<p>i have like a 2.7 gpa will the state deny me need based aid because of my gpa. me and my mom live off a 30k income.</p>
<p>I don’t think your GPA comes into play for strictly need-based aid. Some aid, depending on your school, is contingent on both your need and merit (which you probably wouldn’t qualify for). </p>
<p>I’m not sure about this, but I think your GPA doesn’t matter when you are applying for federal aid.</p>
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<p>I think you are asking the wrong question. I do not know which state you are in, but here is situation.</p>
<p>There are certain Federal grants and loans (Pell, Perkins, Stafford (subsidized and unsubsidized), workstudy), which are given based on income and not GPA. Again not knowing details, I am going to assume you will qualify for these. However only the Pell is a grant (you do not have to pay it back), for work study you have to work and earn the money. The rest are loans, you have to pay back.</p>
<p>Let us say the state University costs $25,000 per year. Let us assume that the sum total of all the Federal grants and loans and the expected family contribution (EFC) is $10,000 (based on FAFSA). So you have a gap of $15,000. State Colleges have scholarships and grants that they can give students to meet the gap, however most of them are merit based. Very few state schools promise to meet all your need and those who do are very competitive, where you may not get in based on your GPA. </p>
<p>So you have to now come up with $15,000 and due to your low GPA you may not get a scholarship. What the state college will offer you is PLUS loans signed by your parent for that amount. Your mother may not qualify, you may not want to take so much loans etc. So they have not denied you aid, only given it to you in a form that cannot take advantage off.</p>
<p>My suggestion is you go to community college, bring up your GPA and then transfer to a 4 year institution.</p>
<p>mazewanderer makes a very good point. Federal aid is very limited and does not anywhere near cover the cost of most State 4 year universities and many State Us do not offer their own money for financial aid. The main federal grant is the Pell and the maximum Pell (for 2010-2011) is $5550 (and that requires a 0 EFC). Without scholarships (unlikely with a 2.7) you will end up with a lot of loans. The suggestion of a CC and doing well there is a good one. If you can keep your GPA high there you may have a chance of some scholarship money when you transfer. Unfortunately scholarships for good transfer students are generally not as high as those for good freshmen but every little helps. For instance the good freshman scholarships at my daughter’s school are full tuition waivers plus varying additional cash amounts depending on which of the 3 top scholarships you get, the best transfer scholarship is a partial tuition waiver that is not even half the annual tuition/fees cost. Plus you will at least have kept your debt low (or maybe even non existent) for the first 2 years.</p>
<p>My experience having worked as a professor at a public school that --as is the case with all but about 2 public schools – couldn’t afford to meet the full need of all of its students – the in-state students with the highest gpas were first in line for financial aid that was offered by the university.</p>
<p>My suggestion is to consider starting at your community college, which you’re likely to be able to afford with federal loans. In many states, there is good merit aid for in state students who transfer from community colleges to four-year public ones.</p>