So this is what screwed me over last year, I’m unaware of how much financial aid I get per semester until the day the term bill is due. I hate it, it’s impossible for me to plan accordingly (Does every college do this, or is it just mine??). Up until last year my financial aid 100% covered my costs, and I simply had to ignore the messages about the billing coming up which is why last year really messed me up. I didn’t know I owed $800+ until the day it was due.
So this year I’ve been keeping an eye on it, handed in all my documents and regularly have been checking to make sure everything is moving along. Well the term bill is due next week, but I still have “Unsatisfied requirements” and I’m concerned. There’s 3 different unsatisfied requirements, all of which have been handed in over a month ago. Two need to be reviewed by the F.A. Administrator. And the last one says “submitted documentation needs to be clarified”
What does that mean? I haven’t received any e-mails about financial aid. Should I go to the financial aid department at my school/call them and see what’s going on? Is this anything to be worried about? I work full time right now, so going to campus or even making a phone call means I would have to take off work to do so (I work during the hours the FA office is open.)
My experience is limited to the two colleges my kids go to, but they are told what their aid is in June. I can’t imagine why a college wouldn’t tell you what your FA is beforehand.
I think you need to speak to you FA office. You could try an email first before taking time off, but I suspect it may require a conversation.
Could you call during your lunch break? I assume you get one since you work fulltime.
What kind of aid did you receive last year? A Pell grant, state grant, federal student loan, institutional grants, scholarships? Has your EFC changed a lot from last year?
Have you checked all the pages of the portals? My daughter has an ‘awards’ page and it lists all the awards the school thinks might come in, including loans, grants, scholarships from the school, state, or federal government. The loans need to be accepted or she can enter a different amount on that awards page.
Last night she showed me a page and asked me if they’d changed her awards. At first I thought they did, but realized she was looking at the billing page so things are a little different. For example, she has a $1000 unsubsidized loan shown on the awards page, but on the billing page it is posted as $990 because there is a 1% fee on Stafford loans; she borrows $1000 (award page) but only $990 is posted to her bill. There are credits not yet posted to her bill, and there are credits posted but will be changed. I have no idea why the bill originally posts on July 1 but isn’t correct. On July 1 this year there were charges for tuition, two fees, and insurance. Close, but no charge for a meal plan. On the credit side, there was a credit for the meal plan, and two other credits (the subbed and unsubbed loans, maybe?), but the other 7 or so credits were nowhere to be found on the bill. They were on the ‘financial aid awarded’ page so we knew they were awarded and coming, but not transferred to the bill. You’d think ‘Oh, the money coming from the state or feds is what isn’t posted yet’ but no, some of the credits posted were from the school and some from the feds, but most of the school merit awards weren’t there yet, and the one credit for the meals was just about 1/4 of her athletic scholarship with the rest missing. I’ve given up trying to figure out why some things are there and some aren’t.
Third year for her, and every year the July 1 bill is nothing close to what she actually owes. Off by thousands of dollars. That first year many frantic phone calls to the billing office and financial aid, but I now know to just wait it out. Here it is July 26 and they are still posting and we are still moving stuff around. I think the bill is due Aug 10.
Do you have an awards page and an actual bill? If you have no awards page or financial aid letter, then you should ask for one.
"unsatisfied requirements’’ could mean you have a form they haven’t received, your taxes/parent’s taxes haven’t been synced with the IRS tool, you haven’t completed all the promissory notes, there is some other thing the FA office is looking for. My daughter (different one than in #4 above) has two yellow ‘caution’ flags on her account right now. We can still see the financial aid award on her portal, but they won’t release any of the money until she completes whatever it is they want.
Alright so I sent an Email right after I posted the thread on Tuesday, still haven’t received anything back. I’m on lunch break right now and tried to give them a call. Apparently the FA office is closed on Fridays during the summer. Great. So now I have to wait until Monday, meanwhile the bill is due on Wednesday. And I don’t have $1,000 just laying around to pay the bill if FA doesn’t go through. I’m pretty frustrated. I talked to my boss about it, I can leave a little early on Monday and head over.
So the “Unsatisfied Documents” page lists three different items as unsatisfied. The first two (My 2015 Tax Transcript, and the 2016-2017 Verification Worksheet) are still waiting to be reviewed by the FA Administrator. The third document (My parent’s 2015 Tax Transcript) “Needs to be clarified” which is what confuses me.
Thanks. I’ll post an update on Monday in case anyone else has similar issues.
“Needs to be clarified” … what did you put on your FAFSA for:
-parent marital status
-number in household
What is your parents’ tax filing status - is it married filing jointly?
Did you do the IRS data retrieval for both your tax return and your parents’ tax return? If so, did you make any changes after it was retrieved? If not, you have to do the retrieval if you were selected for verification.
It sounds like something with your parents’ tax return isn’t making sense to them based on other information provided on the FAFSA. They are required to resolve all conflicting information.
This is just our case, may not apply to other schools, but FA was always behind in applying all credits and did not hold us to a “due date.” That’s not to say OP should be lax.
But OP is also saying he doesn’t know what the aid is, until late in the cycle. Be sure to confirm how to find your full award details and how it’s applied by semester
@kelsmom, Could any of the following affect OP’s aid?
In 9/2015 OP wrote that she was starting her 3rd year at a cc. I don’t know how many credits she has or if you can reach too many to get full aid. Could that be why she owed money last year?
In early 2016, she said she only had 4 courses left for her paralegal degree, so I don’t know if she’s full-time. When she was full-time her grants covered everything, but part-time aid wouldn’t necessarily, would it?
In 1/2016 she wrote that she was moving in with her dad and wondered if she had to talk to her mom to be able to use her financial info. Maybe this change in info. requires verification of some kind.
OP also hates the idea of loans and her previous posts sound like she hasn’t taken any, so I think the federal student loans are available if she falls short for some reason. If she hasn’t taken any this semester, can she still request them? Can she specify how much she wants to borrow if it’s less than the full amount?
It is possible that the parents’ situation is at issue. That is why I wondered about what is on the FAFSA re: parents and what the tax filing status is. It is also possible that if OP used one parent in the past & another now, the aid office may question the change (particularly if the change results in Pell when there previously was none).
I am going to assume OP is eligible for aid - if not, that is a whole 'nother issue. If she has been in school too long (triggering SAP issues) or if she is less than full time (reducing/eliminating some forms of aid), those would be separate from the verification issue.
If she is currently enrolled at least half time, she can request loans - and she can request any amount up to the amount for which she is eligible.
Parental martial status is single, she’s also head of household
The number of household was 3, hasn’t changed since I started college
Yes I did the IRS data retrieval tool for both my tax return and my mother’s.
And according to my school’s portal, I pass the SAP for Fall 2016
My first semester at this college I had an issue with my FA, it didn’t go through until after the payment due date and the school had dropped my classes. So I had to pick out some classes from what was left (which was only 2 classes). This is my last semester at school, I’ve only got two classes to take in the Fall. It’s the same number of credits. So if I got a Pell grant then, don’t see why I wouldn’t get one now. When I did the FASFA for this upcoming semester I also qualified for State aid, so I filled out the paperwork for that as well (That HESAA thing).
I answered the questions I could. Again, a big thanks to everyone. I’ll update on Monday.
The part about you not getting notified about your FA sounds off. Is it possible that the financial aid office is sending notifications to an email address that you’re not using? Maybe your mother’s. (It’s also worth double checking your junk folder.) Someone else mentioned a financial aid portal, look through the many many emails you received when you were initially accepted to the school to see if you can find mention of a portal.
Given what you have posted, it sounds like it should be relatively easy for the aid office to complete your file. I hope we hear good news from you today!
@Madison85 For all of 2015 I lived with my mom, didn’t move into my dad’s until 2016.
@Otterma I’ve checked the school email, my email, my mom always tells me when she gets an email regarding my school. And I know all about the portal, which is where I got the information regarding my unsatisfied documents. In the portal, where it has the FA page (It’s called “Self Serve”) and my term bill. It always just has the term bill with no financial aid added onto it. In the financial aid page, it’s always empty until the payment due date. The only ESTIMATION I got regarding my FA was when I filled out the FASFA initially. And last year the estimation was totally off so I don’t even look at it anymore.So I have absolutely no clue what my financial aid is until last minute.
@Kelsmom I hope so! I’m here now, there’s a huge line.
Okay so apparently they were missing some pages of my mom’s Federal Tax Transcript. So I had to wait until my mom went on break so she could go home and grab the papers I needed and make copies. I gave them to the FA office and asked how long it’ll take to process them and all, if it’s possible for it to get done before the payment due date (Wednesday) the lady suggested I enroll in a payment plan so I don’t lose the classes I’m registered for. Which I’m not going to do because it’s too expensive. I expressed my disappointment that nobody from the FA office contacted me about the issue, even though I reached out. “Not my job” she tells me.