About funding estimate

A funding estimate, often called an award letter or aid offer, outlines a student's expected financial aid from federal, internal, state, and outside sources. Students often use these to compare their financial aid offers across colleges. Format and content is suggested by the Department of Education.

Prerequisites

• Import ISIRs and package students.

Required permissions

Select letter style

Campus Cafe offers two award letter templates. The “new style” has a horizontal orientation and shows disbursements side-by-side, calculates remaining need and remaining cost of attendance, splits aid by type, and splits costs by direct/indirect. This new style is designed to be more closely aligned with the best practices established by the Department of Education. The “old style” has a portrait orientation and doesn’t segregate awards as extensively as the new style. To select your preferred style go to:

1. Go to Admin > Custom Control.

2. In Search enter FA_LETTER.

3. Next to Seq 3, Parm 3, click the pencil.

4. In Parameter Value 3 for the new style enter Y. For the “old style” enter N.

5. Click Save.

6. Go to Admin > Refresh Data Cache.

Awards that appear on estimate

Only awards set to print on award letter will appear on the funding estimate. Awards are configured in F/A Codes.

Adjust text on estimate

You may include text on the funding estimate to explain the purpose or content of the award letter.

The only HTML tags supported are: <p>, <i>, <b>, <br>, <ul>, <ol>, <li>

Adjust the text (wording)

1. Go to Admin > Adjustable Text.

2. In Search enter FA_AWARD_LETTER_HEADER.

3. Click the pencil.

4. In Value (the large box) enter the text to appear at the top of the funding estimate. Because the funding estimate is produced as a PDF, HTML and CSS are not supported.

5. Click Save & Back.

6. In Search enter FA_AWARD_LETTER_FOOTER.

7. Click the pencil.

8. In Value (the large box) enter the text to appear at the bottom of the funding estimate. Because the funding estimate is produced as a PDF, HTML and CSS are not supported.

9. Click Save.

10. Go to Admin > Refresh Data Cache.

Adjust the font size

You can set the font size of the text on the award letter.

1. Go to Admin > Custom Control.

2. In Search enter FA_LETTER.

3. Next to Sequence 2, Parameter 6 click the pencil.

4. In Parameter Value 6 enter a number greater than 0 and less than 17.

5. Click Save.

6. Go to Admin > Refresh Data Cache.

Elements shown on estimate

You can tell Campus Cafe what components should appear on the funding estimate. For example, you may wish to show or hide the cost of attendance.

1. Go to Admin > Custom Control.

2. In Search enter FA_LETTER.

3. Next to the option to update click the pencil.

4. In Parameter Value enter your desired option.

   • To show Cost of Attendance on the funding estimate for packaged students, ensure Custom Control FA_LETTER, Sequence 1, Parameter 1 is set to Y .

   • To show scheduled disbursements section on award letter after awards, ensure Custom Control FA_LETTER, Sequence 1, Parameter 2 is set to Y.

   • To show the remaining need calculation on the award letter, ensure FA_LETTER, Sequence 1, Parameter 7 is set to Y.

   • Review other elements outlined in Custom Control FA_LETTER to adjust the aid offer to include or exclude elements based on the needs of your student population.

5. Click Save.

6. Go to Admin > Refresh Data Cache.

Borrower-based institutions: Separate estimates for different academic years

For borrower-based institutions with multiple academic years or periods within the same federal financial aid (ISIR) year, you can create award letters to show only disbursements and cost of attendance with the selected “academic year.”

Turning this on enables the use of the "Academic Year" field to generate separate funding estimates (award letters) for separate academic year disbursements. For more information refer to Disbursement Term Rules for academic years and the borrower-based information on packaging and Cost of Attendance Detail.

Open

An example of a single academic year generating multiple funding estimates.

1. Go to Admin > Custom Control.

2. In Search enter FA_LETTER.

3. Next to Sequence 3, Parameter 1 click the pencil.

4. In Parameter Value 1 enter Y.

5. Click Save.

6. Go to Admin > Refresh Data Cache.

View or print estimate

As an administrator, you can view or print a student’s funding estimate.

1. Go to the student’s profile.

2. Go to Person Selected > FinAid Status or click the Financial Aid tab > Review Financing.

3. In Current Year select the financial aid year.

4. Click Print. The estimate opens as a PDF in a new window.