Financial Aid

AIE is fully approved to receive Title IV funding from the U.S. Department of Education ( www.ed.gov ). This approval means that we are able to accept the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) at both our Seattle and Lafayette campuses.

How Financial Aid Works

Financial aid is essential to most students planning to attend college. Find out more about how financial aid works here: https://studentaid.gov/h/understand-aid/how-aid-works

Apply for Financial Aid

Completing the FAFSA form is free. The link to complete the form is: https://studentaid.gov/fafsa-app/ROLES

Parent PLUS loan

PLUS loans can help pay for education expenses not covered by other financial aid: https://studentaid.gov/understand-aid/types/loans/plus/parent

Federal student aid includes:

Grants — Most types of grants, unlike loans, are sources of financial aid that generally do not have to be repaid.
Scholarships - Scholarships are gifts. They don't need to be repaid. There are thousands of them, offered by schools, employers, individuals, private companies, nonprofits, communities, religious groups, and professional and social organizations.
Loans — Borrowed money for college or career school; you must repay your loans, with interest

VA Educational Benefits:

GI Bill® - Education Programs offered to veterans, service members and their dependents.

Washington State Job Opportunities

Completion and placement statistics

For the 2023 reporting to COE (covers the Class of 2022)

VFX: 100% completion / 80% placement
Game Art: 67% completion / 72% placement
Game Programming: 64% completion / 71% placement
Game Design: 77% completion / 72% placement

Loan/indebtedness metrics (from nsldsfap.ed.gov as of November 2024)

Cohort year	Percent of borrowers in default	Percent of borrows in repayment
2021	0%	N/A
2020	0%	21.96%
2019	1.8%	34.19%

Graduates median earnings (from salary.com and AIE Industry Advisory Board as of November 2024)

$71,129 annual salary

Important information:

Submit your FAFSA at https://studentaid.gov/h/apply-for-aid/fafsa
AIE Seattle’s school code for FAFSA is 042236.
AIE Lafayette’s school code for FAFSA is 042484.
We recommend completing the FAFSA as soon as possible, as some funds are awarded on a first-come-first-served basis.
If you intend on taking on Student Loans, please submit a Master Promissory Note and complete Entrance Loan Counseling.
You may be required to fill out additional forms for AIE. We will notify you if this is the case.
Feel free to contact us at finaid@aie.edu.au if you have any questions!

For Washington State residents seeking information and resources about student loan repayment, or to submit a complaint relating to your student loans or student loan servicer, please visit www.wsac.wa.gov/loan-advocacy or contact the Student Loan Advocate at loanadvocate@wsac.wa.gov

AIE Scholarships

AIE offers scholarship opportunities for students on the basis of academic merit and financial need. See our Scholarship page for more information.

Other Scholarships

Many organizations offer scholarships or grants to help students pay for college. This free money can make a real difference in how affordable your education is. (Check with Chambers of Commerce of your City, Kiwanis Club, Lion's Club, Heritage Societies such as Son's of Norway, Italian American Society, Snohomish Education Foundation, La Conner Community Scholarship Foundation, Pride Foundation, Horatio Algier, Dollars for Scholars scholarship, etc).

Sallie Mae have a scholarship search on their website: https://salliemae.com/scholarshipsearch

Sallie Mae Loans

AIE students can apply for a student loan for Career Training from Sallie Mae here: http://www.salliemae.com/ctsmartloan

Apply for an AIE Program

Related Information

How to Transfer Your IRS Tax Information Directly into Your FAFSA

How to Transfer Your IRS Tax Information Directly into Your FAFSA

You may have received an email from Federal Student Aid recommending that you use the IRS Data Retrieval Tool to transfer tax information directly from the IRS into your FAFSA. If for any reason the Data Retrieval Tool is unavailable, you can manually enter your tax information into your FAFSA.

The IRS Data Retrieval Tool transfers your IRS tax information directly into your FAFSA. To use the Data Retrieval Tool, complete the following steps:

Go to the Federal Student Aid website and select the “Start Here” button
Log in using your FSA ID
Select the “Continue” or “Make a Correction” button
Select the "Financial Information" tab from the top of the page.

Instructions for the parent to request the parent IRS information:

Go to the "Parent Financial Information" page
Answer the questions in the first box to see if you are eligible to use the IRS Data Retrieval Tool
If eligible, select which parent is providing information on the FAFSA
Enter the FSA ID for the parent providing the information
Click "Link to IRS"
For your privacy, the tax information you transfer from the IRS into your FAFSA form won’t be visible to you. Instead, you will see “Transferred from the IRS” in the appropriate fields on fafsa.gov, the IRS DRT web page, and on the Student Aid Report.

Instructions for the student to request the student IRS information:

Go to the "Student Financial Information" page
Answer the questions in the first box to see if you are eligible to use the IRS Data Retrieval Tool
If eligible, click "Link to IRS"
For your privacy, the tax information you transfer from the IRS into your FAFSA form won’t be visible to you. Instead, you will see “Transferred from the IRS” in the appropriate fields on fafsa.gov, the IRS DRT web page, and on the Student Aid Report.
Proceed to the Sign and Submit page

If you'd like to know more about the tool, FinAid offers a in depth summary on their website.