FAFSA for transferring. Very confused.

Paying for College
1

<p>So here's my story.
I atrend a community college in Florida and the Fall semester will be my last here; I will be graduating with an AA degree. I will also have completed all the required classes for a transfer in FSU's BS program in Computer Science. </p>

<p>The last three classes that I need (and will be taking in the Fall) account for a total of 12 credit hours, which technically make me a full-time student. However, one of my classes is listed by my school's financial aid office as "non-compliant", since I do not need it for my AA degree. Therefore, my financial aid will be reduced, even though I technically still need that class for continuing my education. Is this normal?</p>

<p>Anyway, the thing I am confused about is this: I have completed a FAFSA for my current college. My award is around 4,800$, which is split between two semesters. I have added FSU on my FAFSA a few days ago. Shouldn't my awards increase dramatically since the cost of attendance for a university is much greater than my community college? I will be living on my own, paying for classes twice as much, being in the need of financial aid more than ever. How is it possible for my financial aid to be actually reduced when the Pell grant maximum of cca. 5,500$ would cover merely half a semester at FSU?</p>

2

<p>

Contact your school’s financial aid office for “last term exemption.”

Your new school will determine the new amount for the award.</p>

3

<p>Thank you for your assistance. Could you tell me more about my new school’s process of determining a new amount? When will this happen? Do I need to contact their financial aid office?</p>

4

<p>Schools have to manually process aid for single-term students. Most likely, their computer will automatically package you for the whole year. Later, they will go through exception reports and adjust your aid to the spring term only. They will have to first monitor your aid for fall at your current school. If the new school’s aid staff is on top of things, this will probably happen in Nov/Dec; if not, it might not happen until the new term starts. The best thing to do is contact the new school to let them know of your plans & to ask them to package you for spring only. You may have freshman-level loans in the package, because they may not be able to package you with sophomore or junior-level loans until all your transfer credits are posted.</p>