The Spring 2021 semester may just be starting, but now is the time to take a few minutes to look forward to next fall and beyond. If you haven’t already, it’s time to complete your 2021-2022 FAFSA!

Way back on October 1, 2020, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, more commonly known as the FAFSA, became available for students across the nation to complete. The FAFSA is required for any UMBC student planning to apply for need-based Federal, State or institutional financial aid for the Fall 2021, Winter 2022, Spring 2022 and Summer 2022 semesters.

Why is it important to think about this now? March 1, 2021 is UMBC’s priority deadline, which ensures you receive priority consideration for many types of aid, including the UMBC Grant. March 1 is also the State of Maryland’s deadline for consideration of financial aid from the Maryland Higher Education Commission. Missing the deadline means missing out on many types of financial aid.

Before sitting down to complete the application, you and your parent(s), if applicable, will need to have all 2019 federal tax return information on hand. The FAFSA should take between 30 minutes and an hour to complete, but you can speed up the process and avoid costly mistakes by using the IRS Data Retrieval Tool (DRT) to transfer information directly from the IRS to your application. 

One more thing – UMBC’s school code is 002105, and we show up on the FAFSA as the acronym “UMBC.” You’ll need to include this code to let the Department of Education know they need to send your application to our office.

As always, feel free to contact our office with any questions you have about the financial aid process here at UMBC.