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The Internet will soon breach another snail-mail stronghold.

Beginning March 10, the Financial Aid Office will stop sending out paper financial aid notifications in the mail and begin using an Internet-based system called eFAN.

Under this system, the FAO will inform students of their updated FANs by sending out e-mails and posting notices on MyUCLA.

The messages will link students to the eFAN Web site, where they will see the awards they have been offered and their respective amounts. Students can then choose which awards to accept or decline.

FANs – electronic or otherwise – are sent out once a year after students fill out their annual Free Application for Federal Student Aid, and if their financial need changes.

All undergraduate and graduate students can use eFAN after the March 10 implementation.

Professional school students will undergo the transition to the new system in the next few months.

The FAO will conduct an extensive publicity campaign in the coming weeks, informing students of the change through e-mail, postcards, MyUCLA notices, alerts on the FAO Web site and an ad in the Daily Bruin.

The first wave of eFAN notifications will go out to students whose financial need has changed because of the spring quarter fee increase.

The eFAN will make financial aid one of the increasing number of student services available online.

Students can already register for classes and pay their BAR accounts on the URSA Web site.

Paper BAR statements were changed to e-mail versions earlier this year, and almost all students now use URSA OnLine to pay their registration fees. Since fall quarter, Communications Technology Services has enabled students residing in the dormitories to pay their telephone bills online.

John Talbert of the URSA OnLine Project Team said in an e-mail, “Basically every paper form that we have now will be moved to a Web form.”

FAO compliance officer Drew Arredondo said that “students are already expecting that type of service.”

He said the eFAN system has been in development for about a year and was instituted to better meet student needs.

Students have largely welcomed the transition to electronic forms.

Fifth-year economics student Sarah Choe said she was “disappointed they didn’t think of (it)before.”

Jose Guevara, a third-year history and political science student, noted that those students unfamiliar with the Internet may have difficulty keeping up with advances in technology.

“It’s becoming easier, if you have the technology,” he said.