<p>2,7550 Dollars for the Summer, Fall, and Spring semesters. How is this possible? I thought the max was somewhere in the 5K range?</p>
<p>Starting this year it is possible to get a 2nd pell grant during the year if you are enrolled for classes at least half time for an additional session after the sessions in which you received the first whole year’s Pell grant. So, assuming you have a 0 EFC and are enrolled full time, you can receive $5550 for the first “year”, then if you are enrolled full time for a summer semester you can receive another semester’s worth of Pell (2775). You would have to be enrolled for a full time class load in the summer (12 hours at many schools) to receive the full semesters worth. If you are enrolled for less then the amount would be reduced.There are other rules too, but that is the basic premise.</p>
<p>This is for 2010-11, so there are a couple rules. First of all, once you use the first 100% of the award (5775+5775=5550), you would be using what is called “second Pell award.” You must maintain at least half time enrollment for the term in which you are receiving any portion of your second Pell award in order to receive it. In addition, there is an academic progression rule that says you must have EARNED a full year’s worth of credits during the previous two terms in order to receive any portion of your second Pell award (it’s optional for some schools this year but required next year). “Full year’s worth of credits” means a year’s worth according to your school’s financial aid definition of an academic year, which can differ from the school’s definition of an academic year for class standing progression (for example, if full time is 12 credits for financial aid, 24 credits is an academic year for second Pell purposes; but it might take 30 credits in a year to achieve a year in academic standing). If you do not EARN that many credits in the previous two semesters, you won’t get a second Pell payment. </p>
<p>If you did not use the entire 100% in the first two terms, you would be eligible to receive the rest of that first 100% in your 3rd term of the year … but to get any portion of the second Pell award, you’d need to meet both the half time rule & the academic progression rule.</p>
<p>My head just starts spinning every time I read the rules. I keep imagining FA officers with their eyes bulging and heads spinning a la exorcist, then exploding, every time they get new sets of rules from the govt. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>I agree…can’t imagine how awful this is to administer! I read in a DoE budget document recently that colleges are reimbursed a very low amount (something like $5) for administrative costs for every Pell grant they award!</p>
<p>Kelsmom, how does this work for schools that use summer headers and kids who may use only part of their Pell eligibility for the first 2 semesters (ie. part time summer, full time fall semester)? Does the balance of the original award default to spring with no award of second Pell for spring? Are the hours required for a second grant calculated based on
summer and fall semesters only?</p>
<p>Scenario 1: A 0 EFC kid taking 6 credits in summer would receive around $1338, then $2775 for the full-time (say, 15 hours) fall semester. Kid would have remaining eligibility of $1337 for spring with no possibility of a second award because the 21 hours accumulated during the previous two semesters falls short of a “full year’s credits”, assuming 12 hours/semester constitutes full time?</p>
<p>Scenario 2: Student takes 9 hours in summer session, then 15 in fall. There is still remaining Pell grant money up to the $5,550 maximum which could be applied to spring semester (when the student is full time). Does the student receive the remaining amount of the first Pell or that amount plus some of the second Pell?</p>
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<p>I suppose college administrators make their financial aid people learn to deal with it since the federal government helps subsidize their ridiculous costs of attendance…</p>
<p>In scenario #1, assuming the student completes & passes all of the classes he took in the summer & fall, he would have earned 18 credits. He was paid 25%+50%=75% Pell so far & has 25% remaining. He needs to have 24-18=6 credits to get his second Pell. If he only takes 6 credits in spring, he’s still working on first Pell (he’s entitled to that last 25%), so it’s not an issue. If, however, he takes more than 6 credits, he is okay … because another aspect of the new regulations is that he can get the second Pell even if he hasn’t completed the year’s worth of credits yet IF during the spring term he takes at least one more credit than the number needed for completion of a full financial aid year. He only needed 6 to do that, and that is all first Pell, anyway, so for him he would get second Pell if he takes at least 7 credits (actually, he’d have to get to 9 credits to get more than the 25%, anyway). If he is enrolled in at least 7 credits, his spring payment is part 1st/part 2nd Pell (well, 9 credits since he needs 9 to get past that last part of what he is entitled to receive from 1st Pell). What’s trickier is if he failed 6 credits during the year. Then he needs 24-12=12 credits to qualify for second Pell. He would have to take at least 12+1=13 credits to qualify to receive any portion of his second Pell during the spring (although he’d get paid the remaining 25% of his first Pell).</p>
<p>In scenario #2, the student also has some remaining first Pell. He used 37.5% in summer, and 50% in winter. He has 12.5% remaining in his first Pell. Assuming he completes & passes all of his classes, he would receive 12.5% from first Pell & the remainder is from second Pell. Basically, you are using percentages … 100% is first Pell (up to 50% per term) and the next 100% is second Pell. </p>
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<p>I suppose college administrators make their financial aid people learn to deal with it since the federal government helps subsidize their ridiculous costs of attendance… </p>
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<p>No, the financial aid people learn to deal with it because that is what is required. Regulations must be followed.</p>
<p>Frankly, we are still trying to figure out how to articulate all of this so that people can understand. I appreciate the chance I have here to try to explain it, because I am finding out a lot of things in doing so. Y’all are my guinea pigs.</p>
<p>We are considering using a flow-chart. That seems the best method.</p>
<p>I found this on Loyola New Orleans’ finaid website (it seems pretty clear to me):</p>
<p>At least one credit hour in the payment period when the award will be made from a Second Scheduled Award must be attributable to the student’s next academic year.</p>
<pre><code>* The student need not have completed a full academic year’s worth of coursework prior to the payment period in which the second scheduled award funds are paid. For example, a student earned 9 credits in the fall semester and 9 credits in the spring semester. Since Loyola uses 24 credits to define the academic year and places summer in the concluding award year, the student would need to enroll for more than 6 credits in the summer term to be paid funds out of the second scheduled award (6 credits to finish the first academic year’s worth of work, plus some additional number of credits that count toward the second academic year). This student would be paid any remaining first scheduled award funds plus the amount of second scheduled award funds needed to make up the payment for the term as calculated under the appropriate Pell formula.
</code></pre>
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<p>Does it make sense to you, skermom & swimcatsmom?</p>
<p>It all makes more sense now…it was confusing to me that the mandatory half time enrollment for the second Pell includes the number of credits (6 in Loyola’s example) that are used to pay the remainder of the first award. I was originally thinking they had to satisfy the remaining credits to achieve the equivalent of two full-time semesters PLUS 6 credits to satisfy the half-time enrollment rule. </p>
<p>It seems that the end result is that a kid who is a full-time student for fall/spring and then takes just one summer class would qualify as long as he’s at a summer header school (summer is under the rules for first Pell award, so no minimum hours) .<br>
However, if the school treats summer as the last session of the year, he must take 6 or more credit hours in summer sessions to qualify for a second Pell grant. Is that right?</p>
<p>It seems that the end result is that a kid who is a full-time student for fall/spring and then takes just one summer class would qualify as long as he’s at a summer header school (summer is under the rules for first Pell award, so no minimum hours) . </p>
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<p>If he is full time fall/spring for 09-10 & summer is a header, then the summer of 2010 is actually part of the 10-11 award year. For that reason, yes, the summer would be first 100% in that it is the first payment in the new award year. But the issue that could come up down the road is in the following spring term, when the student might now have some portion of his Pell in the 2nd 100%. Let’s say he took 3 credits summer, so he used 12.5%. He takes 12 credits fall, so the total is now 50% + 12.5% = 62.5% first Pell used. When spring rolls around, let’s say the student is full time again. Now the student can definitely receive 100%-62.5%=37.5% from the remaining first Pell. But in order to receive the other 12.5%, which would total the 50% a full time student can receive in a semester, the student needs to have met the acceleration requirements. </p>
<p>If the student stayed in all 15 credits during summer & fall and passed all of his classes, he would have earned 15 credits. Let’s say a the financial aid academic year is 24 credits. In order to receive any part of the second 100% Pell award in spring term, the student would have to enroll in at least 1 credit more than the amount it takes to get to the 24 credits … since at least one credit in the spring term must be attributable to the next academic year in order to receive any portion of the second 100% Pell award … so in this case, 24-15=9 to get to the next academic year and 9+1=10. Not a problem for this kid, as he is taking 12 in spring.</p>
<p>If the student above dropped 4 credits in fall, though, he might have a problem in spring. He would only have earned 15-4=11 credits in summer & fall. Now he needs 24-11=13 and 13+1=14 to receive any portion of his second 100% Pell award in spring. If he doesn’t, he will only receive 37.5% first Pell award … no extra to get him to the 50% he would normally receive at full time in the spring. The same issue arises if the student fails a class in summer or fall.</p>
<p>This is the really hard part to explain.</p>
<p>Moral of the story…do not fail or withdraw from classes, lol!</p>
<p>I think that & the lifetime limit on Pell (900%) are intended to do just that … encourage staying in class & passing those classes! It will be interesting to see how long these particular limits/rules last.</p>
<p>My D had a Pell grant listed on her summer finaid package a week ago. Now, there are only Stafford loans on there and the Pell is gone. I should just stop looking until it is final.</p>
<p>Is she enrolled in less than 6 credits for summer? The system might be automatically set to remove the grant from offers if the student is enrolled in < 6 credits. Or they might be refining rules, so they may have removed awards for now. It’s such a new & different thing that schools are truly struggling with how to handle awarding & monitoring. It’s best to just wait a bit (if possible!).</p>
<p>She has 7 credits for the summer. The minimum is 6. I was shocked when they added the summer COA in with the 2010/11 COA. I saw the total and thought that tuition had gone up a lot more than I had expected.</p>
<p>They must be doing that in order to handle the awarding of Year Round Pell. Schools are really struggling with how to implement the program given their computer systems, student attendance patterns, and staffing constraints. For us, the process will be very manual, which will be a challenge for a school with 20,000 undergrads (many of whom are Pell eligible). We will do as much as we can automatically, but it’s still really manual. I think there will be some creative ways of trying to award & monitor … schools will be refining their processes as they go. You may see award changes on & off as a result.</p>
<p>P.S. I shouldn’t assume a student needs 6 credits in summer for Pell … sorry. If the school is using 10-11 rules for the summer '10 session, they might be awarding the first 100% of 10-11 Pell in that session. If so, then the second Pell rules don’t apply to that award. Beginning with 10-11 rules, a school can award loans from 09-10 year but Pell from 10-11 year. It’s confusing.</p>
<p>When I logged in right after filing the FAFSA, our EFC was in as $99,999.99. That was an eye opener. That must have been some sort of default.</p>
<p>Hi, I’ve been reading through this thread. I’m a little confused.</p>
<p>I’m starting college this summer (freshman). I’ll be taking 2 classes worth 6 credits. My EFC is 0 & I’ve already received a $1,338 pell grant.</p>
<p>In the fall I’m registered for 12 credits. According to my EFC I’m assuming I’ll receive $2775 for the fall & $2775 for the Spring, a total of $5550 for the year. </p>
<p>I plan on taking 9-12 credits in the summer of 2011. Does this mean I’ll be eligible for a second Pell to apply towards summer 2011?</p>
<p>Thanks to everyone helping us understand.</p>
<p>I’ll try to explain this and I know kelsmom will correct me if I’m wrong! If you’re just starting college this summer and will receive a Pell grant, your school is considering the summer session to be the first semester of the 2010/2011 year (aka a “summer header” school). So you’re actually receiving the first 25% of your regular Pell grant this summer, then 50% of it for fall, and will have 25% of regular Pell (or $1337) left for spring. Provided you have successfully completed the 18 hours in the first two semester you might be eligible for a partial second Pell in the spring, which could boost your Pell award. That is where kelsmom’s explanations of the standards will be applied…you have to meet those qualifications for a second Pell award.</p>
<p>Next summer will be the beginning of the 2011/2012 year at your school, so you’ll be back to the regular Pell standards again. Clear as mud, right?</p>