Family Emergency and Financial Aid

<p>We all have them, many of us think that they won't affect our schooling, that wasn't the case with me.</p>

<p>The whole story is that due to a family emergency, I had to leave town. I kept up with my online classes, but ended up failing my English that wasn't online (since I never showed up physically).</p>

<p>My question is: How does financial aid treat retaken classes? Does it pay for the class again, or does it penalize you for the failed class and not pay you? If neither of the two mentioned, then what does happen?</p>

<p>Thanks in advance for any information.</p>

<p>There are two points of interest to you:</p>

<p>A} making satisfactory academic progress means you must complete a minimum number of units at some minimum GPA to stay on financial aid</p>

<p>B} financial aid usually requires certain unit minimums- half time, full time, etc. Federal aid will have one requirement, state aid another, and school aid another, so ask your school</p>

<p>You may want to talk to a dean, prove your hardship and perhaps they will let you withdraw instead of an F- you should have contacted the prof and/or dept so you did not fail the class!</p>

<p>Yeah, the class was very peculiar in that it didn't have deadlines for anything until the end of the semester. The thing that caught up with me though was the fact that my physical body wasn't in the class at times. Participation really killed me here.</p>

<p>I think what will happen is that I'll be put on academic probation, which will be a first for me. The real issue is whether financial aid will pay for me retaking the class. I'm hoping so, as I have a 3.92 before this F, and all I need to graduate from this community college is to finish this coming semester, but I'm not made of money. So I'm hoping they will help me pay for this class this one time.</p>

<p>Explain your situation to the Dean and ask for an incomplete or a hardship withdrawal. Try to avoid academic probation and jeopardizing your financial aid. You never know, something could come up next semester and if you are already on probation you could be dismissed from the university. And I think if you get a W or an incomplete they may be more inclined to pick up the cost. The financial aid officer may actually have some advice for you. In most schools, administrative changes can be made retroactively under certain circumstances.</p>

<p>Ah, comm colleges are usually different than 4 years schools-does your CC have a rate scale per unit and then "full time", say 12-20 units is the same price- if so, take full load and that class can squeak through...if not, you will need to find out their exact policy.</p>

<p>Public schools have certain rules they generally abide by and it is hard for them to get around things, that is why, if participation was an issue, you should have talked to the prof/dean BEFORE the grade went bad, to find out your options. A W would result in no F in the GPA and no problem retaking the class</p>

<p>Yeah, I definitely dropped the ball on this. I don't think they're going to give me a W on this class, since I had straight A's in all of my other classes, since they were all online.</p>

<p>As for the way classes work here, they are done by credit hours. Most core classes are 3 credits, and full time is considered 12+ credits. Retaking this class would mean I'll have 17 credits this semester, 4 of which aren't covered by financial aid as they are needed for my transfer to UF, and not for my AA. Normally they would apply toward my AA, but I used up all of my electives on prerequisites for my second major.</p>

<p>some schools will allow you to retake the class at the school and the later grade will replace the earlier one on the transcript.
If you take class someplace else, both grades will be on transcript.
Financial aid doesn't seem to look at individual classes but you will be on probation for at least two terms and must finish all credits attempted with a certain GPA.</p>