I submitted my FASFA on January 21, 2020 for the 2019-20 year at my university. I planned on taking a Spring and Summer term. The school requested additional documents and confirmed my student ID. I had documents notarized and mailed in and submitted everything requested in a timely manner. With COVID-19 presenting the challenges it did, I was understanding and patient with the delays. But over the span of nearly 6 months I call the university asking when my financial aid would be awarded. The Spring term had already ended and even though I was frustrated, I was still going to be registering for the Summer course. I received confirmation from the university 3 times that they had everything required and were waiting for the financial aid to be awarded. The faculty member jokingly stated that they really need more students for the term and assured me that it was being finalized and they were sending the award letter. I finally called again after not seeing any award updates on the FASFA website and no response from them. I was abruptly told I would not be awarded the financial aid and would not be able to enroll for the Summer semester because they said I needed to reapply. Since they had already confirmed my financial aid was being awarded, I had submitted my resignation to my employer because I would be starting school full time on June 1st and received both verbal and written confirmation from the financial aid office that everything was good to go. I have requested to speak with a financial aid counselor and the financial aid director to see what happened but they are not communicating with me. I am beyond frustrated at this point and not sure what to do or if it would be too late to apply to another university. Looking for suggestions on how to handle the situation and where to go from here.
@kelsmom can probably help.
Did you apply for the spring and summer semesters on the FAFSA? If you didn’t apply for summer aid you might have to reapply. Are you Pell eligible? That’s an entitlement. If you’re eligible, you should get it, and if you filed the FAFSA you can take the federal student loans too.
Is this a residential or commuter college? If you’re eligible for full Pell that’s only $6k/year. With the federal loan the maximum aid would only be ~$11k/year. You can pay for a commuter school with that but not a residential one. If you apply to a other university, how would you pay for it?