FES student portal: where Step Up families log in

Which Step Up site is which

Most sign-in confusion comes from landing on the wrong Step Up address. There are two, and they do different jobs.

Bookmark the portal directly. Searching for the login each time is how families end up on lookalike pages. Save apply.stepupforstudents.org and open it from your bookmarks.

If you cannot get in

Sunshine Claim Buddy is an independent tool and cannot access, reset, or troubleshoot your Step Up account. These are the things worth ruling out before you contact Step Up support.

• You are on apply.stepupforstudents.org and not the public information site.
• You are using the email address the scholarship was awarded under, which is not always the one you check most often.
• Your student's scholarship is active for the current year. Award status changes at the scholarship-year rollover, and a renewal that is still processing can affect what you see after signing in.
• You are the parent or guardian account holder. Provider and school logins are separate from the family portal.
• You have tried a different browser or a private window, which clears a stale session without touching your saved passwords.

If none of that resolves it, the Step Up help center handles account access. Password resets and account recovery can only be done by Step Up.

What you actually do once you are in

Signing in is the easy part. Most of the time a reimbursement stalls, it is because of how the packet was assembled before the upload, not because of anything that happened in the portal. These guides cover each step.

• Submitting a reimbursement. The full packet checklist, required documents, and the 2026-27 deadline are in the FES-UA reimbursement guide.
• Proving you paid. An invoice alone is usually not enough. See what FES-UA accepts as proof of payment.
• Checking status. Submitted, In Review, On Hold, Approved, and Denied each call for a different response. The EMA status guide explains all of them.
• Fixing a hold. If a request goes On Hold, the on-hold checklist covers the six most common causes.
• Appealing a denial. There is normally one appeal, so it is worth preparing. See how to appeal in EMA.
• Buying instead of claiming. Some purchases are simpler through the marketplace. Compare in MyScholarShop vs reimbursement.

Handbooks and funding dates

Two things families most often go looking for right after logging in are the current handbook and the funding calendar. Both live on the public site rather than inside the portal.

• The FES-UA Family Handbook is the authority on what is eligible and what documentation each category requires.
• The purchasing guides cover what can be bought directly versus reimbursed.
• Funding and deposit dates are published by Step Up and can shift year to year. Confirm them against the current handbook rather than a prior-year screenshot.