<p>My college updated and matched the FAFSA EFC after using the IRS retrieval tool, but did not change the pell grant estimate, which was decreased by $500. </p>
<p>My questions are, who receives the pell grant, the student or the school, and if it is the latter, will they expect me to pay the difference if this goes unattended to until after payments are due?</p>
<p>The Pell grant is paid directly to your school If the EFC did not change, your Pell grant amount should not have changed. It sounds like your EFC may actually have changed enough that your Pell was reduced by $500. An increase of less than $100 can do that. Look at your EFC … is it the same as it was before, or is it different?</p>
<p>You will be expected to pay any costs not covered by financial aid.</p>
<p>My EFC did go up so the school had to lower their grant by the amount, but have yet to adjust the pell estimate. Is it safe to assume once they change the estimate, that the difference will be covered in the grant because the school did meet my FAFSA efc and meets “need”.</p>
<p>If the school truly meets need, they will probably adjust your grant. However, it would only be adjusted as follows: Decrease in Pell - increase in EFC. That is because the increase in EFC means your need is less … so the overall aid would be less.</p>
<p>The school met the first EFC, my EFC increased, then they met the second, updated EFC.</p>