<p>Some issues that you need to examine if you are considering transferring: </p>
<p>Which schools will best take your credits so that you can graduate in a timely manner. PELL is over in 6 years, and the Staffords have maximums. When you run out, you are out. If the school you are attending is not one where other schools are taking credits from, I suggest you get out as fast as possible as you may be wasting your time there, if credits will not get you to graduate quickly. You should be looking at this very carefully. Get a list of colleges where you can most smoothly transfer.</p>
<p>You have to be able to afford your next school. As a transfer, getting Pell and Stafford is about all you are guaranteed. It’s tough for transfers to get school mone.</p>
<p>Are you in some specialized program that does make transferring an issue? If that is the case, it’s not so much the loss of financial aid (as everyone is telling you, PELL is transferable as are the Staffords), but the fact that you may not get some certificate in a program that gives you benefits. You need to sit down with a counselor at a potential school that you are eying for transfer purposes and get a good list of options in such a case.</p>
<p>My friends’ daughter was in a vocationally driven community college program that did give an AA and certification after 2 years. A great certificate, in medical billing or some such thing that did open up a lot of job options for her, but transferring to a four year college, meant more than another 2 years in most cases, for graduation because some of those very specialized courses did not transfer over, and there are foundation requirements for a BA that were not covered in that course of study she took, that she needed to get to get a 4 year degree. If she had quit half way through the CC program, it would have put her in an awkward situation as she would not have sufficient credits for a smooth transfer and not have the certificate either. As it turned out, she was making enough money with her course of study from the CC, that she could get a good full time job, enter some working adult focused evening/weekend program, get her degree and make good money doing so. Had she gone the way she originally was bent on doing, it would not have been so smooth going and cost a lot of money.</p>