<p>Prior to the start of the fall semester,
During the fall semester, or
Prior to the end of the fall semester</p>
<br>
<p>that College A is not the appropriate choice and moves to College B, will the federal need-based aid awarded to the student for College A (I know that part of the $$ is based on the cost of attendance so this needs to be factored into the equation) <em>move</em> with the student?</p>
<p>Example (using round numbers): Student was awarded $1,000 for Pell Grant, $1,000 for SEOG Grant, $500 work/study ... does College A get to "keep" this money or is it reallocated to College B depending upon when the change is made? Thanks for any guidance on this complicated mess I'm dealing with right now...</p>
<p>No the federal aid does not follow the student. The student has to reapply at the new school (by adding the new school to FAFSA, nothing else should change on FAFSA). The new school will make a new financial aid offer. Some aid should stay the same. For instance the Pell is an entitlement award and should be the same wherever the student goes to school. But some federal aid (namely the SEOG, Work Study, and Perkins Loan) is what they call campus based aid. Campus based aid has very limited funding. A school has only a certain amount of SEOG, WS, and Perkins funds (the amounts vary by school) to award their students and once they have awarded it they have no more funds to award. Each school sets their own criteria for awarding those funds and also the maximum they will award. For instance my son’s school awards a maximum of $100 in SEOG funds while my daughter’s school awards a maximum of $2,000. </p>
<p>So any undisbursed SEOG and WS the student has at school A will go back into the pot at school A to be re-awarded to other students at school A. Whether he/she gets SEOG and WS at school B will depend on school B’s policies for awarding their campus based funds and whether they have any of those funds left at this stage. It is likely they will not as schools do not generally have enough of these funds for all the students that meet their criteria (for instance my daughter has received the SEOG and WS in the past but did not receive either this year because they were out of SEOG and WS funds by the time we filed FAFSA at the end of March, just a couple of weeks later than we had the previous year). The Pell for the year should be the same at school A or school B (though, of course, if he/she attends school A for the fall then transfers in the Spring it will just be the remaining balance of the Pell award at school B).</p>