of your Non-UW financial assistance.

To notify our office, please report this additional aid in your MyUW Student Center:

For MOBILE access – click on the Financial Aid tile and look for Private Aid. Then click the green ‘Report Private Aid’ button, which will open a new window to report the details and click Submit.

For DESKTOP access – click on the Financial Aid tile. Under Awards, look for Private Aid. Then click the green ‘Report Private Aid’ button, which will open a new window to report the details and click Submit.

Your request can take 2 – 5 business days to process. Once it has been reviewed, you will receive e-mail notification from our office.

**We do not consider or match offers of financial aid from other schools.**

If your family has experienced significant income changes or have additional expenses that are not reflected on the FAFSA, you may be eligible to apply for a professional judgment (appeal).  To appeal, inform us of your special circumstance by sending a written statement explaining your situation in detail along with supporting documentation to us (email, fax, or mail). Be sure to include your name and campus ID number. We will notify you as soon as possible of any change resulting from your special circumstance.

Read more about Special Circumstances here.

Because of funding limits, please be aware that a recalculation of your financial aid eligibility does not guarantee that any additional financial aid will be offered to you. To ensure fairness and compliance with federal, state, and university regulations there are limits to the circumstances we can consider.

The Wisconsin Scholarship Hub (WiSH) should be the first stop in your search for scholarships. Search, apply to, and accept scholarships from across campus.

www.scholarships.wisc.edu

For more information about WiSH, frequently asked questions, and the application timelines, please check out our scholarship resource page at https://financialaid.wisc.edu/types-of-aid/scholarships.

Close to 14,000 Badgers have student employment positions at UW.  Find, apply for, and track your application for jobs online.

www.studentjobs.wisc.edu

Estimating Your Bill

Screenshot of estimated bill portion of Financial Aid OfferThe bill you receive from UW-Madison each semester will include charges for your tuition and fees.

If you choose to live in UW Housing , your on-campus housing charges will also be listed.

Because the Wisconsin Board of Regents does not confirm official rates until mid-Summer each year, we are only able to estimate what you might owe. To do so, we take those direct costs (tuition/fees/on-campus housing) and first subtract any grants and scholarships you’ve been offered.  Then we subtract any student loans.

If you have a balance, that’s the estimated amount of what you’ll still owe.

Estimated Remaining Financial Aid are those funds that can be used for your other educational expenses like off-campus housing or required course materials.