I’ll try to be brief and thorough.
Basically, I checked my Cal Grant Award status on the Cal Grant website because my award wasn’t showing up on my financial aid award letter when it said that my Cal Grant A had been renewed (I am an incoming senior/fourth year, I’ve gotten this Cal Grant all years so far). I immediately was relieved to see that I did indeed get it renewed and figured it just somehow wasn’t put onto my award letter.
So I then called the Financial Aid office at my university (a UC, if it helps) to find out why the grant wasn’t put on my award letter and was told that my EFC was just a bit too high and therefore I wasn’t eligible to receive the award. Absolutely nothing on my FAFSA has changed, for one, so that’s weird to me. But I just really don’t understand this at all. I even called the Cal Grant office again, but they weren’t much help. How does the government approve and show I have need (my family income/etc. all hit within the brackets necessary to receive a Cal Grant A), but my university decides I don’t qualify? It appears that they just upped my loan amounts so much that they just covered my ‘estimated need’ (which they don’t, anyway…) I’m really just wondering if this has ever happened to anyone else, because I’m feeling immensely frustrated and stressed because, quite frankly, I’m broke and was majorly depending on that financial aid, as I have been every year.