<p>That is actually a really good idea that in my panic, I hadn’t thought of. It doesn’t solve my problem of finding 8K to finish the year but it buys me time to see if the financial aid office can help fix their mistake. Thanks, seriously thanks.</p>
<p>For anyone following this saga, apparently the financial aid office can “repackage” my offer to include loans and work study which I will of course take and appreciate but if they had not made their mistake, I would be graduating debt free from another school instead of oweing more than $32,000 from UCSD. Okay, so life starts out a little rockier than I hoped but I can deal, sigh…</p>
<p>that’s still not fair. You decided on UCSD largely because of the financial aid offer they gave you. I’m pretty sure you can pursue some sort of legal action… They basically lied to you</p>
<p>I got declined from Cal Grant because it arrived too late (dunno what happened), but UCSD covered the cost in full when they found out, which was like a good 8k lol.</p>
<p>Well what they said is that they disclose all over the place that the “preliminary awards” are not binding and subject to changes that are out of their control. They claim that they have no way of knowing until now that that the Cal Grant and Disabled Veterans’ Tuition Waiver cannot be used together because they are only assigned to cover fees, not stipend for room and board. Even though they acknowledge that I told them this was the type of vet benefit I had, they said there is no place in their process to evaluate that and so they counted it as a “resource” which they assumed I could use towards room and board. I don’t know if maybe they could have offered me different funding like regents or something else if they had taken this into account. One way or another, I can take the loans and work on campus but the hardest part right now is that my mom is totally destoryed and feels like crap because she doesn’t make enough to help me with this. That hurts.</p>
<p>*<em>**. That sucks man, I know the feeling. My dad broke down earlier this month because he was sorry he couldn’t buy me a bunch of unnecessary crap other parents were buying their spoiled ass kids (like a brand new car… </em>. what 18-20 year needs a brand new car?! get me a used reliable car and I’ll be happy) </p>
<p>I really feel for you dude… This whole situation sucks but I really hope you come to enjoy UCSD even if they screwed you over a bit.</p>
<p>Silver lining: If you stick with Comp Sci, you’ll get a job after you graduate with a job with a real decent starting salary and those student loans won’t be a big deal.</p>
<p>Well, hopefully everything happens for a reason. I guess UCSD is where I’m meant to be even though it’s not where I would have gone if I had known all this. Maybe the job that’s waiting for me woudn’t have found me if I were living in New Jersey or Massachussetts. The financial aid gal did say that about the job prospects to my mom when maternal unit was losing her grip. I intend to make it through graduate school too so that should make the starting salary even better, or so I hope.</p>
<p>Yeah, I don’t see why having a car in college is all that good a thing anyway. Parents just want to be able to do better for their kids than was done for them. In our case, my widowed mom can’t do for me and my lil sister what her doctor father was able to do for her. But cripes, we’re getting to go to a world renowned school and live in La Jolla, what’s to b***h about? I’m feeling so much better now that I can at least take the loans and not have to drop out. Lots of people have to get loans for college, that’s not the end of the world. I bet I’m still luckier than what some people got in their initial aid package already. I heard of a few who got next to nothing. Still sucks that I could have gone to an Ivy for free but I picked UCSD because I loved it, not because of the money. I guess I just loved it 32K’s worth more than the others and didn’t know it.</p>
<p>SDTriton, tell dad to not worry about the new car crap. I think that people who like to “make it on their own steam” have less problems later in life. (just saw spiderman again, sorry for the weird movie reference).</p>