Next Wednesday, March 2nd is the "priority deadline" for students to submit their Free Application for Federal Student Aid…also known as FAFSA.
Students who don't meet the deadline can still apply. But Mike Uhlenkamp with the California State University system warns - the further you get from the deadline, the smaller the amount of available money will be.
And he says they expect a lot of students to ask for financial assistance in light of recent fee increases.
"It's made it more difficult for some students to attend the university. And so we've beefed up our financial aid programs to make sure that the access does still exist and that we can actually continue to help the students that are most needy financially to attend the CSU."
Uhlenkamp says CSU puts one-third of the revenue collected from tuition fee increases into the financial aid pool.
Traditionally, half of the students attending CSU receive financial aid.