MHEC FAFSA Award Update May 2024

Maryland Higher Education Commission (MHEC) News Brief

MHEC FAFSA Award Update

May 17, 2024

The Maryland Higher Education Commission (MHEC) continues to move forward providing financial aid awards to students and families.

Additionally, the Maryland Higher Education Commission (MHEC) will continue working with higher education institutions across Maryland to have a timeline in place for the awarding process of state funds to eligible applicants.

MHEC started awarding the first round of Howard P. Rawlings Educational Excellence Awards, which included Guaranteed Access Grant (GA) renewal and initial applicants as well as Educational Assistance Grant (EA) renewal applicants, on May 1, 2024.
MHEC is completing the award process on a weekly basis to award as many students as possible in an efficient manner.
Eligible applicants who complete the FAFSA by May 15 (i.e. priority deadline date) will be guaranteed to be awarded. The Maryland Higher Education Commission’s goal is to award all eligible applicants who have completed the FAFSA by the priority deadline as swiftly as possible.

MHEC strongly encourages students who have not created an online account through the MHEC One-App (i.e. MSFAA applications) to utilize the online tool in order to enable award processing and track notifications.

*Please Note:MHEC has experienced some awarding issues as well as issues with the MHEC One-App in which applicants are not able to review their completed application on the Maryland College Aid Processing System (MDCAPS). MHEC strives to resolve all issues in a timely manner by working with our systems team to resolve awarding and application errors as they arise. MHEC One-App applicants will be able to review their completed MHEC One-Application this upcoming Monday, May 20, 2024.

Currently, MHEC has awarded over 2,000 applicants a Howard P. Rawlings Educational Excellence Award for the upcoming 2024 - 2025 academic year.

The H. P. Rawlings Educational Assistance award update for fiscal year 2025 is as follows:

The maximum award amount for the Guaranteed Access Grant (GA) is $22,100 and the maximum award amount for the Educational Access Grant (EA) is $3,000 for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Guaranteed Access Grant (GA) “Renewal” students - 839 students have been awarded funding as a renewal recipient of the Guaranteed Access Grant for a total amount of $12,389,400.
Guaranteed Access Grant (GA) “Initial” students - 893 students have been awarded funding as a first time (initial) recipient of the Guaranteed Access Grant for a total amount of $19,040,400.
Educational Assistance Grant (EA) “Renewal” students - 223 students have been awarded renewal funding for the Educational Access Grant for a total amount of $665,700.

MHEC will continue to award the Guaranteed Access Grant (GA) to all eligible applicants (i.e. renewal and initial) as well as the Educational Assistance Grant (EA) to all “renewal” students that have completed the FAFSA or MHEC One-App by the priority filing date (i.e., May 15, 2024). MHEC will begin awarding the Educational Assistance Grant (EA) to first-time (initial) recipients until all eligible GA applicants have been awarded.

MHEC continues to encourage students and families to complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). If there are questions regarding the FAFSA application, please see the links below provided by the United States Department of Education.

To support your efforts, we are sharing the following new resources for students and parents: