<p>Hey, this is my first forray into this forum and I'm a bit unfamiliar with the whole financial aid process personally (thanks to a VERY VERY generous relative), so if I say anything unbelievably stupid, please feel free to reprimand me :D</p>
<p>A very close friend of mine who will be entering her sophmore year at a college she likes a great deal recently received a letter from said college that went something like this:</p>
<p>"Hi. Tuition this year is up more than 10%. Fork it over. Oh, and did we mention that we're DECREASING your financial aid?"</p>
<p>According to said friend, she basically can't go to college anymore---it is no longer financially possible. She's looking into transferrring to a school closer to home, with lower tuition, and commuting. I know that she LOVES her current school and that any desire to transfer is ONLY financially based.</p>
<p>I know that my friend doesn't want to put any pressure on her family so right now she's pursuing transferring (can you even DO that right now w/o skipping a semester?) but I wonder if she's not pursued staying at her current college hard enough. Are there aid programs she should look at? Late scholarships one can apply for? Even more loans? </p>
<p>Tell her to call the financial aid office and write a letter to them explaining the circumstances. Find out what the financial aid appeals process is - some schools also consider special circumstances and she may have to provide documentation etc to verify why her paretns won't help etc. I know that she loves her current school however transferring may be the only option for her to finish her degree. </p>
<p>I say help her look at the positives of transferring if in fact she ends up having to go this route. </p>
<p>oh, another thing she can do is contact a professor that she really likes and see if they know of anythign she can do to earn extra money or apply for different scholarships - in some cases it may be that she will qualify for different scholarships if she is a junior, so she might have to really struggle for just one year.</p>
<p>^Thanks for the advice--she's currently appealing the financial aid, but she hadn't thought to talk to someone on the faculty. (They seem more human than the financial aid reps :D ) She does seem ok with transferring though, so I guess it will work out either way.</p>
<p>Sorry to say I don't think this is too unusual. My daughters tuition went up $1400 and her aid went down $100.
Plus some majors are just more expensive as you progress; at Penn State, engineering, business, and IST are around $1500 more per year when you are a junior and senior.</p>