<p>I recently went back to college to pursue a bachelor degree. I earned an associate degree years ago without any financial aid.</p>
<p>This time I applied for financial aid and was approved, but apparently next semester I need to petition to "extend" my financial aid because I've already "attempted" a set amount of units.</p>
<p>I was trying to explain to the office that in no way shape or form would it be an extension of aid because I was fortunate enough not to need aid in the past. In other words, I received $0 in aid. I want to continue my education and transfer to a university. From my understanding, federal aid can help with tuition costs up to a bachelors degree.</p>
<p>Does anyone know if this is the general rule for financial aid or do each college make up their own arbitrary rules?</p>
<p>Yes, it is the normal and required by federal law. And the fact that you have not previously received aid is not taken into account. Each school has to have a SAP policy (satisfactory academic progress) for federal financial aid eligibility. The policy will vary a little for each school, but will include things such as GPA, total number of credits attempted - these can not be over a certain multiple of the number of credit hours required for your degree - 150% seems to be a common figure (and this includes credits attempted ever, anywhere including any Ws), and satisfactorily having completed a certain percentage of all credits attempted (seems to commonly range from 67% to 75% - again, this includes credits attempted ever, anywhere including any Ws). It does not matter whether you received aid for the previous credits or not. The SAP policy requires you to meet its requirements in order to be eligible for aid now.</p>
<p>My son ran into this when he returned to school after dropping out for a couple of years. He had never received aid or even applied for it, but was initially denied aid based on SAP. He appealed and did end up receiving aid. </p>
<p>You need to write an appeal letter explaining why you do not meet SAP. For instance if you are over the hours because you have changed majors, then explain that. it is at each school’s discretion whether they grant an appeal for financial aid at their institution. If your appeal is granted, make sure you know the conditions and meet them. it is harder to get a 2nd appeal granted if you do not meet the terms of the 1st.</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>The school should have their SAP policy available for you to see. many schools have it available online.</p>
<p>Do you know the logic or reason behind counting the credits with no financial aid?</p>
<p>I had a good GPA, around 3.6 if I recall correctly. I didn’t change majors, I wanted to earn an associate degree with the plan to transfer to a four-year university but I was unable to continue my education at that time due to an illness.</p>
<p>I will ask them for the SAP policy and study it before I submit an appeal. You see, they don’t explain this. They hire students who are either not knowledgeable or do not care about their jobs and give runarounds, at least at the college I’m attending.</p>
<p>Did you do a lot more hours than needed for an associate degree? if you are just starting at a 4 year University and did the normal required hours for and associate degree, you should not be anywhere near having excessive hours unless you also attempted and dropped a lot of classes. </p>
<p>In our state university system, an associate degree requires 60 - 70 hours and most bachelor degrees require 120 -130 credit hours. So in our case, the cut off point in SAP would be around 180 to 195 attempted hours, depending on the degree. That gives a fair amount of wiggle room, so it seems surprising that you would have excessive hours.</p>
<p>Did you perhaps drop a lot of hours because of your illness? See if you can make an appointment to speak to an actual FA officer rather than a student helper. You will probably get a lot further that way, and hopefully the appeals process will be explained.</p>
<p>The new federal SAP regulations are more stringent than in the past — and the fact that the student has a lot of credits that may not count toward the degree requirements can put him at SAP risk right off the bat. If he has 40 credits, say, but still has almost all his degree credits to go, he is going to be in trouble.</p>
<p>Whether or not you ever received financial aid is irrelevant … simply because the federal regulations say so.</p>
<p>You need to visit your financial aid office to talk to someone about your personal situation. The finaid officer can tell you how to go about appealing.</p>