Question about Pell Grant

<p>This is a simple question that I have submitted to my financial aid office, but with the Holidays I doubt they will respond before next year. So I was hoping someone here might know.</p>

<p>I'm transferring from a semester to a quarter system. Because of the way the quarters are arranged I had to miss the winter quarter, which means for 2009 - 2010 I will have one semester and one quarter. This results in $892 of pell grant money that is being left out of my combined awards. What I am wondering is if there is a way that $892 can be added to my award for the spring quarter. My suspicion is no, but I figure it is worth asking.</p>

<p>No. The Pell is awarded only for the periods you are in school. For instance if you had not gone to school at all in the fall and were starting Spring semester then you would get a semester worth of Pell for the spring semester (1/2 the annual Pell). You would not get the whole year of Pell in the spring semester even though you had not received the other half of it.</p>

<p>Thanks. That’s what I figured. But if the school considers the coming summer quarter as part of the 2009 - 2010 year I should be able to use it then?</p>

<p>Starting this school year (2009-2010) additional Pell is available for the summer even if you have already used a whole year of Pell. There are some rules attached to do with how many credits you have completed in the school year and also how may credits you are taking in the summer. I am not sure exactly what the rules are - it is all new this year. Kelsmom (one of our real live FA officers) has posted something about them somewhere.</p>

<p>Wow. I wasn’t at all aware of that. Thanks for the heads up. I did a search and found kelsmom’s posts: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/805585-two-pell-grants-one-year.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/805585-two-pell-grants-one-year.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>I’ll have to talk to my FA advisor about this some more. The way I am reading it, there is a chance that the transition between a semester system and a quarter system may make me ineligible. I’ll have to find out.</p>

<p>Thanks again.</p>

<p>I *think *you would then be at least eligible for the balance of your annual grant. I started back to school spring of last school year (2008-2009 for FA) and got a semester’s Pell grant for the Spring then was eligible for summer Pell as I had not used up my annual eligibility. I don’t know if that has changed with the new rules.</p>