Financial aid is awful

<p>How can I qualify for a work study grant? How does that work? I was never offered one, can I call the financial aid office and ask? Or is there an appeal process?</p>

<p>Wondering the same thing ^</p>

<p>Fredjan, are your parents living in TX or are you getting UT in state rates under certain “Dream Act” type rules?A</p>

<p>Anyone can qualify for federal work study money if their family EFC is met–the funds can’t go towards paying EFC. But the school might prioritize those funds with their own rules as they also put money into it and only give out the awards according to how they decide gets it. You can ask at the fin aid office as there often is some flex to work study money that is NOT there for other university funds.</p>

<p>Ya, I got screwed over with financial aid as well.</p>

<p>Can we ask for more financial aid in general? The worst they can say is no right?</p>

<p>I’m only asking because I declined my Parent Plus Loan (My parents did not want me to accept it) and that was almost a 4k in loans.</p>

<p>@lovechickfila When you file your fafsa, they will ask if you’re interesting in the federal work-study program, if you qualified then it will show up on your CASH page. However, consider that you received more grants than I do, which means your EFC must be lower than mine, it’s likely that because you submitted your fafsa after the deadline, they might ran out of work-study fund to offer you. Or maybe you forgot to say yes to the work study option when filling your fafsa profile. </p>

<p>I don’t think you can bargain with the school about your financial aid unless there was a mistake on your documents. But even in those case where it was a mistake on your documents UT would probably do nothing about it. </p>

<p>Did you accept your subsidized loans? I think with your grants and loan it should be enough. I accepted all of my subsidized loans include the Federal Direct and Perkin, declined all the unsubsidized loan (PLUS and Federal). </p>

<p>Yeah I accepted my subsidized loans but I only had the Federal Direct, I had no Perkins loan. I declined all my unsubsidized loans. And of course I accepted all my grant offers. </p>

<p>I guess I wasn’t offered the Perkins and Work Studies because I turned in my fafsa late. That being said I feel pretty lucky to have gotten the aid I did while submitting my fafsa as late as I did. Next semester I will have it done in January. </p>

<p>Did you accept your work study grant? </p>

<p>Do you know if getting an outside scholarship will reduce our grant amounts? @‌foafoa</p>

<p>The only reason I was thinking of calling is because the worst they can say is no, and since the deadline to accept your acceptance passed, maybe they have some extra funds or loans they can offer? </p>

<p>Yeah, it’s never hurt to try calling them. Please tell me when you get their respond cause I have a friend who is in your shoe right now.</p>

<p>I accepted all my grants and subsidized loan. The loan is like $8.5k per year and I doubt I would spend all of that. Housing is around $6.5k and for my personal expense I would only spend what I earn from work study. </p>

<p>Scholarships will reduce your financial aid, I’ve heard that they will replace your “self-help” estimate and often reduce the loan first. Other than that I have no idea how much it will actually affect, but it definitely will. In fact, they make every student who received outside scholarship to report the financial aid office for that reason.</p>

<p>Has anyone received any Texas Ex Scholarships? I was told that they would begin distribution by early May.</p>

<p>@Fredjan I’m sorry to hear about that! Perhaps shoot for the On-Time Loans if you think you’ll graduate on time? After all, if you do then you don’t have to pay anything back.</p>

<p>@lovechickfila I was offered ~$3500 in loans and I didn’t accept them. I ended up receiving scholarships that covered the amount +$500 extra. The $500 was taken out of my grants because everything on my est. COA is covered (meaning the transportation and miscellaneous section as well). I’ve asked the Dallas UT counselors and they told me any scholarships I get awarded now will only subtract from the grants I received. My teachers are telling me to continue fill out scholarships anyways because if you end up getting more scholarship money than the grants then you can put the extra in your pocket and plus scholarships are less limited than grants.</p>

<p>@college3828
I’m rejecting UT, haha. Taking a gap year.</p>

<p>@Fredjan Why dont you enroll in a community college to earn at least 30 credits and transfer? That’s how I get in and it’s not very competitive compare to the freshmen applicant pool.</p>

<p>In my cost of attendance estimator this was included: “Other miscellaneous educational costs”=$4,150…
What does this include? Books, supplies, tuition, and fees are listed elsewhere and they have included this on the bottom. Can one circumvent this all together? Could this be the cost of lab materials?? </p>

<p>@foafoa‌
My family can’t even afford CC right now, but I’ll definitely consider that option next year if I do not get into UT Austin again.</p>