Welcome to the Office of University Scholarships and Financial Aid web site. Our staff is here to assist parents and students to efficiently apply for and receive the financial aid for which they are eligible. We understand the financial challenges that families face sending one or more students to college.
Our web site is a has a good source of information that will guide you and your student through the financial aid process. We suggest parents read the information as well and encourage their student to direct any questions to our staff. Emailing finaid@vt.edu is the easiest way to contact us. Other sources of contact can be found on our Contact Us page.
According to the Federal Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) university staff cannot discuss financial aid matters with anyone other than the student without the students permission. This includes parents and guardians.
Students can submit an information release form through HokieSPA (Financial Aid > Information Release) specifying to whom they allow their information to be released. When filling out the form, students must create an 8-character pass code that they should share with their parent/guardian. Should a parent or guardian call the university, they will be asked for this pass code as a means of verification before any student information is discussed. Without this form filled out, federal law prohibits any university employee to discuss a student's specific information (financial aid) with anyone other than the student.
Once a student has been offered admissions at Virginia Tech and has paid the matriculation fee, they are instructed to create a PID (Personal Identification) and an accompanying password. With this PID and password, the student can access information pertaining to the university and being a student.
One such information gateway is the HokieSPA (Hokie Student Personal Access), it is used as the main gateway for registering for classes, adding and dropping classes, viewing University Bursar's e-bil, and student financial aid information. See our page on the HokieSPA for more detailed information on this information gateway. Recently, the HokieSPA had a new feature added, students can release their financial aid and other student information to specific individuals, granting these individuals guest account access to their personal information. See our page on the Hokie SPA Guest Account Access for more information on how to create a guest account. Should you already have created a guest account access, you can log in through the Guest Access Information Gateway.
It is important to remember that just because your student releases information to you through the HokieSPA Guest Account Access, it does not mean that you can speak with a university employee about your student's information. A Information Release form must still be filled out in order to discuss any student information with a university employee.