Oops! We made a mistake on your finaid award

Parents Forum
81

<p>Question for momofboston:</p>

<p>Was this financial aid award a determinative factor when your daughter chose the school that is now claiming a mistake? That is, did your daughter have another acceptance in hand that she would have preferred, but for the fact of the additional $3500/year scholarship? </p>

<p>I’m asking because, going forward, I think it’s important to sort out whether your daughter is going to be attending the school she prefers, at a somewhat higher cost than anticipated – - or whether your daughter has been essentially tricked into turning down a different school that she would have preferred. (If it was the latter, I’d send a letter to the admissions department of the other school explaining the situation – you never know, they may still have space and be happy to accept your daughter and reinstate whatever award they offered).</p>

82

<p>I would consider posting about this on the college CC board. Nothing inflammatory, just the facts. And then send the FA office a link.</p>

83

<p>I’m so sorry that this happened to you! It’s horrible that a school can throw this on you at the end of June, and it’s terrible that you’re not left with many options. I hope this doesn’t discourage your child too much. Money should NEVER make people unhappy or down, but unfortunately it usually always does. </p>

<p>I’ve had some unpleasant experiences with financial aid at my school, and my mom and I have found that it’s best to be honest and polite while asking for help. My mom has seriously saved me quite a bit of money by sticking it out on the phone for me and helping me talk to all of the various powers to be. </p>

<p>As a personal example, I lost my housing grant at my university last year after I moved out for the winter semester. I canceled my contract for the winter semester back in the fall, and since the financial system didn’t see me in the housing system anymore at that time (December yet in the fall semester), it went back and pulled my grant for the fall and billed me with the full amount of the grant ($2500). It did NOT say that the student had be there for a full semester or a full year on the website’s link to the scholarship, and when I was canceling my housing contract at the housing office, no one asked if I had a housing grant or anything or said that I’d better check my requirements. Truth be told, I don’t think THEY even knew it would happen until it did. Financial aid didn’t say anything when I conferred with them as well. </p>

<p>What’s terrible is that it happened right at the end of the semester and on the day before the date where you had to pay all your bills or else you’d be dropped from all your winter classes and have your student account put on hold. I had to rush and find $2500 (we don’t have a lot of money), and then my mom got on the phone right away to try and straighten it all out. </p>

<p>Through all of this, they discovered that this particular grant was contingent on the student being in housing all 4 years, and if broken up before a full semester, it’d make the student pay for the amount of time they stayed that year. It was a complete financial aid and housing miscommunication, and it was the first time someone with this grant moved out before the end of the semester, I guess. So everyone learned from my ordeal, and my mom got the housing office to reissue the grant, refund our money and wave my cancellation fee since it was the first time it happened. </p>

<p>I know my case was more specific to my university, but my mom called and explained our financial situation and everything came into place. I’m embarrassed that I had to have my mom “fix” it for me, but sometimes you just need an adult to do it, and the offices do usually understand. (the one lady was really sympathetic after hearing my mom blab our life story and was all like "these kids need parents like us! They just can’t do it all at 17 or 18!)</p>

<p>If you can get a hold of someone of some type of higher power and explain your situation of choosing this school due to the scholarship and not being able to afford it otherwise, I think (hope) they’d be willing to help in some way, even if it’s giving you resources to other scholarships for the following years. It never hurts to try! </p>

<p>Good luck!!</p>

84

<p>harvestmoon - your school’s requirement seem very specific, it is not the case for all schools, and I am surprised you wouldn’t be aware of it. It was nice of your school to be so helpful and understanding. My kid’s school would in include housing in COA whether a student is living on campus or not.</p>

85

<p>

</p>

<p>I really agree with this.</p>

<p>OP, I understand that you are angry and disappointed. You have every right to be. Although the details were available on the website, I know that I would probably have believed the scholarship letter, too.</p>

<p>Last year, my S was awarded a post-grad exchange year by his dept. Because this happened after someone else withdrew, there were two screw-ups–one having to do with his visa, and the other with a promised job that did not materialize-- that ended up costing us thousands of dollars. I wanted to take the approach of throwing ourselves and our S on the mercy of the college–which has A LOT of money–because of S’s plight, hoping that they could find a pocket somewhere from which to throw him a few thousand $$. Unfortunately, my H took the tack of putting together a list of associated expenses and demanding that the school cover them. This aggressive approach resulted in their referring the matter to an in-house lawyer, who aggressively defended the college’s lack of fault in the matter. It was very clear that the ONLY chance we had of getting some help from them was the soft approach, and he blew it.</p>

<p>In your case, it is obviously strategically better to ask if they can help, keeping it general, rather than demanding that they reinstate the second scholarship, since that would establish a bad precedent for them and leave them on the hook for all of the other students who were involved in this administrative screwup. </p>

<p>Another point is that I believe I noted that one of the scholarships (Presidential) is dependent on future academic performance, while the other (Engagement) is not. If she is slated for the Presidential, you might ask if she could accept the Engagement instead for this reason.</p>

86

<p>One of my kids had an outside merit award which had a funky payment timetable. His college’s policy clearly stated that if the tuition bill was not paid in full by some deadline, we’d be liable for both a late fee and accrued interest. I get that this is the policy and it makes perfect sense.</p>

<p>I wrote a polite email to the head of financial aid and asked if I could speak with someone about our situation- which was that while we understood the policy 100%, we were requesting a waiver so that we didn’t have to pay a penalty (late fee plus interest) on allegedly “free money” coming to the U from an outside foundation. But that if a waiver wasn’t possible, we would try to work with the foundation to adjust the timing of the payments.</p>

<p>Got back an immediate email from someone lower down in financial aid asking me to phone whenever it was convenient… and while I was on the phone, she went into my son’s account and changed the bill so that it showed “payment pending” on the amount of the award, and not “in arrears” or late, or whatever it would have shown once we missed the deadline. She thanked me for bringing this to their attention, and said that in no way did the university want to “charge” people for the privilege of getting outside aid.</p>

<p>And that was it for four years. The foundation money showed up whenever it showed up; we paid our share when we got our bill, but we never had to cover money coming from an outside source even though technically our son went into each semester owing money from the previous semester (and technically, you’re not allowed to register if you’ve got a past due on the account.)</p>

<p>Polite, business-like, and recognizing that I was asking for “above and beyond”. So that taught me a good lesson about dealing with the bursar/financial aid/etc.</p>

87

<p>Sorry to hear about your experience, momofboston.</p>

<p>Although I am no lawyer, I think that you do have a legal cause of action, namely “detrimental reliance.” It seems to me that there is a reasonable expectation that a financial award letter will be honored–so you would rely on it in choosing among options, most of which are now closed off. In an extreme case–e.g., the student doesn’t actually graduate from high school–then the admissions itself could be cancelled. If a student claimed to be the son or daughter of an employee of Big Big Corporation, and it turned out that the closest relative at Big Big Corporation was the stepfather’s sister’s brother-in-law’s cousin’s daughter, then ok, they could cancel the scholarship.</p>

<p>I disagree with busdriver11’s analysis of possible errors. If you received a letter announcing that your S/D had received a $35,000 scholarship and a $45,000 scholarship, each renewable for four years, there could really be no question in your mind that it was a mistake (well, at least until the next generation). So a reasonable person would not rely upon nor attempt to “enforce” that offer. On the other hand, one scholarship of $3500 and one of $4500 are not unreasonable as offers. The fact that one has to shift web pages to discover that the Engagement Scholarship cannot be held simultaneously with the Presidential Scholarship seems to me to be another “error” on the part of the university.</p>

<p>I think that momofboston was being generous in not naming the school in question–however, there’s enough information here on CC for someone else to have deduced it, apparently. This really makes the school in question look bad. And I agree that their loss of goodwill is worse than the cost of making good on their award letters.</p>

88

<p>You don’t need to be lecturing or hectoring a financial aid representative (who probably makes 50K per year) </p>

<hr>

<p>Just so y’all know … uh, NO. Think much lower. Your tuition is not as high as it is because of the salary of your friendly (or even grumpy) neighborhood aid officer.</p>

89

<p>Maybe universities should pay their financial aid officers a little better and think twice about the six figure salaries and perks that they pay to their presidents & top administrators.</p>

90

<p>momofboston, I too think you should not be lecturing or hectoring a financial aid representative. You want to go several steps up the ladder of administrative responsibility, to contact someone who has the authority and the budget to make good on the promise.</p>

<p>Despite what I have said above about a cause of action (detrimental reliance), I would not suggest contacting a lawyer unless your daughter had decided to go elsewhere.</p>

<p>However, I personally would not be above using the phrase detrimental reliance in a letter to someone I thought would know what the phrase means.</p>

91

<p>I’m not sure that throwing out terms like “detrimental reliance” would help matters. It would still sound adversarial. I do think a case can be made by the family that they accepted the offer of admission in good faith- and relied on the info that was in the financial aid award letter they had received in making the decision for their child to attend .</p>

92

<p>Yes, that’s totally reasonable.</p>

93

<p>I keep thinking too that the university is banking on the fact that most families will accept what they’ve been told vis a vis the “oops” and quietly pay the additional $$$ without questioning or contesting. I haven’t gone up against a financial aid office but have contested decisions made by our health insurance company re: regarding our boys’ cochlear implants and in the early days, hearing aids. And all three times we came out on top. Yes, we had good arguments in each situation (as OP I think would) but I think part was they didn’t expect a mere parent to pursue beyond them saying no. I always was polite but firm. I think it never hurts to ask.</p>

94

<p>An insurance company has a state insurance board sitting above them. No such thing for private college FA depts, AFAIK.</p>

95

<p>

</p>

<p>The OP seems to be about the only one with a clear understanding of the situation (see post #66 above), now closely followed by QuantMech (post #87).</p>

<p>First, this was NOT fraud. There was no intent to deceive. As has been stated repeatedly, it was a simple clerical error. People do make mistakes. It happens.</p>

<p>It also makes NO difference. As explained in the quote above - the school made an offer and the OP’s daughter accepted the offer. If the daughter’s reliance on the offer was reasonable, and she turned down the chance to attend one or more other schools because of the offer, then that’s the end of the story. The question is whether the daughter’s reliance on the offer was reasonable.</p>

<p>By way of example . . .</p>

<p>Jane’s son - with a gender-ambiguous first name - applies and is accepted to Smith College. The family knows it’s a women’s college . . . but they got the acceptance letter, and they figure the school’s mistake is their gain.</p>

<p>Nope, not gonna happen. Why? Because their reliance on the acceptance letter isn’t reasonable. They know from the get-go that the school made a mistake.</p>

<p>But that’s not the case here. The OP’s daughter had no reason to know that the offer was a mistake. If she hadn’t come across the one page on the school’s website that said “These two scholarships can’t be combined,” how would she know? She might have done that research, but she wasn’t required to. Unless she signed a waiver stating that she had read, understood, and accepted all of the school’s financial aid policies, she can’t be expected to have been aware of this particular policy. </p>

<p>What it gets down to is whether the candidate’s reliance on an offer is reasonable - given her individual background, education, experience, etc. If it is, then the fact that the school made an innocent mistake makes no difference at all. If it’s a mistake that impacted the acceptance offers of multiple students (as was apparently the case), then it’s a costly lesson for the school, but they still have to honor their offers . . . and they probably won’t make the same mistake again.</p>

<p>And, no, the school can’t say, “Well, okay, we’ll honor it for this year only. But that’s it - the following three years, you’re not getting the additional money.” It doesn’t work that way. Everyone involved is aware of the timetable here: once the candidate accepts the school’s offer on May 1, and declines any other outstanding offers, those doors close. The candidate cannot go back to those schools later and say “oops, turned out my offer at School X is only good for one year . . . so I’ll be transferring over to you for my other three years.” The candidate might be able to transfer later . . . but whatever merit offers were on the table for her as a freshman will be long gone. And EVERYONE knows this - especially the school that made the mistake! If they made an offer for four years, they’re stuck with it . . . for all four years.</p>

<p>There may be room for negotiation . . . after all, how competitive were the other offers that the student turned down? But, as so eloquently noted by electronblue above, “oops, sucks to be you!” is NOT a sufficient response.</p>

96

<p>I wouldn’t drop this so quick. It was in the award letter, you made a decision based on that letter, and are are entitled to the scholarship for all 4 years. They didn’t catch it in time for you to make an alternate decision. They are responsible. Use honey up the chain of command, but if you get stonewalled by an officer of the college, a letter from an attorney would not be that expensive, and you are clearly in the right. There are a zillion young lawyers right now struggling to find work, and this isn’t a really hard case, so I think you could find someone to help you on the cheap.</p>

97

<h1>95-very logical; great argument. I see only one problem. Financial aid at any school is awarded a year at a time. Each year, a student and his or her family reapply and get a new package. This student should def get the awarded money for year one, mistake or not, but probably isn’t going to be able to hang on to the extra for years 2-4.</h1>

98

<p>“The OP’s daughter had no reason to know that the offer was a mistake”</p>

<p>I’m not sure that it’s as simple as, “we didn’t know.” If there is a consistent policy in place, that’s the starting point. Or, if there is a similar policy in effect in similar situations. The expectation is that the policy itself is reasonable, makes some sort of sense, and is applied consistently. </p>

<p>I don’t see a head-to-head here, where one says, but I didn’t know, and the other just has to find and cite where the policy IS in writing. </p>

<p>I’m not clear how high OP went.
The various approaches work well when the kid is a prime matriculant, one the school can’t so easily replace by sliding down the wait list. A bird in hand, one you can position as worth them going to bat for. Strategy, not just response. (And, not sure how much an attorney is going to know about FA ins and outs.) Sorry for all this mess.</p>

99

<p>Based on the facts you provided, definitely pursue this. I don’t know what college this is but it is bad faith for College A to tell a kid she has a merit scholarship when the admission decision is made, expect her to accept College A and say no thanks to all other offers, then months later, say the scholarship was a mistake. What if all colleges did that? (If they realized the scholarship mistake a few days after the offer when she still had time to accept at other schools different story). Your kid is not going to be treated badly by the college for asserting her contract rights. You will be doing the college a favor by perhaps drawing the attention of higher-ups to the mistake and making sure it doesn’t happen again. I bet the other kids affected are going to pursue it as well.</p>

100

<p>

</p>

<p>But in this case both are 4-yr scholarships. There are academic conditions applied to the renewal of ONE of them, at least, but the other seems to have none. So, assuming that the OP’s D is not also receiving need-based aid, there is no way the college could reduce her aid after the first year unless her academic performance is poor. If other students whose award letters contained this error do have need-based aid, it is simple and perfectly reasonable of the college to reduce the need-based component by the amount of the extra scholarship. </p>

<p>In terms of the college’s financial exposure, it is going to make a difference how many award letter contained this error, and how many of those also included need-based aid. I would venture to guess that the school will have their own lawyers examining this, and that their response will depend on their lawyers’ estimation of the merits of the claim and the extent of the school’s exposure.</p>

<p>In the OP’s case, to me, the decision about how far to press it would depend upon whether D actually turned down some preferred school based on this money, and upon my ability to come up with the extra $$. If the short term is a problem, it would be eminently reasonable to ask for and be granted an extension on the extra $$.</p>