I’m in a bit of a hiccup and looking for some advice.
Summer of 2018 I had one class left in my final week to take my final exam and complete associates. That was when I became incarcerated for about a year and a half. After my release I find out I have a debt to the college for 8k sent to attorney generals office now 11k.
Initially I thought it was because of not finishing my class but come to find out that I was asked for further verification.
Why ask for verification the last week of classes and at the summer semester?
Accounts on hold so no finishing my degree nor any transfers.
I’ve tried talking to different administration, some say I have to pay the debt, some say it’s not in collections, and some say I can still register for classes but I have to pay cash.
Apparently there was a flag from the department of education that requested for more verification but I was unaware of this since I was incarcerated. It would’ve been easier if they never even sent me the aid so I wouldn’t have been in this mess in the first place. Why give a grant when not everything’s verified beforehand and just take it back holding you from your future.
Any insight on this would be appreciated.
I haven’t been able to and I still don’t know what it is they required for verification.
I emailed the dean of students, no response yet, emailed the business office head no response, I emailed “office of financial services” and the one who filed the case against me that sent it to the OAG’s collection office responded saying contact OAG and set up payment plan…
I also emailed the financial aid office manager yesterday so I might from her next week hopefully.
So if it’s in collections now, is it too late to do anything about? Especially since it’s for the 2017-2018 FAFSA.
I also checked my credit online and nothing came up, but I did see two collection agencies remove some type of owed debt and I’m not sure if it was the OAGs collection office since they were somewhat sympathetic to my situation although they say there’s not much they can do and to contact the school for a resolution.
Someone at the school said I seemed to be able to continue registration for classes despite having a hold on my account as long as I pay cash. I then tried to enroll for a class to test and it allowed me although I don’t know if theyll drop me at a later time or deny me when I try to pay. I wonder if it’s the same case with my transcript.
I don’t mind that, if they’re willing to even talk to me in the first place.
Would they take back the debt from collections and bring back to the original 8k debt at the very least?
Someone told me that it’s up to the business manager to decide based on extreme factors such as death of student or family member, medical emergency, national emergency, adminstrative error or extreme financial hardship. Even then I think it’s within 90 days of last classes but in my case it was almost 2 years ago.
You need to talk to someone. How far away is this school? Can you get there during the workday to see if you can set up an appointment? Then get back there to actually attend that appointment and she documentation why you were unable to address this issue when it came up?
I join those who recommend talking to someone high up in financial aid. Check to see if your school has an associate director of customer service for financial aid. That would be ideal for your situation. If the financial aid office is not responsive, see if your school has an ombudsman (this position is there to help students who are unable to resolve their issues when they follow the chain of command). You have a very unusual situation, and it’s important to talk with someone who has the ability to understand your situation & to provide whatever assistance the school can provide.
$8,000 is a lot of aid that was returned. Was this for the one semester? Do you know specifically what aid was returned? And did the school return the aid itself & then have you owe them, or did they just report you to Federal Student Aid as having a federal grant overpayment? The answer to that is important. If they reported you as having a grant overpayment, you actually will not be eligible to get federal aid again until you have repaid that debt. But $8,000 is more than the Pell (and possibly SEOG) that would have been returned. So did you also have loans returned? That is a different process, and you would have issues there if you are now in default … in that case, you would have to get into a separate loan repayment plan to get out of default.
The bottom line is that you need to meet with someone in a management position who can figure out what happened & help you find out exactly how to get back on track. It is too late to get back any aid for summer 2018, so you need help finding out your options.
School’s not far, I tried going in to talk to someone the other day but the financial aid manager left early for an emergency.
The aid was for the whole school year- 2017 fall, 18 spring and 18 summer. The aid was state and federal Pell grants I believe.
It seems like I owe the school but I’m not sure if they reported me. Although, I’ve called the Department of Education about this to see if they can help me and after about 45 minutes of hold I spoke to someone who said that I still seem to be eligible to receive financial aid.
I haven’t taken out a loan yet but I’m thinking if I don’t get this resolved I might have to so I can remove the hold on my account and get my transcript/graduate.
Okay, so it sounds like the school repaid the aid, and now you owe the school. That is why you are still federal aid eligible.
If you received aid for a couple semesters, it seems to me that one of two things happened. The first possibility is that you made some type of update to your 2017-2018 FAFSA during the school year (after you had received a couple semesters worth of aid). That update triggered verification, and you needed to complete verification in order to retain the prior aid you received. Because you didn’t complete verification, all the aid had to be removed. In this case, it was your “fault,” although your incarceration may have happened at the same time as the selection for verification … making it a perfect storm. The other possibility is that you were selected for verification right from the start, or maybe you made an update to your FAFSA early in the year, but in either case the school somehow missed it. Later, in reviewing records, they may have realized their mistake. They had to remove your federal aid until verification was complete, even if they had made a mistake by giving you aid when you hadn’t completed verification.
In either case, the school had to do what it did. However, if they don’t offer to give you an institutional grant to cover some of the amount you owe them, or perhaps offer to write off some of the amount, you can always ask if they might be able to help you out in this manner. Be polite, and the worst they can do is say no. Some schools are willing to help out in unusual cases, while others are not. It’s worth it to ask.
The best thing this student can do is talk directly with a financial aid higher up. That person should be able to listen to and understand the issues here. There is absolutely nothing a lawyer can do.
@OldQuackKanobe it’s possible the school changed your FAFSA…that happens too. Please, please take the time to go to the school and make an appointment to discuss this in person. Your situation isn’t all that common, and the school should be able to help address the concerns.
You still might need to repay…but they should be able to clarify what happened…and you can explain your issues with not knowing…and why.
So I spoke to a financial aid director from another school and he was saying it’s the schools fault for requesting verification last 2 weeks of school of the financial aid year (Summer) around mid July to August.
He was saying they shouldn’t have sent me the aid and if they were going to take it back they should’ve done so at the beginning.
He says I can reopen my judgement case and explain to the judge my circumstance and that I wasn’t here for the initial court hearing they might be able to settle the issue.
I’ve also received an email from vice president of the school and this was her response…
When you applied for financial aid for the Summer 2018 term, your file was flagged by the Department of Education for verification. This means that you needed to submit additional documents to secure your aid. The Financial Aid office sent you several notices about the verification beginning July 2, 2018, but you never responded.
Because you didn’t respond to the verification notices and submit the additional documents, Federal regulations required the Financial Aid office to cancel your aid for the entire award year: summer 2017, Fall 2017, and spring 2018.
Financial Aid sent you an overpayment letter on August 20, 2018 with a total balance due of $8,610 ($740 for Fall 2017 + $4060 for Spring 2018 + $3810 for Summer 2018). You never responded.
Because of the amount of the debt, the College was required to send the letter to the Virginia Attorney General’s office (OAG) for collection. OAG adds 6% interest plus collection fees to the debt. This is why the amount increased.
The only suggestion I can give you is to contact OAG and see if there is any relief available for you. I don’t know what options, if any, exist. OAG has the ability to garnish wages and withhold tax refunds, so I encourage you to do this as soon as possible.
Until the debt is cleared, you will be unable to register at the school or any other local community college.
I just hope explaining my situation to the judge would help clear this or at least they can negotiate for a lower settlement. I tried asking the OAGs collection office but they weren’t responsive.
I think the response letter spells it out pretty clearly. It suggests you contact the OAG, so do that.
When people are sent to jail, the rules don’t change. The college sent the verification request and you didn’t answer. They had no choice but to void the financial aid. That’s the rule! The same would happen if it was your bank trying to collect a Visa bill, or a landlord notifying you of a past due amount.
I don’t know what ‘judge’ you are hoping to plead your case to. The state is trying to collect a debt. They have a lot of power to do so (as the VP said) like garnishing your accounts and tax refunds. You need to work it out with them.
You are going to need to persevere with the OAG office. Continue contacting them until you find someone that can help you. Calls are better than emails (normally I would say in person if possible, but that’s probably not a good idea right now).
The judge who made a judgement on my case. I wasn’t here when it happened and maybe I can reopen the case to explain that the school should have requested for verification not at the last 2 weeks of summer classes and that I wasn’t available/did not know about the hearing for a judgement on the debt.
No judge made a determination. It was all done administratively.
You didn’t answer the request for verification, so they cancelled the loans (sent the money back to the govt), which caused you to have a balance due at the school, which they declared due. They aren’t collecting loans that are in default but the balance that was paid by those loans. You owe the school for tuition, not loans.
Because it is a state school, they can do it all administratively and there is no judge, there is no case number, there is nothing to appeal in court.