financial aid dispute

Paying for College
1

Hey yall! Hopefully someone can answe my questions:

  1. I updated my FAFSA on April 13, 2015. I received my acceptance letter from UC Berkeley on April 24,2015 as well as financial award letter. I don't think I received adequate financial to cover my costs. My parents FASFA this year decreased about $7,000 from the previous year. So, tell me if this is a logical assumption: because I updated my FAFSA relatively late( as the deadline to submit taxes are April 15,2015) I think the school was basing my need on the previous information on the FAFSA and not this year's. Again, I got my acceptance on April 24,2015. Is this a valid case to present to my financial advisor? Or not? Am I totally off base? Thanks!!!!!
2

Congrats on your admission, I’m coming to ucb next fall too. I don’t think the school hasn’t received your fafsa update bc I updated my tax 2 days before the d-day but when I checked my fa award on 4/24, they have my latest fafsa information. Do you mind if I ask how much gift aid you receive total? What is your EFC? $7000 decrease in income won’t change anything if your EFC is close to 0. Everyone will be asked to take some amount of loans, even with the lowest income. Now note that the estimate costs of attendance tends to be higher than the actual cost (around 1-3k depending on how you squeeze the budget) so basically you’re mostly cover.

3

There just isn’t enough info in your post. You should have submitted a FAFSA with accurate information for 2014 by the UC deadline for financial aid. It doesn’t matter when taxes were due, it matters when FAFSA is due. You get your numbers in if you want aid. Are you a freshman or a continuing[ student? And we don’t know if 7k difference will change your package or not. High income, not likely.

4

So… Thank you for both replying:)

the FAFSA is due on March 2. And I did submit it by that date with the best information I had at the time because my parents usually file their taxes about 2 days before the taxes for everyone is due which is April 15,2015.
I am a transfer student from a community college.
My updated EFC is $3019. ORIGINALLY, my parents adjusted gross income was $58,000. However, it changed to $51,000 this year. My mother made $36,000 and my father made $15,000.

My total give aid with only grants and scholarships was $17,000. My net cost is about $10,000. This does not take into consideration of housing and meal plans.