My School Screwed Me! Help!!

<p>Ok, so last quarter 'Winter Quarter' I was going to attend school it was going to be my first time in college but they told me my financial aid wouldn't be ready so I figured I'd wait til Spring quarter. Mind you I applied for classes but they told me they'd be automatically dropped if they weren't paid for after a certain day. Then comes Spring quarter i'm ready and excited to go to school but I get this email telling me my Financial Aid is SUSPENDED because my grades were too low from winter quarter!! I didn't even attend winter quarter they kept me in the classes and my financial aid came 3 days after they were supposed to be dropped so they were paid for. They also said they sent me a check with the rest of my aid but I never received a check! So now my GPA is screwed my financial aid is SCREWED all because of a mistake they made. I went to talk to them and the said I actually owe them money.. *** since my grades were too low I owe financial aid back a portion of the money.. Help me please what do I do? I know this is a mess but the whole situation is really a huge mess!</p>

<p><a href=“1”>b</a> Financial aid office:** Request a copy of the cancelled check they supposedly sent you. Do not accept “no” as an answer. If you request proof that the check was cashed, they need to provide it to you. (It may take some time, given the school bureaucracy, but they do have to provide it.) If it was never cashed, then they need to stop payment on it.</p>

<p><a href=“2”>b</a> Registrar:** Go to the registrar’s office and see why those classes weren’t dropped. Explain what happened and ask if they can help you.</p>

<p>This may not fix everything . . . but at least it’s a start. Good luck!</p>

<p>The school will drop your registration if you owe them $$, but they will not drop if you are due or you are anticipated to receive financial aid that will cover the cost of attendance. IF the student was anticipated to get financial aid (especially from the state or federal govt), the classes would not have been automatically dropped because the school know that they are not getting paid on the first day of classes. </p>

<p>What the school would have been looking for would have been monies due over the anticipated financial. The classes would not have been dropped until the student actually dropped the classes.</p>

<p>Even if the school were to drop your classes, they would send you something in writing letting you know that if your bill is not paid by a certain date, your courses would be dropped. Do you have any of this correspondence. You will have to create a paper trail as to what actually happened.</p>

<p>It sounds like a miscommunication between you and the school about the rules for dropping. At most schools, once you register for classes you owe for them unless *you *drop the classes before a certain date. Every school will have different rules for how this works, but at most schools, you will owe for class if you do not withdraw from it. </p>

<p>For instance, at my daughter’s school, the deadline for paying for a class was the 15th of the month after the class started, 3-4 weeks after class started (some schools will have earlier payment dates). But the deadline for dropping and owing $0 on a class was a week after class started and they had a 2nd deadline a week later to drop and owe 50% of the class. If she did not drop by one of these dates, she would owe 100% of the class whether she ever attended it or not. This will vary by school, but the bottom line is, once you register for a class, it is almost always your responsibility to drop it by a certain deadline if you do not want to pay for it.</p>

<p>You can try talking to the school. I hope they can figure something out.</p>

<p>So, did you sign up for classes and the assume that because fin aid would be late that the university would take care of withdrawing you from them? They can’t do that. The institution cannot just pull you out of classes without cause. How are they supposed to know you don’t intend to show up? They’re not mind readers. </p>

<p>Not paying is cause for administrative withdrawl, but financial aid arrived, you had not dropped the classes, and so it had to be applied to your account. Unless you drop the classes yourself by filling out the correct forms, you remain enrolled. </p>

<p>If you did formally drop the classes, you should have a copy of the withdrawl form. You need to take that to fin aid.</p>

<p>

No, you’re in a mess because you made a false assumption that your financial aid will be later than the automatic withdrawal date.</p>

<p>Locored - </p>

<p>About your visit to the registrar’s office, you’re asking for two separate things:</p>

<p><a href=“1”>b</a>** Retroactive withdrawal from your winter classes so that the charges for those classes can be reversed; and</p>

<p><a href=“2”>b</a>** Retroactive withdrawal from those classes so the failing grades can be removed from your transcript and replaced with “W’s”.</p>

<p>It’s unlikely you’ll be granted the first (reversal of charges) - but there’s no harm in asking. But, if you can explain your situation, they might be willing to remove the failing grades from your transcript, at which point you’d be eligible for financial aid again. Yes, you’d have to pay for winter quarter, but at least you’d be in good academic standing.</p>

<p>You’re probably going to need to speak to the head person in the registrar’s office, so don’t hesitate to ask for that person. If you need to set an appointment, do so.</p>

<p><a href=“2”>quote</a> Retroactive withdrawal from those classes so the failing grades can be removed from your transcript and replaced with “W’s”.

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<p>Even on the way off chance that this would happen, Op would still not be eligible for financial aid because he does not meet SAP (while withdrawing from all classes means he did not fail, he still was enrolled and did not complete any credits). Op would need a beginning of the term withdrawl (preferably before start of class), so that he does not owe any money and he is not charged with not completing course work.</p>

<p>

Retake those classes that you “failed” and pay them with your own money. Hopefully, you do well and your GPA recovers. The financial aid unSUSPENDED.</p>

<p>Your school has a policy of dropping students who have not paid for classes. BUT your school also has a policy that states that when you sign up for classes, you become responsible for payment for those classes unless you formally drop them within the drop/add time frame (all schools have this policy). Your aid paid out, as it was scheduled to do. At that point, your costs were covered; therefore, the school had no reason to drop you from classes due to nonpayment. </p>

<p>It was YOUR responsibility to drop your classes. You did not do so. </p>

<p>The refund check the school sent you - if it wasn’t automatically deposited in your bank account (some schools have that option, and you may have signed up for it if yours did) - would not be cashed if you never received it. Do not ask the financial aid office about it - they do not issue or track refund checks. Contact the Bursar or Business Office. Ask them to check to see if it was cashed. If not, tell them to stop payment on the check and put the money back on your student account. Then tell the financial aid office to return the aid that was refunded to you (that is what you owe - the aid refund that you did not “earn” - it had to be sent back to the government).</p>