I received loans and Pell grants for the three years that I attended school. I was recently on the DOE website and noticed grants that I had received for the school years that I attended. It shows the amount awarded, the amount disbursed and the amount remaining. It also says to contact the school regarding any questions. Who gets the remaining balance of the Pell grant after I graduate, me or is the school required to send it back? I thought that the remaining balance is given to the student after all tuition is paid for.
You only get the Pell Grant for terms in which you are enrolled in college. If, for some reason, you still have some Pell eligibility AFTER you graduate…you don’t get that money and neither does your college.
For each term you are in college, your Pell is first applied to billable costs to your college. You would only get a refund during enrolled terms if your billable costs were all paid and there was leftover financial aid money THAT TERM.
But after you graduate? No…you don’t get more money.
ETA…how long ago were you in college? If it was before this academic year, you would not be eligible to receive any additional money from your college or the federal government. Previous academic years are done…closed.
I know this but what I’m thinking is that the private school that I went to hid the fact that I had a Pell grant because I
did not realize that I had even applied for it since they completed the paperwork for my student loans. And when i was enrolled they kept the extra money that was from my Pell grants. Because I was enrolled from 2006-2009 and when I go to the DOE website it shows a balance and it says that I need to contact the school I was enrolled at. So IDK…
It’s WAYYYYYY too late to do anything about any financial aid money from the school year that ended almost 10 years ago.
If you filed a FAFSA, and your FAFSA EFC was below a certain number, you would gotten a Pell Grant. This has NOTHING to do wit Loans at all. The FAFSA IS the application for the Pell Grant. Any federally funded money would have FIRST been applied to your college bill.
And your college could NOT complete loan documents for YOU. YOU needed to do this. And I know this because I had two kids in college at that time.
When you say you have a “Pell balance”…what does that mean? Does it mean you have some Pell eligibility left? If so, you won’t get that money unless you are in undergrad school at least half time pursuing a degree.
If you are saying the school completed your FAFSA and then signed your loan agreements (master promissory note and all the individual loan acceptances) then there is fraud going on and you need to report it immediately. If you filled out the FAFSA and the MPN and each loan acceptance each semester, well, then, you knew about the Pell grants and the loans. The school didn’t keep the money, they applied it to your tuition bill.
The school would have needed this kid’s FAFSA PIN to do a master promissory note in her name. There is NO WAY this could have been completed without this student knowing what was going on.
And on that FAFSA PIN info…it’s very clear NEVER to give that info to anyone!
Was this a for profit college…?
@IronButterfly1972 , what exactly does it say in NSLDS (where you are seeing your Pell information)? I would expect you to see usage if you received a Pell grant - and it certainly is possible you didn’t realize you had one if you didn’t look at your account carefully when you were a student. It would have first paid your charges, and you would have been asked to pay the balance (or a loan may have covered it) - you may not have received more than you owed.
What concerns me is this statement: “Because I was enrolled from 2006-2009 and when I go to the DOE website it shows a balance and it says that I need to contact the school I was enrolled at.” This makes me wonder if you had what is called a Pell overpayment. Did you drop classes the last time you were in school?