UCSB Office of Financial Aid and Scholarships (2024)

To be eligible for aid through the FAFSA, you must:

• Be in a degree-seeking program
• Be a U.S. citizen or eligible non-citizen

To be eligible for aid through the CADAA you must:

• Not be eligible to file the FAFSA
• Be eligible for AB 540, as determined by the Office of the Registrar
• Be in a degree-seeking program

The following students are not eligible for Financial Aid:

• UCSB PACE (Formerly Extension)
• Students who have defaulted on a prior student loan or who owe a repayment of aid to the U.S. Department of Education

To learn more about the requirements for loans, visit Loans.

Financial Aid will disburse to a student's BARC account each quarter. For Financial Aid to disburse on time, students must ensure they have completed the following steps:

• Complete a FAFSA or CADream Act Application
• If applicable, complete Cal Grant requirements, such as the GPA Verification
• Submit all of required documents requested by the deadline
• Accept your loans and complete loan requirements
• Enroll in at least 6 units

Remember that the Financial Aid sent to you is intended to pay for the remaining costs of college not automatically deducted from your BARC account, including rent for off-campus housing (including University-affiliated housing, such as Tropicana Gardens), books, supplies, transportation, and other personal expenses.

Most students who live in another state are considered "non-California resident" students, and will incur higher University fees. The amount of loans in a non-California resident's Financial Aid package will increase to cover their increased costs.

However, under AB 540 legislation, students enrolled or in the process of enrolling at a University of California campus after January 1, 2002, who attended a high school in California for three or more years, and who graduated from a California high school (or attained the equivalent), may qualify for an exemption from the nonresident tuition. Undergraduate, graduate, and professional students are eligible to apply for this exemption. For more information, visit theRegistrar's website.

Our office will usually contact you through your university email account. If you do not have a university email account, you must activate it at the U-mail website.

Please check your email frequently to ensure you are receiving all important emails we send to you. Furthermore, if you forward your U-mail to a different address, please update the mail filters of your forwarding address to accept e-mails from "ucsb.edu."

The confidentiality of student Financial Aid information is protected in accordance with the Federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) of 1974 and UC Santa Barbara Policy and Procedure “Student Education Records – Disclosure of Information” issued March 2004 (available from the UCSB Registrar).

Providing access to student Financial Aid records or information contained in these records to unauthorized persons is also prohibited. Your student’s information cannot be disclosed to third parties (parent, spouse, sibling, friend, landlord, associate, etc.) without their written consent.

If your student wishes to grant access to you or another third party, they must complete the Student Consent to Release UCSB Financial Aid Information to a Designated Third Party form.This form must be completed each academic year and is accessed through My Aid Status.

Loans from our office are disbursed to a student's BARC account. For more information, visitFAQ.

The disbursem*nt method of fellowships and extramural funding depends on the type of assistance. For more information, please visit theGraduate Division Financial Support website.

Please remember that loans administered by our office are disbursed on a quarterly basis: yearly awards are split into three quarterly disbursem*nts. This may or may not match with the disbursem*nt schedule of funding from other sources.