Appeal For More Financial Aid

If you have filed your 2024-2025 FAFSA and feel your financial aid does not reflect your ability to pay for college, please consider completing a Student Aid Index (SAI) Appeal.

An SAI Appeal is the process of updating your FAFSA to reflect your current financial situation. This can increase your federal financial aid (Pell Grant and loans) but only Ozarks Tech’s financial aid office can make these changes to your FAFSA. The application can be requested by you in your Student Forms account and is all we need from you to start the process.

An SAI Appeal is not used to request more institutional scholarships.

A new SAI appeal must be requested every year students wish to be reviewed, and an appeal from the previous academic year will not carry over to the next. For example, an SAI Appeal for the 2024-2025 year will only be applied to financial aid for the Fall 2024, Spring 2025 and Summer 2025 semesters.

Reasons you may submit an SAI Appeal for the 2024-2025 school year

  • Your family income dropped involuntarily after 2022
  • Your job income decreased after 2022
  • You or your family received a one-time payment from a retirement account in 2022
  • A sibling is attending a private/parochial elementary or secondary school during the 2024-2025  school year
  • You are experiencing some other circumstance not listed here which impacts your ability to pay for college

Reasons you should not submit an SAI Appeal

  • You have not experienced a loss of income after 2022
  • Your SAI is already 0 or less (Check your FAFSA Submission Summary at StudentAid.gov)
  • You are not eligible for federal financial aid (international students, not meeting Satisfactory Academic Progress, etc.)

You can start the SAI Appeal process at any time under your Student Forms account.

Process

  1. Submit your 2024-2025 FAFSA at StudentAid.gov, if you have not already done so, and receive your financial aid offer from OTC.
  2. Request an SAI Appeal in your Student Forms page and provide a brief reason for your request
  3. Upload any supporting documentation you feel is necessary to show your need
  4. Monitor your OTC student email for updates and additional requests from the financial aid office

Appeals are reviewed in the order in which they are received and can take up to sixty days for a complete review. Appeals are only approved if doing so would benefit the student.