Financial Aid Question

[TacoTaru]

So over my college's winter recess I got the nice Christmas present of discovering I lost $2000 in financial aid money. This is because my adviser was writing up a contract which had to be verified by my college's dean for an independent study class and because someone dragged their feet I didn't meet the minimum credit hour requirements. What worries me is not so much that they money wasn't given in the refund (I figured it wouldn't be applied because of hours), but now when I check my financial aid reward schedule it has me down as receiving $.00 for this semester whereas it said I was getting $2200 before.

Has anyone ever had any experience like this that can tell me if this can be gotten back? If all else fails, I can borrow more Stafford loan money, but I really don't want to considering I had this $2200 there not more than two weeks ago and not it's gone because someone dragged on their end and screwed me. The financial aid office doesn't open for at least another week (and I'm guessing there) so I don't know how soon I'm actually going to be able to contact them and get this worked out. It's a Higher Education award if that matters.

[Acturus]

It really depends on the chain of command at your school.

If none of this was your fault and can be remedied by the school, then it should be remedied by the school, and it's your job to stay on whomever's ass is ultimately responsible for fixing it.

However, like many things, the financial aid folks aren't going to be much help, nor will they graciously accept any responsability for this.

Have you spoken to the financial aid advisors or helper people about your options at this point? It helps to know the beauracracy of your school.

[TacoTaru]

I haven't. I just found this out two days ago, so at this point I have a week to go before I can even talk to anyone. I know SOME of my college faculty go back next week, but I'm not sure whom; next Monday is when I'm going to start phoning the office.

[Acturus]

It's a rough go in situations like this, even if you're 100% in the clear.

Are you able to elaborate a little more on the "dragging their feet" part? Did the paperwork need to be signed and sat on someone's desk, or was information supposed to be included that was missing?

At the same time, can you contact the people in charge of awarding the money and see if they have an appeals process?

My sophomore year, I lost a scholarship through something that was my own fault and followed an appeals process to get the award back. It was a state-based scholarship that was revoked by the school, and the school's appeal board fixed it after I met with them.

It seems like there should be some sort of recovery process in this instance, and in my opinion, no student should suffer for the mistakes of the administrators (unless that student is also at fault in some way).

[TacoTaru]

Are you able to elaborate a little more on the "dragging their feet" part? Did the paperwork need to be signed and sat on someone's desk, or was information supposed to be included that was missing?

There was a class I needed to take and after I met with my graduation adviser I was told I was not going to be able to graduate next semester because this class was not able to be taken (this was 10.23.09). I immediately met with my adviser at which point he informed me the following Monday he would begin writing a contract for me to take the class as an independent study class. I asked him about three to four more times over the course of the rest of the rest of the semester and emailed him a couple more times trying to ensure I kept this top of mind for him and every time he told me he was working on it and kept saying once it was done it would have to be approved by the dean. The day of finals he told me to watch for the email for this class to open up over break because the dean had the final copy. At this point I still have no received any email, bills have been posted and (obviously) financial aid is missing. I even told my adviser that I had a filler class I didn't need holding the 12hr reserve spot because I had to have it for financial aid and asked him if it was okay to drop that class since he was writing the contract for the class about a month and a half before the semester ended and he gave me the go ahead to drop the class because I would be okay and the hold would be cleared by then.

[spoon]

I've actually had this happen to me before. What you will need to do is get a filler class, again, immediately. Then, talk to your financial aide office, letting them know that you didn't meet the 12 cred/hr requirement before, but are there now. You will have to wait a while to receive your financial aide now, perhaps a couple weeks, but $2200 is definitely worth it. Most colleges have a final deadline at which point they will unregister you, but what you can do is get a promisory note from your cashier's office (whoever you actually pay to go to school) which is a temporary loan to cover you until you can pay the tuition. This may require a percentage of your tuition up front (25% perhaps), but again, is worth it, if it means you can still go to school.