Financial Aid Award Letter HELP PLZ

Paying for College
1

<p>Hello guys, I am a Soph. from Louisiana Tech University and I want some advice on what to do as far as editing and modifying my award letter</p>

<p>Source: Fall1011 Wntr1011 Spr1011 Sum1011 Total Accept Decline Modify</p>

<h1>Anticipated Opportunity TOPS</h1>

<pre><code> 1,198 1,167 1,167 3,532 ACCEPTED
</code></pre>

<h1>Federal Pell Grant</h1>

<pre><code> 667 667 667 666 2,667

</code></pre>

<p>Please enter your modifications here...</p>

<h1>Federal Direct PLUS Loan</h1>

<pre><code> 1,902 1,901 1,901 1,901 7,605

</code></pre>

<p>Please enter your modifications here...</p>

<h1>Federal Direct Subsidized Loan</h1>

<pre><code> 1,125 1,125 1,125 1,125 4,500

</code></pre>

<p>Please enter your modifications here...</p>

<h1>Federal Direct Unsubsidized Loan</h1>

<pre><code> 500 500 500 500 2,000

</code></pre>

<p>Please enter your modifications here...</p>

<h1>Louisiana GO Grant</h1>

<pre><code> 300 300 300 900

</code></pre>

<p>Please enter your modifications here...</p>

<pre><code>------- ------- ------- ------- -------
</code></pre>

<p>Total Awards: 5,692 5,660 5,660 4,192 21,204</p>

<p>Sry for how it looks, I hope you can understand it. Basically my school has offered me $21,204 for the year in my award letter, but on their site is a Cost of Attendance Calculator and on that thing it says that my CoA is $16702. </p>

<p>My question to CC is should I edit this amount and if so, which loan or grant should I modify and edit from?</p>

<p>Thanks CC.</p>

2

<p>First, keep anything that says “Grant” on it. That’s free money, that you’ll never have to pay back. Take all of it immediately.</p>

<p>The direct subsidized loan is, well, a loan, but the good news is that the interest is paid by the government until several months AFTER you graduate from college. If you need a loan, this is the best one to keep. </p>

<p>After that, the unsubsidized loan. This is like the Direct Subsidized Loan except the interest begins to accumulate IMMEDIATELY; you have the option of paying off the interest on the loan every month. That would be a good idea if you can afford it but it’s not strictly compulsory. This is the 2nd best out of the three loans you’re offered, so if you need it then I would recommend taking it.</p>

<p>Next, look at where it says Parent PLUS loan. This is a loan that your PARENTS have to apply for, and it has a pretty high interest rate. Unless you have any outside funding, you might need to take a little bit of that to meet your gap.</p>

3

<p>Talk with your parents - unless they’re willing to borrow money, the Plus loan should go! Look at what’s included in the Cost of Attendance - there’s probably several thousand for books, personal, and misc expenses. You/they can probably just fund those items out of pocket.</p>

4

<p>*Basically my school has offered me $21,204 for the year in my award letter, but on their site is a Cost of Attendance Calculator and on that thing it says that my CoA is $16702. *</p>

<p>The confusion is because the school is including money ($4,192) in case you go to summer school. COA doesn’t include summer school costs. </p>

<p>Source:… Fall1011 - Wntr1011 - Spr1011 - Sum1011
Total Awards: 5,692 — 5,660 ------ 5,660 ----- 4,192 ----- 21,204</p>

<p>So, your award for this upcoming school year is really $21,204 - 4,192 = $17,012
That is very close to COA.</p>

<p>It looks like your parents’ EFC is around $1375…is that right? They are offering a Plus loan for that.</p>

<p>It’s weird that you weren’t given any work-study. Did you ask for some? Or did you request that you didn’t want any?</p>

<p>If you can’t get work-study, the maybe you can get a small part-time job to pay for some incidentals.</p>

<p>What is the breakdown for school CoA?</p>

5

<p>It’s not necessarily strange that work study wasn’t offered. I know that many schools offer work study to just about every student with high need. However, many other schools do not have enough work study funding to offer WS to all who have need. We award first come/first served on the basis of FAFSA filing date.</p>

6

<p>Well as far as what the calculator told me, here it is. </p>

<p><a href=“http://img827.imageshack.us/img827/7935/finaid.jpg[/url]”>http://img827.imageshack.us/img827/7935/finaid.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

7

<p>Assuming you accept the full amount of sub & unsub loans, after loan fees, $3334 will be applied to your account for fall term. What are your actual charges for the term? Take your charges minus $3334 and that is how much you will owe (or get back as a refund, depending on your charges). If you take fewer than 12 credits, though, this will not be correct (grants prorate is you fall below 12 credits).</p>

<p>Do you plan to take classes in the summer? If not, you can ask the school to spread your loans over 3 terms instead of 4. That will get you another $538 per semester (just remember that if you decide to go to school in the summer you won’t have any loan money left for the year).</p>

<p>I don’t know much about quarter schools. The website says “3 quarters equals 2 semesters at other schools.” Does that mean that you would attend just 3 of the 4 quarters each year? If so, the paragraph above stands … if you have to attend 4 quarters, though, what I just said wouldn’t make sense. (sorry)</p>

<p>Are you eligible for ACG? That would be another $1300 for the year (I assume they would award 1/3 per term).</p>

8

<p>Well, I want to take summer Course this year, and I had ACG last year but I lost it due to me not having a 3.0 GPA overall ( Damn that math prof. lol) </p>

<p>This summer was very boring for me and I never want to have to stay at home when I could be still in school getting those hours. I dont plan on taking 12 hours each quarter, I put that there for just in case I do, just to see how much it would be. I believe i’m taking 11 this coming up quarter and I most likely will take 8-10 hrs in the winter and 12 in the spring, I dont know how many I will take in the summer since I’ve never done it before and I dont know how it works. </p>

<p>I’m going to call Fin Aid tomorrow to see if they have any suggestions.</p>

9

<p>It is VERY important that you find out exactly what happens to each of your grants when you drop below 12 credits . For example, the Pell grant will only pay 75% of the scheduled payment for 9-11 credits (although I am not familiar with quarter schools so am not certain how that works). Some grants may drop to 50% with a less-then-full-time load; some will even be adjusted to 0 at less than full time. Be sure to find out how it works at your school.</p>