How Scholarships Work for ASU Online Students

Updated

Eligible ASU Online students are automatically considered for scholarships at admission after submitting a FAFSA — no separate scholarship application is required. The key conditions: you must be an eligible ASU Online student, and you must have a FAFSA on file. If either is missing, the automatic consideration does not apply. Exact award amounts and individual eligibility are not published on the page, so confirm your specific situation with ASU Financial Aid.

The Basic Mechanism

ASU Online describes its scholarship process as built into admission rather than as a separate competition you enter. Two things trigger consideration:

  1. You are an eligible ASU Online student. Eligibility rules are set by the university and are not itemized on the page.
  2. You submit a FAFSA. The FAFSA is the federal financial aid application; ASU uses it as the input for automatic scholarship review.

Once both are in place, the review happens at admission. There is no separate scholarship form, essay, or deadline to track beyond the FAFSA itself.

What This Means in Practice

Step What you do What happens
1 Apply to an ASU Online program You enter the admission process
2 Submit the FAFSA Your financial information becomes available to ASU
3 Admission decision Eligible students are automatically considered for scholarships
4 Award notification ASU communicates any scholarship outcome (timing not specified on the page)

The practical takeaway: the FAFSA is not optional if you want to be in the scholarship pool. Skipping it removes you from automatic consideration even if you are otherwise eligible.

Common Points of Confusion

"No separate application" does not mean "no action required." You still have to file the FAFSA. The "no separate application" language refers only to the scholarship itself.

Automatic consideration is not a guarantee. Being reviewed and being awarded are different things. The page does not state award amounts, the number of awards, or the criteria beyond eligibility and FAFSA submission.

Eligibility is defined by ASU, not by the applicant. The page says "eligible ASU Online students" without listing the criteria, so do not assume that submitting a FAFSA alone makes you eligible.

What to Verify With ASU

Because the page stops at the mechanism, these are the questions to bring to ASU Financial Aid or your enrollment advisor:

  • What makes an ASU Online student "eligible" for automatic scholarship consideration?
  • What award amounts and types are typical?
  • When are scholarship decisions communicated relative to admission?
  • Are there scholarships that require a separate application, even though the main path does not?

Bottom Line

For ASU Online, the scholarship path is short: be an eligible student, file the FAFSA, and you are automatically considered at admission. No separate scholarship application is needed. The variables you cannot resolve from the page — eligibility specifics and dollar amounts — should be confirmed directly with ASU before you rely on scholarship funding in your plans.