<p>"What happens to my financial aid if I become a Gryphon?</p>
<p>The self help portion of your financial aid package (loan and work study) would be replaced by the amount of your Gryphon compensation. If your financial aid package does not include a loan or work study, or it does, but in an amount less than the Gryphon compensation, a reduction would be made to your Lehigh grant."</p>
<p>Gryphon at my school is just the nickname for a Resident Assistant</p>
<p>Would you not think that from reading this statement that a Grpyhon's Financial Award would not include loans? Therefore, if I were offered $6500 in loans, that amount would just be compensated by the Grpyhon Award which is about $8000? However, in my financial aid they just deducted the $8000 from my University Grant, and still have me pay the loans? I even had call the financial aid office prior to confirm that I will not have any loans, and they reaffirmed my belief. Is it just a mistake on their part, or did I and the financial aid person interpret this wrong?</p>
<p>In this case the opinions of people on the internet do not matter – it is the opinion of the people in your financial aid office that matters. Send your questions to them – don’t get the idea that you can bash them with your interpretation of the verbiage to get your way (they’ll just think you are a pill and either do things their way or change the wording a bit and STILL do things their way). </p>
<p>I would do all this by email so that you had a clear chain of evidence. If you decide to walk in and talk to someone in person (one way to charm your way into an answer you like), I would still “confirm our conversation” with an email. </p>
<p>If the financial aid officer is in agreement with you and it seems the problem is over in billing, then have the FA officer send an email (cc to you) saying that the bill is in error. </p>
<p>If this were my $8K on the table, I would write down a log of everyone I contacted, with dates and brief summary of conversation. I would stick with it a few rounds to see if it could be clarified and then I would move up the food chain to the Dean of Students and the Head of Housing. If that didn’t get things resolved, I would do a very frank and sad letter to the President of the college, with copies of the log, and cc’s to every Dean and officer and trustee saying that I was terribly disappointed that reality did not match the written material and respectfully request that this be negotiated between me and the college outside the legal system. (This last only works if you do, indeed, have a log showing your diligent work through the system). </p>
<p>8K is a lot of money. I would be very nice, very professional and extremely unrelenting in pursuing this. GOod luck!</p>
<p>What would the chances this gets overturned though? This really has just left me in a terrible mood, they actually took away my work study, so in fact instead of college being cheaper by becoming a resident assistant, it has in fact made it more expensive. Also there is the fact as a resident assistant I would be away from all my friends and my social life would take a hit, but I thought the monetary award would compensate for this, but now that failed to fall through. Would an email really do anything, I understand why I should email rather than call, because I feel as if I call I would come off as arrogant and they will want to make sure I do not have my way.</p>
<p>Fwiw, since it’s confusing you, here’s my interpretation. </p>
<p>In many cases, a U only wants to give you a total of x dollars out of their own budgets, period. Now, the RA pay plus the original Lehigh grant equals more than the number they had in mind when the FA offer first came out. They reduce the amount of the grant, to keep their outflow where they want it. </p>
<p>You have to look at your exact FA offer. If they wiped out your loan, your family nut would be reduced. Sure. But, the school’s outlay would be increased (grant plus RA $.) Not how they want it. They want to keep their bottom line, as they originally calculated it. Most colleges do the same when you win a large outside scholarhship. (They feel you no longer “need” as much from them; you have another source of funds.)</p>
<p>I do agree the wording is confusing. You do have to take your questions back to the FA folks. Think it through and be prepared for a calm conversation. I always call with these questions, to get the maximum (polite) dialogue going. But be sure you are speaking with someone in authority, not just the first person to answer the phone.</p>
<p>If there is no federal work-study money set aside for you, there still is no reason why you can’t come up with a part-time job on campus or in the local community. Lots of students find jobs that aren’t work-study positions.</p>
<p>Basically I called in the financial aid office today and they stated by law they have to offer the Federal Loans, which has me totally confused since they have it clearly stated the Gryphon Award would replace both loans and work study. I plan on writing an appeal, thanks for the help everyone, I appreciate it.</p>
<p>have you met with an actual FA officer? Often there are “front desk” people who know the basics, but can’t really answer questions about anything out of the ordinary.</p>
<p>My suggestion would be to email the FA department. Copy and paste the blurb about the RA money replacing self help money, and ask why it has instead replaced your grant money. Ask for an appointment to meet with an FA officer. Take a copy of the published policy with you. Also talk to the people in charge of the RA program.</p>
<p>It could be that there is just a time lapse between everything getting sorted out. I have seen this at our schools where a new scholarship is awarded and they go through a weird process of messing with different parts of FA until it all gets sorted out. I hope that is the case here, but yo should be proactive about it.</p>
<p>If they won’t budge, I would ask if your original grant would be reinstated if the RA money was removed. If so, then I would withdraw from the RA position and make it quite clear why. In all honesty, if this is how it ends up, I would also write a polite and pleasant letter to some higher authority within the school detailing the whole situation and expressing how disappointed you are that the published policy was so deceiving and that your choice to apply for the RA post rather than take an outside job was based on that information.</p>
<p>SCM: They may have meant that tidbit where you have to treat everyone within a category equally. Ie, offer loans to all with some level or sort of need, not be selective or show favortism. OP doesn’t have to take the loans. Lehigh does have to make them availabe if they are part of it’s bag o’ tricks. </p>
<p>I don’t think they meant “replace,” dollar for dollar. I think they meant the opp to be an RA replaces the need for finding and doing work study.</p>
<p>It’s bad legalese. But, I don’t think OP is cutting effectively through the confusion-- is there a savvy adult who make a call?</p>
<p>I understand why they took away work study because they said it would, but why not take away the loans instead? Also Lehigh is random with its financial aid to everyone, so there is a sense of favortism, they by no means go by a set formula as far as I know. The thing is with becoming a RA, I basically got the same financial aid package as I did last year, with just no work study this year. That is $2000 less than last year basically. My dad does not speak the greatest english, so I do not know if he would be more effective, and they do record every call you make. I think a letter of appeal might be my best chance. All in all, I think if Lehigh sticks with the current package I am going to try my best to transfer, since the low cost of attendance I thought I would have after becoming a Resident Assistant was the only thing that made me stay.</p>
<p>Think of your RA position as a job that pays $8k a year. Now that’s a really good deal because virtually no on campus part time job will may you anywhere near as much in a year. So maybe you lost that $2.5k work study grant and even got your grants decreased that means they must’ve replaced your loans with the RA money. Remember WS isn’t even real financial aid because you have to pay the money up front first, and then slowly earn it back after you get a job. With the RA job you’re already getting your money up front. Now if it’s your parents who have been paying the college bill, this will likely save money for them since they would’ve payed for your WS up front, and then you got the money back as you worked your job. In this case you should talk to your parents about giving you the extra money you saved them.</p>
<p>Hey guys thanks for the help, I just checked my financial aid again and they actually took away the $2000 loan, and they gave me an extra $4000 in grant money. They offered me a $4000 loan, but I do not think I am going to accept that since I do not spend two grand on the books and miscellaneous, and I should of have earned $2000 by the end of this summer to pay off the actual bill. This turned out well, thanks again.</p>
<p>FYI, they say this about outside scholarships, which now sounds parallel to your new discovery: The majority of our financial aid packages are based on financial need and therefore, require us to monitor aid from all sources. Receipt of an outside award will first reduce any unmet need, then reduce grant and self-help equally. Students receiving need based aid in combination with a merit or athletic scholarship award have their need met with grant assistance. In these cases, a dollar for dollar reduction, to the need based grant, is necessary.</p>
<p>This is all really convoluted. I’m thinking it may be among the less understandable phrasing out there. Kudos for trying to press.</p>
<p>Many people will walk away instead of digging in to navigating the currents of bureaucracy. Now that you’ve had this success, you’re more likely to have courage next time you need to do so. Take time to encourage the next kid who needs it!</p>