My son earned a scholarship from his college. Due to poor advising and us dropping the ball on tracking his FA, he will lose his scholarship in the fall because he can’t repeat a class he failed first semester freshman year.
If our EFC was 20000, and his scholarship was 20000, would he get an extra 20000 of loans, or would they just cut the scholarship with no changes to the loans, making us pay 40000?
I will talk more to the FA office, but other people’s experiences or knowledge wouldbe helpful.
YOU could take loans…but if he didn’t meet satisfactory academic progress, he would not be eligible for federally funded loans.
So…did he NOT meet SAP?
If HE can take loans, the annual amount in his name only would not exceed $7500 and that’s if he has junior year status.
The college is NOT going to give $20,000 in loans. Colleges are not lending agencies. If you need $20,000, you would need to seek either private loans…or Parent Plus
Try running the college’s net price calculator (but without putting in anything that causes merit scholarships to be estimated) to see what the cost and financial aid without the scholarship may be.
(This assumes that he is otherwise making satisfactory academic progress for financial aid purposes.)
Has he appealed or are you handling this for him? Poor advising as an excuse is going to sound horrible, so I wouldn’t state that. Pull up the scholarship details and look closely at the criteria, his grace period has gone in the second semester? Frankly the answer is he needs to line up his transfer back to your local 4 yr if you need to borrow 20K. More details will probably help other posters guide better. Losing his scholarship due to a single class sounds like this isn’t a great set up for your kid. Be prepared that the school won’t want to talk to you really, has your kid signed FERPA?
It is our local college, but private with 50000 tuition. There isn’t a state college he’s interested in. But he could live at home and go part-time.
He did not make SAP, but we hope he will do better and get SAP. He needs Bs and Cs to get to SAP.
I did get info from his college - he can appeal once if his GPA is very good and try to make up the Fs in the summer or fall. I’m also looking at us loaning him money if he gets SAP but loses the scholarship. We have other kids in college and need to take loans to pay for his college.
The thing that is frustrating is that they might have given him grants instead of a scholarship if his grades were poorer in HS.
Yes, I have FERPA permission. I want to talk to the advising office.
There’s also a back story - he’s autistic and we wanted this college because of the autism program but they rejected him. We are trying to get him into the program but don’t know if they will let him in.
@kelsmom or someone…can a student’s parents get a Parent Plus Loan if the student doesn’t meet SAP? I know they can’t get the Direct Loan or any other federally funded need based aid…and the college determines if the student can get school based aid…which is usually NOT the case if you don’t meet SAP.
@rhandco perhaps living at home and going part time would be a good plan for now. He could take a couple of courses at a time, do well, deal with study habits or whatever…and make a case to get into the autism support program when he returns as a full time student.
It sounds like it was more than one F grade. Is that correct?
I’m so sorry this has happened to him. However, I strongly recommend that you do NOT have him continue at this school right now. He is clearly not ready for this school, for whatever reason. He should take a leave of absence. He should enroll at the cheapest reputable alternative that he can commute to while living at home - probably your local 4 yr state college, maybe even community college, depending upon the options nearby. Get him into some kind of therapy with someone good at working with young adults with high functioning autism. Get him a neuropsych evaluation to identify co-morbid conditions, like ADHD, or depression, that often run together with high functioning autism. He might benefit from a stimulant medication. He may be having a lot of trouble with depression, because of the ego blow of having failed at school, might benefit from an antidepressant.
Whatever the reason, this young man has to learn how to do schoolwork if he is to succeed in college. This is best achieved at an inexpensive, possibly less challenging college. Don’t throw good money after bad. Bring him home, help him to help himself, and once he has a track record of A grades at the local state college, either finish there, or see if private college will reinstate his scholarship, or transfer to the state flagship and have him finish his degree there.
After all, your money is a terrible thing to waste.
Could you please clarify @rhandco . Is this $50,000 TUITION…or is it the full cost of attendance?
Regardless…I agree with post 9. Please think about the continuing at this school now. It might be good to use this spring semester to do something different. But he needs to withdraw fully immediately. He can talk to the college about a leave of absence…maybe they will grant that under the circumstances…for this coming term.
Find out what needs to happen to get him into the autism support program IF he returns to that college.