I’ve been accepted to San Diego State University as a Junior transfer student to begin this upcoming Fall semester. I’m beyond excited. I’ve lived in CA my whole life and graduated a CA High School. Unfortunately, I waited a while after High School to go to college. I’m a typical poor college student and will heavily rely on any grants I’ve been awarded. I will also begin to take out student loans.
A few months ago, I saw I was awarded the Cal Grant B of over roughly $7000. I was awarded a few other grants as well, but this was by far the largest one I would be getting. However, I saw it was on Hold with a message stating:
"Transfer Entitlement Institutional Verification Required by School Official, due to AB 840
California Assembly Bill AB 840, signed into law June 26, 2006, requires the California Student Aid Commission to randomly select 10% of new and renewal Transfer Entitlement awards for school verification. The Office of Financial Aid & Scholarships is required to verify your eligibility to receive a Transfer Entitlement Cal Grant Award prior to the disbursement of funds. You must submit the following documentation for the final determination of your eligibility.
A copy of your high school transcript or equivalent, AND
If you were younger than 18 on the day you graduated: Your parent (or legal guardian) California state (not federal) tax return for the tax year immediately prior to your high school graduation or equivalent (for example: Parent 2013 California State tax return if you graduated in 2014). If your parent (or legal guardian) did not file a California state tax return for the year requested, s/he must provide one of the following documents for the calendar year immediately prior to high school graduation or its equivalent:
California lease or rental agreement,
California utility bill,
California voter registration,
California auto registration and/or
California bank account records."
Unfortunately, I was not yet 18 when I graduated high school. Any documents I need to obtain need to be from 2007 (I graduated High School in 2008) which was 10 years ago. I easily got my transcript, but I had to wait over a month to try to get any of the other documents listed. My father does not keep any of these records after about 2-3 years, so he didn’t have any on hand. Getting the CA tax return info is impossible since even these records are only kept by the government for the past 7 years. In fact, I hit a road block on ever listed option. I spoke with SDSU’s financial aid office multiple times. Eventually, my dad (who lives 10 hours away in northern california) was able to get a stamped record of his property tax from 2007. I gave this to SDSU’s financial aid department, and while they couldn’t confirm that it would work, they had high hopes it would be accepted. That was on June 12th.
I’ve been frantically checking the financial aid site, but the status is still on hold. I spoke to someone at their office and was told that the documents appear to have been accepted through their end, but the California Student Aid Commission was not updating and lifting the hold off of my awarded grant. I was sent a message from the grant financial aid specialist from SDSU:
“We submitted all of you information to the California Student Aid Commission weeks ago, but they are not updating your record. I have emailed them to ask why. On our end it appears everything is in place for your Cal Grant but we have to wait for them to update. Thank you” -July 10th
I called the CA Student Aid Commission, and after eventually getting through to someone I explained my situation. The person I spoke to open my account and said that the Hold is still there. She then said that if I submitted the forms to the university then there’s nothing else I can do. And there’s nothing the CA student aid commission can do either since the hold can only be lifted by SDSU’s financial aid department. There should be no reason for SDSU to send them documents to remove the hold on my account.
Now I don’t know what to do. I feel like I’m getting the run-around by both departments. I’m going to visit SDSU’s financial aid department again on Monday. But now I’m seriously worried that the issue wont be able to be resolved and I will not be able to receive my awarded grant. I’m also terrified that this will make it to where I wont get any grant money for any school years after this one. has anyone else run into this kind of dilemma?