<p>Hello, I hope I have not made a terrible mistake. I am going into my last year in a UC and I looked back at my loans and have noticed something strange. My Cal grant that I had each year says that I have 10k-12k, way higher than the 7-8k it said it will disperse for my first 3 years.</p>
<p>The bad thing is, I unknowingly accepted all the loans that were given to me on that website. My student direct loan was okay, but I now realized I had accepted an unneeded 10k and 9k federal direct PLUS loan for my freshmen sophomore year.</p>
<p>My question is, I guess they did not disperse my cal grant because the school used my loans first? I just lost at least 24k in cal grant because I accepted all the loans.</p>
<p>I am the first person in my immediate family to go to college, and I was so lost in this process, I went to the office 2-3 times but they were not very personal, and a line of people stood behind me and I never understood what I was in. They just told me "don't worry, we will discuss all this with you when you graduate."</p>
<p>Does anyone know if my Cal Grant is lost forever? And if I can somehow fight for it back and have my Cal Grant to pay for the loans? I know how stupid I have been, and I hope nobody has to tell me that again. Thank you for your time.</p>
<p>What exactly has been in your FA pkg each year? What OTHER grants have been in your aid pkg? If you qualified for Blue and Gold, then your grants should have covered your UC fees.</p>
<p>A Plus loan is a PARENT loan, so your parents are responsible for those.</p>
<p>I highly doubt that previously offered Cal Grants are going to pay back your loans. Once a year is over, the aid process kind of ends.</p>
<p>Cal Grant amounts have changed over the years, maybe in previous years the max amounts were $7k or 8k??</p>
<p>Hello, thanks for the reply. I did qualify for Blue and Gold, and I did have 7-8k amount of grant. What happened was, I basically clicked on “accept” on all the loans on the awards page. So I took out Student loans, subsidized/unsubsidized, and parents Plus loans. I thought I needed them because it said estimated cost of living was anohter 10k, I thought that meant the cost of the dorm.</p>
<p>My feeling is that it seems that they never gave me the grant, because they allowed me to borrow all the loans. Now that I went back, they did not refund me the entirety of my loans. Basically my tuition was 15k, it said my grants were 8k. I “accepted” 5k worth of student loans and 9k of parents plus loans. I am in disbelief of my stupidity.</p>
<p>I don’t really understand how this could have happened. The total awards a school offers you, including loans, can not exceed the COA of the school. I don’t see how it is possible to accept more loans then you are actually eligible for (FA does include the cost of room and board and some other costs). I think you are probably misunderstanding some information. I think it is very unlikely that you got less calgrant than you were eligible for, but for your own peace of mind you need to either Email your FA department or make an appointment to sit and discuss this with an FA adviser and have them explain everything to you. (talk to an actual FA officer, not a student helper).</p>
<p>You are probably not getting many responses here because your post is quite confusing. For instance you say “My Cal grant that I *had *each year says that I have 10k-12k” which implies it is in the past, then go on to say “way higher than the 7-8k it said it will disperse for my first 3 years” which seems to imply this is in the future. I am quite confused by your posts. Are you just about to start college? Or are you already in college? On your other threads you say you are still in high school, but on this thread you say you are already in college. Very hard to give advice in the face of such confusing information.</p>
<p>* Basically my tuition was 15k*</p>
<p>Your basic UC fees have not been $15k…and certainly not for each of the last 3 years. </p>
<p>Did you commute to campus or did you live on campus? Are you sure that you actually got those loans? </p>
<p>You need to sit down in the FA office and have them go thru each year with you. do it now when they’re less busy.</p>
<p>I see, I’m hoping I am dead wrong, I can see where I can be a bit confusing, let me try to clarify the exact amount that I have on my financial aid page. Thanks for everyone’s time. This is my 2008-2009 year:</p>
<p>My Freshmen year’s tuition for 2009 says: $10,412.00</p>
<p>My Cal grant for that year, as I see now says:</p>
<p>Cal Grant A Fees Entitle N $8,373.00 Accepted (Is this an amount I am suppose to get for free?)</p>
<p>The stuff I am worried about that I also accepted:</p>
<p>Federal Direct Loan Unsub $2,000.00 Accepted<br>
Federal Direct PLUS Loan $10,945.00 Accepted<br>
Federal Direct Loan Sub $3,500.00 Accepted</p>
<p>I then took a look at the financial aid website for my parents and indeed it says 10k loaned, and 9k loaned for the following year in addition to my own loans.</p>
<p>The reason why I accepted all this is because on the last page, the school told me the “estimated living cost would be another 10k.” I thought this was for dorms or something so I just accepted everything on this page.</p>
<p>The totality of both my parents loans and my loans on the Fafsa website is 19k total for my parents, and 16k total for myself.</p>
<p>Thus I believe if I had borrowed this much, I hypothesize that my cal grant must not have dispersed to me since I had all these loans instead. I had no idea this can happen. I am definitely going to talk to and call everyone I can to sort this out, that’s why I have posted on here. I was quite distraught last night.</p>
<p>There is more to the process of a Parent PLUS loan than you just accepting it with your college - your parents would have to apply and accept the loan on their own, and they may be already making payments.</p>
<p>If your Cal Grant was accepted, which in your most recent post you indicate that it was, then your college did receive it. The college would not refuse the Cal Grant and have you pay with loans. Were you living on campus for the first three years? If so, there were more costs owed to your college than just the fees (tuition). If you accepted more in loans than was owed to the college you would have received a refund check. Maybe you should bring someone with you to the financial aid office who understands finances if you are getting confused by the information that you received when you go to the financial aid office.</p>
<p>In 2009, was the ONLY grant awarded to you the Cal Grant? or were you awarded any other grants?</p>
<p>B&G only promises to cover UC-wide fees. Each UC may have its own fees as well, but B&G doesn’t have to cover those.</p>
<p>@missemily516</p>
<p>There is a process, my parents are not native English speakers, and I went through with the the actions require to “accept” the loan, as I thought I need to satisfy everything that was colored red on my UC loans website. I was living on campus for only the first year. But on the budget page, I do not see where I have to pay for it. The website continuously state: Basic Living $9,842.00 every single year, this living budget is what confused me, thinking I need to pay an additional 9k ontop of my tuition, when it was just an estimated amount for my personal daily livings.</p>
<p>If I did get the Cal Grant that was stated, I feel that I should have been refunded a ton more money. But from what I deduce, they did not. Things are just not adding up if they used my Cal Grants. I just realized my Cal Grants covered for at least 70% of my tuition every year.</p>
<p>@mom2collegekids</p>
<p>Yes that was my only grant for that year. I’m not sure what B&G is.</p>