Completing The FAFSA
Prospective Student Scholarship Video
Announcements
  • Complete the 2024-2025 FAFSA now through Studentaid.gov . We encourage students to complete their application as soon as possible. The JMU FAFSA Priority Filing Date is March 1, 2024, however, a FAFSA can still be completed after this date as it is not a hard deadline. Please see our Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) Changes website for more details and a message from Federal Student Aid.
  • Due to delays in the United States Department of Education in sending 2024-25 FAFSA data to institutions, we anticipate the earliest we will be able to provide Preliminary Financial Aid Offers to prospective students to be the middle of April. For more regarding these delays, visit our FAFSA Changes page. We will update this announcement as we receive more information. In the meantime, prospective students that have a completed FAFSA and have a Student Aid Index (SAI) can use our Net Price Calculator to estimate non-scholarship financial aid eligiblity.
  • Resumption of Student Loan Repayment - Payments and interest accrual on government-owned federal student loans have been paused since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. Based on action taken by Congress, this pause ended September 2023 and repayment will resumed October 2023. You can view more information about this on Resumption of Loan Repayment website, including steps you should take at this time.
JMU Message

There continues to be problems with students and parents being able to file the 2024-25 FAFSA at www.studentaid.gov. In some cases, these challenges are preventing an application from being submitted at all. If you are experiencing problems in completing the FAFSA, please be persistent. Federal Student Aid (FSA) is continuously working on the application to resolve errors in the on-line form.

JMU’s FAFSA Priority Filing Date is March 1, 2024. This is a priority date, not a deadline. 

If you cannot meet the priority date, we encourage you to complete the FAFSA as early as possible, even after March 1st. 

JMU will closely monitor our FAFSA volume once we begin receiving completed applications from FSA. At this time, FSA is telling schools they will start sending us FAFSA’s “the first half of March.” 

We will offer awards as long as funds remain available to applicants who submit the FAFSA before or after March 1, 2024. 

Fees and Rates

Interest Rates (Effective July 1, 2023 - June 30, 2024)

  • Undergraduate Direct Loans:
    • Subsidized 5.50%
    • Unsubsidized 5.50%
  • Graduate Unsubsidized Direct Loan: 7.05%
  • Graduate PLUS Direct Loan: 8.05%
  • Parent PLUS Direct Loan: 8.05%

Up Front Origination Fees (Effective October 1, 2020 - September 30, 2024)

  • Undergraduate Direct Loans: 1.057%
  • Graduate Unsubsidized Direct Loan: 1.057%
  • Graduate PLUS Direct Loan: 4.228%
  • PLUS Direct Loan: 4.228%
Click here for further explanation of what an origination fee is provided by the Department of Education. Our Consumer Information also details interest rates and origination fees.

Percentage of JMU Students Who Borrow: 36%*

*Information accessed from the U.S. Department of Education’s College Scorecard on September 5, 2023.

Cohort Default Rate (CDR) (Published February 2023)

JMU CDR: 0.8%
National Average CDR [Public 4 yrs (+)]: 1.8%

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