Aid Process

1. Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA)

The FAFSA is required of all students applying for financial aid. You will need to fill out a FAFSA (or renewal FAFSA) for each year you attend New England Law. The New England Law FAFSA code is G08916. Once your FAFSA is completed, the Department of Education will forward an electronic copy of your records to the school for use in verifying your eligibility.

Students can submit the FAFSA on or after October 1 the year before they intend to enroll. Students are required to report income and tax information from the previous tax year. For example, you would submit the 2024-2025 FAFSA on or after January 1, 2024, using your 2022 income and tax information. (Please note: you must submit the FAFSA every year you intend apply for federal aid.)

We strongly encourage students to choose the IRS Data Retrieval Tool (DRT) when completing the FAFSA, if you are eligible to do so. Using this option will pull the data from your relevant tax return into the FAFSA. If you are selected for verification by the Department of Education, this option will help to reduce any additional paperwork that might be necessary for our office to review.

To successfully use this option you must:

• Have a federal tax return filed with the IRS
• Have a valid Social Security number
• Have a Federal Student Aid ID

You will be unable to use this option if:

• You are married and either you or your spouse filed as Married Filing Separately or Head of Household
• You filed a Puerto Rican or foreign tax return

If you are not eligible to use this option for any of the reasons listed above, you will need to manually enter your tax information on the FAFSA. If you filed an amended tax return and select to use IRS DRT, your original tax information will populate and you may be contacted for our office to confirm any amended information.

DO NOT SUBMIT A PAPER COPY OF YOUR TAX RETURN; WE CAN NO LONGER ACCEPT THIS DOCUMENT.

2. Documents for the New England Law Financial Aid File

All students requesting financial aid are required to submit a New England Law Financial Aid E-App in addition to completing the FAFSA. This application gathers information about financial aid for law students that is supplementary to that collected by the FAFSA. The E-App can be completed on the My Fin Aid website. Log-in information for the site will be emailed to you.

3. Additional Documents That May Be Requested

If any of the following documents are needed, you will receive an email notification from the Office of Financial Aid.  Do not send these documents until you are instructed to do so.

• Verification Worksheet: If selected for verification, you will need to complete this form and provide supporting documentation.
• Tax Transcript: This may be requested if your federal tax return is needed, and you are not able to use the IRS Data Retrieval Option on the FAFSA. Instructions will be sent to you in the email request on how to obtain a tax transcript.
• W-2 Forms: These may be requested if you indicate on the FAFSA that you did not file a federal tax return, but you did have income.

Incoming admitted students will receive a financial aid award notification email approximately two to three weeks after your completed file has been reviewed.

You will be directed to sign in to My Fin Aid to review the award terms and accept, reduce, or decline your federal loans. At this time, students should also review the Documents and Messages pages on the My Fin Aid site to make sure that all necessary documentation has been received for the office’s review and for loan disbursement. Entrance Counseling must be received before the Office of Financial Aid will initiate your loan request. Master Promissory Notes must be received before Direct Loans will disburse your fund request to the school. 

*Please note: completing documents after the suggested deadline may result in late fees charged by the Office of Student Accounts, if the loans are not originated or disbursed in a timely manner due to late award acceptance or missing documents needed for loan origination/disbursement.