Federally funded grant program which provides funds for adult students in post-secondary educational training. For more information please see the Financial Aid Coordinator, Monica Cox in the Administrative Office of SWTC. She may be contacted at 580-480-4734 or mcox@swtech.edu or see the Financial Aid Policies and Procedures Handbook available in the Financial Aid Office, Administrative Office, or Student Services Office at SWTC.

Application Process

*SWTC's Federal Code is 030087.

Adult students are encouraged to apply for financial aid. Students can complete the "Free Application for Federal Student Aid" (FAFSA) in print or online at https://fafsa.ed.gov. Identify SWTC as your school choice on the FAFSA application. Application forms can also be obtained by calling the Federal Student Aid Information Center at 1-800-4-FED AID. Students are directed to read the instructions carefully when completing the FAFSA. All records and other materials used in completing the application should be saved. This information may be needed later to prove the information submitted is correct.

The 2024-2025 FAFSA will be available for students to apply beginning on December 31, 2023. The 2022 income information will be used to determine financial eligibility for career majors taken in the 2024-2025 school year.

Anyone who provides information on your FAFSA form will be considered a contributor. It refers to anyone (you, your spouse, your biological or adoptive parent, or your parent's spouse) who's asked to provide their information, consent and approval to have their federal tax information transferred automatically from the IRS into the FAFSA for, and signature on your FAFSA form.

Creating a StudentAid.gov Account

To start your online 2024-2025 FAFSA form, you will need create your StudentAid.gov account. When you create your account, enter your name and Social Security Number (SSN) exactly as they appear on your social security card.

For the 2024-2025 FAFSA form, every contributor who's required to provide information on the FAFSA form - needs a StudentAid.gov account before accessing and completing their section of the online form.

Note: Contributors without a SSN can create a StudentAid.gov account to fill out their portion of a student's 2024-25 FAFSA form online.

Gathering the Documents Needed To Apply for 2024-2025 FAFSA Form

You might need the following information for documents as you fill out the 2024-25 FAFSA form:

Your parents' SSNs if you're a dependent student
Tax returns
Records of child support received
Current balances of cash, savings, and checking accounts
Net worth of investments, business, and farm

If you are starting the 2024-2025 FAFSA form for the first time on FAFSA.gov, select "Start New Form" and enter your account username and password to access the FAFSA form.

Determining Your Dependency Status

The FAFSA form asks a series of questions that determine whether you are a dependent or independent student for purposes of applying for federal student aid. If you are a dependent student, you must repot parent information, as well as your own information, on your application. If you're curious, you can find out now whether you're a dependent student.

Reporting Parents' Information

If you're a dependent student, you'll need to report parent information on your FAFSA form. Visit our page on reporting parent information to find out who counts as your parent, what to do if you don't live with your parents, and what to do if you don't have access to your parents' financial information. Is My Parent A Contributor When I Fill Out My 2024-25 FASFA Form? - Helps dependent students determine which parent's information to include in the 2024-25 FAFSA form. Who Is My Parent When I Fill Out the 2024-25 FAFSA Form? - Helps dependent students determine which parent's information to include in the 2024-25 FAFSA form.

Reporting Spouse's Information

If you are married (and not separated) and filed taxes jointly with your spouse, then you'll report your spouse's information on the 2024-25 FAFSA form, but they will not be identified as a contributor. But if you're married (and not separated) and didn't file taxes jointly with your current spouse, your spouse will be considered a contributor on your 2024-25 FAFSA form.

Providing Financial Information

The FAFSA form asks for financial information, including information from tax forms and balances of savings and checking accounts.

The 2024-25 FAFSA form asks for 2022 tax information.
The 2023-24 FAFSA form asks for 2021 tax information.

Note: If your or your family's financial situation has changed significantly from what is reflected on your federal income tax return (for example, if you've lost a job or otherwise experienced a drop in income), you may be eligible to have your financial aid adjusted. Complete the FAFSA questions as instructed on the application (including the transfer of federal tax return and income information), submit your FAFSA form, then contact the school you plan to attend to discuss how your current financial situation has changed. Note that the school's decision is final and cannot be appealed to the U.S. Department of Education.

What to Do If Your Parents' (or Your) Marital Status Has Changed Since Taxes Were Filed

Here are some tips for this type of situation using the example of the 2024-25 FAFSA form:

The FAFSA form asks for marital status "as of today" (the day it's filled out). So, if the student or parent is married now but wasn't in 2022 (and therefore didn't file taxes as married), the spouse's 2022 income will need to be added to the FAFSA form.
Similarly, if the student or parent filed 2022 taxes as married but is no longer married when filling out the FAFSA form, the spouse's income will need to be subtracted.
And if the student or parent was married when filing 2022 taxes, then got divorced and is now married to someone else, the spouse will need to report their own income as a contributor.

The FAFSA help text covers all these situations in more detail as you're filling out the application.

Automatically Transferring Your Tax Information

2024-25 FAFSA® Form

The Financial Aid Direct Data Exchange, replacing the IRS Data Retrieval Tool starting with the 2024-25 FAFSA form, will transfer contributors' federal tax information from the IRS directly into your FAFSA form. All contributors must provide consent and approval to

disclose their personally identifiable information provided on the FAFSA form to the IRS for matching purposes;
obtain their federal tax information from the IRS via direct data exchange;
allow the U.S. Department of Education (ED) to use their federal tax information to determine the student's eligibility and amount of federal student aid;
allow ED to share their federal tax information with colleges, career/trade schools, and state higher education agencies for use in awarding and administering financial aid; and
allow ED to reuse their federal tax information on another FAFSA applicant's form (e.g., if a parent has multiple dependent students or a parent's own FAFSA form).

NOTE: Even if contributors don't have an SSN, didn't file taxes, or filed taxes outside of the U.S., they will still need to provide consent and approval.

IMPORTANT: If a required contributor doesn't provide consent and approval to have their federal tax information transferred into the FAFSA form, you (the student) will not be eligible for federal student aid - even if the contributor manually enters tax information into the FAFSA form.

To ensure the information is secure, the federal tax information won't display on the FAFSA site or the FAFSA Submission Summary.

Signing and Submitting the FAFSA® Form

2024-25 FAFSA® Form

After you complete your required section of the FAFSA form online, you'll acknowledge the terms and conditions of the form and electronically sign your section. You can then submit your section of the FAFSA form. However, your FAFSA form won't be considered complete until all required contributors provide their information on the FAFSA form, give their consent and approval to transfer federal tax information into the form, and provide their signatures.

After you and your parent (and/or any other required contributor) sign and submit the FAFSA form, the form will be considered complete and will be submitted for processing.

If you submit the FAFSA form, you'll see a confirmation page that displays your completion date, data release number, and next steps. You'll also see your estimated Student Aid Index (a number used by college and career/trade schools to determine your eligibility for federal student aid), estimated Federal Pell Grant eligibility, and information about other federal student aid for which you may be eligible. This confirmation page is emailed automatically to you for your records.

Note: The Student Aid Index on the confirmation page is only an estimate. The official Student Aid Index will appear on the FAFSA Submission Summary.

Taking the Next Steps

Once you've completed your FAFSA form, there are more steps you have to take before you receive financial aid. Make sure you know what happens after you submit your FAFSA form.

Students can submit their FAFSA on the Web at https://studentaid.gov, they can mail the paper FAFSA with the envelope provided in the paper form, or the FAFSA can be sent electronically through the Financial Aid Office. TTT users (for the hearing impaired) may call 1-800-730-8913.

This Student Aid Index is the result of computations established by Congress involving the financial and non-financial data submitted on the application that indicates how much of your family's financial resources should be available to help pay for school. The method of computation is applied to all dependent and independent students uniformly. Students should review all the information on the FAFSA SUBMISSION SUMMARY. If any changes are needed on the FAFSA Submission Summary, the student can make corrections online using his/her FSA ID, or the student can resubmit by mail part two of the FAFSA SUBMISSION SUMMARY to the Pell Grant processor following the directions for making corrections on the form, or the Financial Aid Coordinator can submit the corrections electronically. After submission of any corrections, if necessary on the FAFSA Submission Summary, and if the student meets all eligibility requirements, they will receive an award letter notifying them of the amount of their Pell Grant award, any required documents, and projected payment schedule.

Federal Pell Grant Eligibility

To be eligible for a Federal PELL Grant, a student must have an eligible SAI (Student Aid Index). This number is an index of the student's ability to contribute to the cost of education. Grant amounts are based upon cost of attendance, the Student Aid Index (SAI) and the hours a student will attend during an award year. The government provides a Payment Schedule annually to be used to determine the amount of a Pell Grant.

The neediest students will have an SAI of -1500 and may be eligible for the maximum award. As the SAI increases, the amount of the award decreases and, after a certain point, the award becomes 0. The SAI can range anywhere from -1500 to 999999, this is not a dollar amount. The SAI is available on the FAFSA SUBMISSION SUMMARY/ISIR which is the official notice of the student's eligibility (or ineligibility) for a Federal PELL Grant. The SAI is computed by the Central Processing System and is based on the information reported by the student on the financial aid application. Eligibility is also based upon meeting the general criteria which is listed in this handbook. All students that complete a FAFSA and are deemed eligible by the US Department of Education and the Financial Aid Coordinator will receive the Federal Pell grant amount that they are entitled to. Students may not receive a Pell Grant from more than one institution concurrently. Under the continuing appropriations, for the 2024-2025 award year, the maximum Pell Grant award remains fixed at $7,395. This situation could change at any time pending further action by Congress.

Under section 401(a)(2)(F) of the HEA, as amended, the minimum Pell Grant award is ten percent of the maximum award amount for the award year. Further, under section 401(b)(1)(B)(ii), Federal Pell Grant awards should be rounded to the nearest $5. Therefore, the Federal Pell Grant minimum award amount for 2024-2025 is $740.

the FAFSA Simplification Act changed the process for determining the amount of a student's Scheduled Pell Grant award. The Department will no longer publish a Pell Grant Payment and Disbursement Schedule for use in determining a student's Pell Grant Scheduled Award for the award year. Instead, each student's Scheduled Award is one of the following:

A Maximum Pell Grant Award (Max Pell)
Student Aid Index (SAI)-calculated Pell Grant, determined by subtracting the student's SAl from the annual published maximum Pell Grant amount
A Minimum Pell Grant Award (Min Pell)

Maximum and Minimum Pell Grant eligibility are determined based on tax filing requirements, family size and composition (1.e., single parent or non-single parent), Federal poverty guidelines, and state of residence. If a student qualifies for a Maximum Pell Grant, the SAI is not used to determine the amount of that grant. An SAI-calculated Pell Grant is determined by subtracting the student's calculated SAI from the annual published maximum Pell Grant amount, then rounding to the nearest $5. If the SAI-calculated Pell Grant is less than the published minimum Pell Grant amount, the student is ineligible for an SAI-calculated Pell Grant. However, the student may still be eligible for Min Pell if they meet the minimum Pell Grant eligibility requirements.

Eligibility Requirements

U.S. Citizen or Eligible Non-Citizen

An applicant must be a citizen or eligible non-citizen. Unless the SAR/ISIR demands it, U.S. citizens who answered yes on the FAFSA to the citizenship question do not have to verify citizenship. Permanent residents must submit proof of their status to the aid office. This proof becomes a permanent part of their file. All eligible non-citizens must submit proof of status for file. Proof includes U.S. passport stamped "non-citizen national" or "Form-I-151" (green cards.) Other forms of documentation are rare and the Financial Aid Coordinator will consult the Federal Student Financial Aid Handbook if necessary. A document verification request will be made on all aliens seeking aid.

Registered with Selective Service

A male applicant at least 18 years of age and born after December 31, 1959 must be registered with Selective Service.

Undergraduate Status

An applicant states on the FAFSA application that she/he does not have a Bachelor's degree. Students who have bachelor degrees are not eligible for the Pell grant.

Determination of Financial Need

SWTC employs the Federal Needs Analysis Methodology in assessing financial need and eligibility for Title IV Assistance. The Federal Needs Analysis Methodology is based on the following philosophy of financial aid to the extent that they are able, parents have the primary responsibility to pay for their children's education parents will, as they are able, contribute funds for their children's education students, as well as their parents, have a responsibility to help pay for their education the family should be accepted in its present financial condition

A needs analysis system must evaluate families in a consistent and equitable manner, while recognizing that special circumstances can and do alter a family's ability to contribute. Four broad categories of family resources are examined in need analysis. They are:

tax filing requirements
family size and composition
federal poverty guidelines
state of residence

Provide consent and approval to have your federal tax information transferred directly into your 2024-2025 Free Application for Federal Student Aid form. Both you and your contributors must provide consent and approval to have the IRS transfer your federal tax information into the FAFSA form. Your contributors must provide consent and approval even if they don't have a Social Security number (SSN), didn't file a tax return, or filed a tax return outside the U.S. If you or your contributors don't provide consent and approval, you won't be eligible for federal student aid.

Regular Student/Enrollment Status/Eligible Program Status

An applicant must be a regular student which is defined as a student who is enrolled in an eligible program (an eligible program/career option for Pell purposes must be at least 600 clock hours and 23 weeks in length) is working toward a certificate and is attending at least part-time (15 clock hours per week).

High School Diploma/GED®/HiSET®/Home School Equivalency

An applicant must have a high school diploma (this can be from a foreign school with appropriate documentation of equivalency), High School Equivalency Diploma (GED®, HiSET®) or a home school equivalency in order to qualify for a Pell Grant.

Default/Overpayment Status

An applicant signs a statement when completing the FAFSA stating that they are not in default on federal student loans or have made satisfactory arrangements to repay it, and that they do not owe money back on a federal student grant or have made satisfactory arrangements to repay it. A student who is defaulted on federal loans or who is in Pell overpayment status is not eligible for further Title IV assistance unless and until satisfactory arrangements for repayment are made. Students in default on loans must have a letter from the holder of the loan stating that the student has made satisfactory repayment arrangements and is eligible for Title IV funds or the Financial Aid Coordinator must receive a new Institutional Student Informational Record (ISIR) and National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS) report showing that the default status has been resolved before any funds may be disbursed.

Valid SSN

An applicant must have a valid Social Security Number. EXCEPTION: Students from the Republic of Marshall Islands, the Federated Stated of Micronesia or the Republic of Palau.

Satisfactory Academic Progress (SAP)

After a student's first (upon enrollment) eligibility, the student must thereafter maintain Title IV eligibility by meeting all criteria for Satisfactory Academic Progress (SAP) as set forth in SWTC's SAP policy. Please see the Satisfactory Academic Progress section of this handbook for complete information on SAP, or view the SAP policy online at www.swtech.edu.

Statement of Educational Purpose

All applicants must sign a statement on the FAFSA verifying their educational purpose (using Title IV funds only to pay the cost of attending an institution of higher education) and accuracy of information provided on the FAFSA.

Educational History of Student

If the student has attended this school in the past three award years, the Financial Aid Coordinator reviews previous files and determines whether the student was making satisfactory progress in previous course work at SWTC. If the student has attended other schools in the past, the Financial Aid Coordinator can access the NSLDS information from the SAR/ISIR concerning defaults and overpayments. If the student has attended another school and the Financial Aid Coordinator determines that it has been within the current award year, she will then access the National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS) on the web at https://nslds.ed.gov.

If the student is a transfer student for Pell purposes, NSLDS will give the student's current year Pell disbursement and the current year scheduled award. This information will be used in award calculation. Drug Conviction Affecting Title IV Eligibility

Awarding Title IV Aid

The Pell Grant Program is a federally funded grant program, which, for the 2024-2025 academic year provides up to $7,395 to full time postsecondary students and up to $3,698 to postsecondary students who are enrolled at least half time. The purpose of the program is to provide a foundation of aid to needy students. SWTC awards federal financial aid according to federal regulations and guidelines. The method of computation is applied to all dependent and independent students uniformly.

Award Year/Academic Year

Funding for Pell Grant programs is provided based on an award year basis. The award year begins on July lst of one year and extends to June 30th of the next year. An academic year at SWTC is one in which a student completes a minimum of 30 weeks and 900 hours of instruction. For Pell Grant payments to students, an academic year of 900 hours/30 weeks (with a payment period of 450 hours/15 weeks) is applicable to Career Options/Programs that are 900 hours or greater. For Career Options that are less than 900 hours, the payment period is one half of the total hours and one half of the total weeks of the Career Option.

Student Aid Index

The Student Aid Index (SAI) is the amount a family can be expected to contribute toward a student's college costs. Financial aid administrators determine an applicant's need for federal student aid from the U.S. Department of Education and other sources of assistance by subtracting the SAI from the student's cost of attendance. The SAI formula is used to determine the SAI and ultimately determine the need for aid from the following types of federal assistance that SWTC participates in: Federal Pell Grants and Oklahoma Tuition Aid Grants (OTAG). The methodology for determining the SAI is found in Part F of the Title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965, as amended (HEA).

All data used to calculate a student's SAI comes from the information the student provides on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) which is submitted to the Central Processing System (CPS) for processing. The CPS sends either an electronic or paper output document called a Student Aid Report (SAR) to the student. The SAR lists the student's SAI. All schools listed on the student's FAFSA will receive application information and processing results in an electronic file called an Institutional Student Informational Record (ISIR).

There are three regular (full-data) formulas - (A) for the dependent student, (B) for the independent student without dependents other than a spouse, and (C) for the independent student with dependents other than a spouse. Also, there is a simplified version of each formula with fewer data elements.

Additional information regarding SAI formulas, accompanying worksheets, and tables are available upon request from the Financial Aid Office.

Steps in Computing the Pell Grant Award

There are five steps in computing a Pell Grant

Determination of Cost of Attendance
Determination of Scheduled Award
Determination of Payment Periods
Determination of Payment for each Payment Period
Determination of Total Expected Disbursement

The method of computation is applied to all dependent and independent students uniformly.

The Financial Aid Coordinator determines if all application requirements have been met. If so, she uses the ISIR and the current Pell Grant Payment Schedule to determine the scheduled Pell Award and estimated disbursement. The specific computations involved in the calculation may be obtained in the Financial Aid Office.

Living Costs

SWTC does not offer institutional housing or board to its students. All students live off campus and commute. For purposes of awarding Title IV need-based assistance, the school estimates reasonable expenses over a nine-month period for the following categories of students.

Cost of Attendance/Budget Allocations

The student's Cost of Attendance includes institutional charges such as tuition, books, supplies, and fees, in addition to student expenses that are not payable to SWTC. Additional student expenses are estimated using documentation provided by and based on the Oklahoma Department of Commerce Consumer Price Index dated December 2023 from the US Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. Student's may request a breakdown of the cost of attendance from the Financial Aid Office.

Student Additional Expense Budget per the Consumer Price Index

SECTION V - FINANCIAL AID

V - A BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS (BIA)

V - B DEPARTMENT OF REHABILITIVE SERVICES

V - C NEXT EXPERIENCE IN TRAINING SCHOLARSHIP (NEXT)

V - D NURSING STUDENT ASSISTANCE PROGRAM

V - E OKLAHOMA HB 3350 CAREER TECHNOLOGY TUITION WAIVER

V – F OKLAHOMA’S PROMISE/OKLAHOMA HIGHER LEARNING ACCESS PROGRAM (OHLAP)

V - G ORO Development Corporation-Jobs Plus Oklahoma

V-H OKLAHOMA TUITION AID GRANT (OTAG)

V - I OTHA GRIMES SCHOLARSHIPS

V - J PELL GRANT

V - K SOUTHWEST TECHNOLOGY CENTER FOUNDATION SCHOLARSHIP

V - L VETERAN’S AFFAIRS (VA) EDUCATION BENEFITS

V- M WORKFORCE INNOVATION AND OPPORTUNITY ACT (WIOA)

V - N OTHER SCHOLARSHIPS