<p>I was not sure how to title this post so here is my story...</p>
<p>My daughter is a freshman so this is our first year experience. Our EFC is over $21,000 and the COA of attending college is over $26,000. When we did FAFSA last year my daughter was eligible for $5500 in Sub and Unsub loans. She accepted the full amount that was offered to her.</p>
<p>Her financial aid "award" letter from the college only offered these loans. She did not receive any scholarships through the college or any help from the college itself.</p>
<p>She was fortunate enough to be awarded $3600 in scholarships from her high school. Part of the scholarships were paid for the fall quarter and the remainder were paid to the winter quarter because they were based on her GPA. She made the Dean's List for the fall quarter (proud mama moment). There is no scholarship money left to be allotted. These were all one time awards and she is applying for some scholarships for her sophomore year but I know it is difficult to get scholarships at this point.</p>
<p>We had to take out a Parent Plus loan to pay some of our share and we have still had additional out of pocket money to pay each quarter.</p>
<p>I thought we had to pay $2400 for the Spring Quarter which I will have saved up by the time it is due. BUT now we found out that she will not be getting her Sub loan for the Spring Quarter because of the scholarship money she received in the previous quarters and there is not going to be any scholarship money for the Spring. We got our Tax Refund back already and I immediately put the full amount on our Parent Plus loan from this year not knowing that I was going to have to come up with extra money for her Spring Quarter.</p>
<p>I guess I thought the loans were allowed to be used to help cover the EFC. I was planning on her getting the $6500 Sub and Unsub loans for her sophomore year to help with the costs but now I am assuming that she won't get that much. We finished our FAFSA and the EFC is the same as last year.</p>
<p>Sorry this post got so long and I guess I don't have any question, just needed to whine a little bit. I thought I had a plan for this and apparently things are not going to work out the way I planned. I am going to have no choice to put the extra money owed on a credit card. Just really bummed out over all of this.</p>
<p>You need to tlk with financial aid at her school. Yes, the Stafford loan money can be used to help meet your EFC. It may be that she no longer qualifies for the Sub loans according to the standards if her college, and that is what has screwed things up.</p>
<p>She should contact her FA office. Sub loans are awarded if there is unmet need (COA-EFC=need; need - FA = unmet need), up to $3500 for freshmen. I think what happened was that her need component went down due to the outstide scholarships so they had to reduce her subsidized loan amount. However she is still eligible for the full amount of the Stafford loan for this year, if she requests it. It’s just that they will have to award the remainder as unsubsidized.</p>
<p>The student no longer qualifies for sub loans, but she can still get the unsub loans up to 5500 per year for a frosh. </p>
<p>For a student to get a sub loan, she must have “need”…her need was covered by the scholarship…so now she can get an unsub loan for the full amount…contact the FA office.</p>
<p>What happens is that schools have to reduce the sub loan in a case like this, but they cannot increase the unsub to make up for the reduction UNLESS the student requests the unsub increase in writing. She just needs to get a loan revision form from the FA office. </p>
<p>My only caveat would be if you borrowed the entire EFC in PLUS. Remember that the total of ALL aid (scholarships and loans) cannot exceed the COA.</p>
<p>I’m concerned about affordability in the coming years. That HS scholarship won’t be available any longer and the parents will be hitting their credit score with PLUS loans.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the replies. It really clears up things for me. </p>
<p>I took out a $10,000 Parent Plus loan this year and have just paid out of pocket the rest of the EFC and thought everything was figured out and got a little sticker shock when I found out that they took away the Sub Loan for the Spring Quarter so thanks to you all I now understand. Really appreciate it. I talked to my daughter and she is getting more hours from her job and she is going to pay on the credit card that I am going to have to put the extra money on. It is 0% interest so I think in the long run it will be better to do it that way than to have the financial aid office transfer it to the unsubsidized loan.</p>
<p>We are only planning on the $6500 loan for her sophomore year. So it is my understanding that even if she can’t get a subsidized loan, she will qualify for the $6500 in an unsubsidized loan? She has applied for scholarships and any help will be appreciated but I know I can’t count on it. I have our budget wrote out through the end of 2012. Her school is changing from quarters to semesters. She will have a payment due in August and December. It is going to be tight and there is no wiggle room but we are planning on not taking out a Parent Plus loan for this year. That is why I went ahead and paid all that I could on it with our tax refund. I have figured out what we need to save up for her fall semester. She will be working more this summer and she is going to be helping as much as she can.</p>
<p>You sound like you have things on the right track. Yes, she will be eligible for $6500 when she is a sophomore … either some sub (up to $4500) and unsub, or all unsub.</p>
<p>I didn’t know if I should start a new thread or follow up with this one. </p>
<p>I knew that the amount for my Spring Quarter tuition was changing due to the Sub loan being reduced. Well today, I just happened to log on to her student account to make sure that the school had record of her filing the FAFSA for 2012-2013 and in big bold letters on her account it says PAST DUE: $952.00. It says that she owes $189 from the Autumn Quarter and $763 from the Winter Quarter. I don’t understand. We paid what was due at that time and now are being told that it is past due. I am clueless. Iam obsessive about paying my bills on time and to see PAST DUE freaks me out a little bit. I have accepted the fact that there is not a lot of financial help for us and have tried to plan accordingly but I am frustrated over having an amount due that I thought was paid. Is this common? Is this something that I am going to have to deal with for the entire 4 years that she is going to school? She is attending Ohio State if that helps answer this. Is it a college thing or a federal loan thing? I am stumped. She is going to the financial aid office tomorrow in person. She has went a couple of times and they never have time to fully explain things to her.</p>
<p>This happens to my kids from time to time…I’ll check their accounts to make sure everything has been applied and the balance is 0, then there suddenly is a balance due at the beginning of the next semester. It’s aggravating, but I can usually tell what happended - a delayed tuition/fee increase, a late posting of a lab fee, or often it’s an outright error. I don’t pretend to understand why they make these random debits/credits, presumably for some accounting purpose, but sometimes they don’t get both sides of the entry applied. </p>
<p>I find that if I call, as opposed to sending the kids to the bursar/FA, it gets fixed immediately (and I don’t have to listen to them complain that they wasted 2 hours of life to get nothing accomplished). If you daughter has signed the FERPA authorization, you might want to call when you have her account in front of you. Good luck!</p>
<p>@jeezypeezy - does their online account have an option for sending you automatic emails when a new charge is posted? It seems normal for odd charges and adjustments to appear from time to time, but those seem high. Did your kid maybe change majors and incur a higher tuition from that?</p>
<p>@sk8rmom: I am able to call on my daughter’s behalf. However, the hold time is usually 20 minutes and I work the time that the financial aid office is open so that is why my daughter is going to go talk to them. </p>
<p>@whydoicare: nothing has changed. It looks like they took away all of her Sub loan for winter quarer and part of it for the autumn quarter. I knew they were taking it away from the Spring Quarter, I did not realize they were backtracking and taking it away from previous quarters.</p>
<p>I will say that I am ready to tell my daughter that she is going to have to find a cheaper school. Ohio State is her “dream” school and I want to be able to help her but her dream is turning into my nightmare and I am ready to throw in the towel.</p>
<p>I am guessing when she gets her “award” package for 2012-2013 that it is a waste of time to accept Sub loans if she is offered any, if they are just going to turn around and take them off of her. I am trying my darnest to plan for the upcoming years but there is no wiggle room and to find out that I owe more on top of what I have already paid is very discouraging and stressful. Thanks for all the advice. </p>
<p>Here’s the thing I don’t understand. If they retroactively took away the sub loans, why on earth couldn’t they retroactively replace same with unsub equivalent loans?</p>
<p>I would be tempted to call the office myself and ask this, jeezy – you might get a satisfactory result more quickly and it’s you getting hit with these bills.</p>
<p>They are not allowed to replace sub with unsub, because the terms of the loan are not equivalent. The student has to request that the sub be replaced with the unsub - there will certainly be a form, and it has to be signed.</p>
<p>The school reduced your D’s loans across the year, as that is the way it is often done when an adjustment is made. If the school found out in winter that the student was overawarded, they can’t just say, “We’ll take it out of next term.” What if the student does not return or falls below half time or is on SAP for next term? The adjustment is done across all terms.</p>
<p>Just a little update. The school changed some of the autumn quarter’s subsidized loan to an unsubsidized loan and all of her winter subsidized loan to an unsubsidized loan. They did this on their own without us having to fill out anything. So I guess while everything was getting changed over is when I happened to be online and saw the PAST DUE message. Today it was updated and switched so there is no PAST DUE amount and she is actually getting a $43.00 refund. Do I understand any of this? No, but I am going with it. She talked to the financial aid office and they assured her that we have no past due balance and are current at this time. Spring Quarter is due in March so I am sure I will be back with more questions and concerns.</p>
<p>I’m surprised they were able to change subsidized to unsub without notifying you but glad it worked out. The only time we had unsubsidized was when I was unemployed a few years back and they did notify us that they were switching the small amount to unsubsidized when S2 scored a scholarship. They did the work, but the did send him a letter.</p>
<p>Yes, that’s a fairly significant change in loan terms. How could that be possible without consent, or is there simply one application for “whatever I’m qualified for”? In any case, jeezypeezy, you should definitely ask questions until you’re sure you understand exactly what happened and why.</p>