A way to not be super screwed over?

Paying for College
1

I need to pay for college and my family was waiting for our financial aid to be applied since it was processed late due to external problems. Before we submitted the taxes for the recent year, the tentative aid offered was around $30,000, so I enrolled because we were able to afford it including the aid.

Now I’ve started school and they are demanding payment after they reduced the aid to a mere $2,000. The only advice the school gives is to take out a loan (which is literally all I see us doing before most likely transferring or withdrawing). Any advice?

2

I expect that your taxes showed more income than you Initially told them about, and/or you missed a critical deadline in the process. If you have already talked to them and they have all the relevant information, then you won’t get more from them. I wouldn’t enroll if you are $30k short. Choices I can see:

  • Take a gap year and apply to other schools
  • Attend your local community college for 2 years and transfer
  • if you got into any more affordable schools and turned them down, call their admissions office. They may let you start this fall or next semester.
3

If you were first offered $30k and now it’s been reduced to $2k, what changed? Do your parents own a business?

Can you withdraw from this school without penalty? That seems best. Transferring can hurt you and you don’t want a lot of debt from this school, just to go someplace else…that is crazy.

4

Were you selected for verification? When was that process completed if that is the case.

Does your family own a business or real estate other than your primary residence?

Clearly, something was different once your taxes were filed. What was that?

What kind of aid was in your initial package?

When did you update your FAFSA to reflect accurate 2014 tax return data?

5

Were there adjustments on the tax return between the ‘Total Income’ and ‘Adjusted Gross Income’ lines?

Were there retirement plan withdrawals or rollovers?

If there is a family business or rental property were there alot of deductions (depreciation expense)?

Are you a freshman?

6

Is this a CSS Profile school? Do your parents have their own business?

Do they have other properties?

Another family had this happen to them and it was because they hadn’t listed an extra property on their FA forms, and it was found.