Peninsula College participates in a broad range of financial aid programs designed to assist you if you are unable to meet college costs through other means. In determining any student's ability to contribute toward educational expenses, the college is required to use a uniform need-analysis system to determine eligibility for state and federal programs.
The Financial Aid Office is located in the Student Services (D) building. Assistance is available at Pirate Central during the hours the building is open.
The 2019–20 FAFSA Is Now Available
The 2019–20 FAFSA was made available October 1, 2018.
It is for the academic year starting Summer 2019. Students applying for financial aid for Winter and Spring quarters of 2019 should complete the 2018-19 FAFSA before starting the 2019-20 FAFSA. For Financial Aid Deadlines, click here.
Exciting Changes to the WA State Need Grant (SNG) for WA Students:
New Name: The WA State Need Grant will become the WA College Grant, beginning academic year 2020-21. Peninsula College will transition the name from WA SNG to WA College Grant throughout the 2019-20 academic year on applicable webpages and documents.
Guaranteed Funds and Increased Eligibility: The Workforce Education Investment Act (HB 2158) passed in the 2019 Legislature creates guaranteed funding for all students eligible for the WA College Grant (formerly State Need Grant) beginning in the 2020-21 academic year. With increased funding in 2019-20, an additional one third of the previously unawarded but eligible students, approximately 6,000 students, will be served (awarded funds for which they are eligible.) In the 2020-21 academic year all eligible students will be served, including an expansion to income eligibility. The program will be expanded by increasing the eligibility threshold of family income reported on the FAFSA. This means that some students with a higher family income then previously allowed for will be eligible for some prorated grant funds.
Students will be able to file a 2018–19 FAFSA as early as Oct. 1, 2017, rather than beginning on Jan. 1, 2018. The earlier submission date will be a permanent change, enabling students to complete and submit a FAFSA as early as October 1 every year. (There is NO CHANGE to the 2016–17 schedule. The FAFSA became available January 1 as in previous years.)
Students will use earlier income information. Beginning with the 2017–18 FAFSA, students will be required to report income information from an earlier tax year. For example, on the 2018–19 FAFSA, students (and parents, as appropriate) will report their 2016 income information, rather than their 2017 income information.
Students and their families will report income and tax information from an earlier tax year. For example, on the 2019–2020 FAFSA, applicants (and possibly their parents) will report 2017 income and tax information, rather than 2018 income and tax information. This change will make the FAFSA easier because you will already have completed your taxes by the time you fill out the FAFSA; for students (and parents) who have completed their taxes, the FAFSA will give you the ability to use the IRS Data Retrieval Tool (DRT). The DRT saves you from having to look up and manually enter certain information required on the FAFSA, saving on data entry error problems.
For more information, please click here or copy & paste the link below to watch a video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdaGZASwjZU
Changes on the 2018–19 FAFSA Form:
The 2018–19 FAFSA changes include the following:
Tax information transferred from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) into the FAFSA form won't be visible. Instead, students and parents will see "Transferred from the IRS" in the appropriate fields on fafsa.gov, the IRS Data Retrieval Tool (DRT) web page, and on the Student Aid Report.
The population of applicants and parents who are eligible to use the IRS DRT has expanded. Amended tax return filers are able to use the IRS DRT to transfer their IRS tax return information from their original tax return into the FAFSA form.
The definition of "youth," as it pertains to homelessness, has changed. Students who are older than 21 but not yet 24, and who are unaccompanied and homeless or self-supporting and at risk of being homeless, qualify as independent students. They are able to complete the FAFSA form as independent students without financial aid administrators performing a dependency override.