Hello thanks for taking the time to read my post. Here is my situation. I am a california community college student and I was just accepted to UCSC, my dream school. I applied for FAFSA every year since high school graduation in 2018. Since then I have been reciving PELL grant as well as CALgrant. Also I had qualified for BOG waiver which waives most of enrollment fees for community college. My grants along with the BOG waiver has provided me with very large amounts of refund money. My refunds are deposited straight to my Chase savings bank account. This money was never touched and was saved in my bank account for the past three years since the fees after the BOG waiver and the textbook rentals along with my personal expenses like food and gas have been low enough to be paid with the money that I was earning from my part time job. This last time I was applying for FAFSA for 21-22 year, I was asked for the first time to report my total cash, savings and checking account totals. But I didn’t read the instructions that says in bold “Do not report student financial aid”. I didnt see this until today, 5 months after I submitted my application in october 2020. The total lumpsum of money that I reported was just over $25k and the total money that I recived as refunds and saved for the past three years of community college sum up to about $20k. (found by adding the numbers on my three past 1090T forms. The rest was money in my checking account as well as money I personally saved from working. I’m still able to make corrections on my FAFSA application, but I am afraid that if I subtract the 20k from the 25k they will be think that I am trying to commit fraud. I have been saving that money because I am very minimalistic and my expenses are very low so I figured I will save the money for future housing because I knew since the beginning that I wanted to live away from home while going to college. I am almost 100% certain that my high amounts of savings is the reason why my EFC is over $7000, a number that used to be about $1,000 in the past three years. Should I go back and change these numbers? That is should I go back and remove the money that I have saved from financial aid the past three years? Or is this wrong and can be considered fraud? Like I stated before, UCSC is my dream school, I had been denied admission before and was beyond ecstatic when I was admitted. I really want to go to this school but without Financial Aid, It wouldn’t be possible. I am a dependant of my single mother and I live in her house rent free at the moment. But we have already discussed that If I want to live out of the house, I will need to pay my own rent, along with my own tuition. I expect this to cost me over $25k and I am sure that my EFC will make me ineligible for continued grants. What can I do?
You were given this money by the government for your CC expenses.
You were frugal and saved your earnings which is the RIGHT thing to do.
If you are uncomfortable changing the information on your FAFSA, you can call them and explain your situation. 1800-4Fed-Aid.
You need to do it NOW because UCSC has been calculating your financial aid and is probably sending the paperwork to you now.
You have a conscience and you were concerned which means you are a good person. You are not doing anything untoward so you need to continue being honest because you wont be able to afford attending.
Good Luck!!!
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