<p>I've always qualified from financial aid since I started college from fall 2010. Now I get this big bombshell email that says that I didnt qualify for financial aid for this year. So I was really surprised by this. I did a little searching why I didnt qualify and i found out that it was because of my mom's disability money. It says that I was 'over the ceiling' or whatever, that my parents made too much last year. But its just really my mom's disability, the money wasnt earned from working or anything. She didnt work for most of the year and just received disability money. Now I'm all worried about my tuition, i seriously dont have money to pay for it, and even if I take a loan out, it wont cover all of it. And to make things worse, I just received an email today from my school that I must pay out my tuition and if I dont, they will drop and disenroll me. Please help me. Is there anything I can do to fix this?</p>
<p>And btw, she has stopped receiving disability a while ago and she is back working again.</p>
<p>What was your Financial Aid “award” the prior years and what did it consist of – Subsidized, Unsubsidized loans? Pell Grant? Any state sponsored grants? And university sponsored grants or scholarships? Which of these funding means were “dropped” this year because of being in a higher income bracket?</p>
<p>And what is your COA? What is the “gap” between your FA award this year and what you still owe?</p>
<p>It doesn’t matter that the money was earned for a job…it was MONEY coming into your household. And (I think), money that isn’t earned from a job gets hit with a harsher calculation since it doesn’t have work-related taxes deducted (like FICA) from it.</p>
<p>you need to talk to your parents about how all of this has affected your aid and see if they can help you out with some costs. Also, your school or Sallie Mae may have a payment plan that your parents can use to help get these costs covered. </p>
<p>What is your EFC this year? What was it last year?</p>
<p>What aid did you get this year? What aid did you get last year?</p>
<p>@mom2collegekids: my coa for the fall 2012 sem is around $3500. I can take out a subsidized loan and an unsubsidized loan and it still wont cover the $3500, it only covers around 3200.
From my past semesters, I’ve been granted Cal grants or pell grants and I always borrow subsidized loans to fill the gap. Now this year, I only got a subzidzed loan and unsub and no pell grant. And now im just thinking of taking 2 classes where I would only have to pay 2500 (it’s really ok if i only take 2 classes this sem cuz im waitlisted for 2 classes that i dont even need, im just taking it for units, but the 2 classes that im planning to take are pre-requisites for my nursing program)</p>
<p>@annikasorrensen: it consisted of subsidized and unsub and cal grant/pell grant. This year, the pell grant was dropped because my parents income were ‘over the ceiling’, mainly because of my mom’s disability money. my coa for the 2012 fall sem is $3500 and even if take both a sub and unsub loan, there is still a $300 gap. Is there anything else I could do? Like convince the financial aid officers that my parents didnt earn this from working and it was just from disability. Besides, the disability money barely helped our family at all on our expenses.</p>
It does not matter that the income was from disability rather than earned income. It is still income and income that is required to be reported on FAFSA will contribute to the EFC. The school can’t just arbitrarily ignore income. However, if your Mom no longer receives the disability you can ask your school if a professional judgement can be made to reflect loss of benefits, BUT if she is now employed and earning income they will take this into account so it may be a wash as far as FA is concerned. It is at the school’s discretion, within federal guidelines, whether they make an adjustment or not and they would have to take into account that the lost disability income has been replaced by other income.</p>
<p>@swimcatsmom: Im so sorry, I dont quite understand what you’re saying. What do you mean when you said “but if she is now employed and earning income they will take this into account so it may be wash as far as FA is concerned. It is at the school’s discretion, within federal guidelines, whether they make an adjustment or not and they would have to take into account that the lost disability income has been replaced by other income”</p>
<p>This isn’t making sense. If your mom received disability payments because she became unable to work, the disability payments just replaced the income she was previously able to earn (and in most cases disability income is in fact less than what one normally earns). So how is it the disability payments caused an increase in your family’s overall income compared to the prior year?</p>
<p>Maybe it was one time lump sum payment? Usually when people apply for disability benefits it takes a while to get approved (sometimes couple of years). But once you are approved, you get disability benefits since a day you applied.</p>
<p>Op, if you talk half load, I believe you will not qualify for full federal loan amount. Since gap between COA is small, you should get a job to fill it.</p>
<p>Yes, disability income is included as income. However, if your mother had medical expenses and other such needs since she was deemed disabled, submit those expenses to the financial aid office and also ask if appealing as a dislocated worker now since the disability income has stopped, would possibly yield more money. DIsability income is often provided to take the place of regular income while the person cannot work. So unless there are special expenses during that time period that were using up those payment, why should it be counted any different from regular income?</p>
<p>We’re only talking about a $300 shortfall! EARN that money. Get a job. See if your parents can loan some/all of it to you and then pay them BACK. Geez. Don’t you think you should have to pay for SOME of your education???</p>
<p>If you’re not working this summer, why not???</p>
<p>And with Cal grant and Pell grant the OP also borrowed to fill the gap in the past? What gap? With such low COA, there would be no gap with Pell and Cal grant! Where did the loan money go?</p>