Hello everyone, I’m a senior from CSU East Bay and I will be graduating around June 2019. Since I am approaching my graduation date, there are less classes that I need to take and some classes are only available depending on the semester. I understand that in order to get full financial aid benefits, I will need to be a full time student (12 units). However, at the moment there are only 3 classes (9 units) that are available for me during this semester, so I need to take an extra class to satisfy the full 12 units condition. Next year, I only have 2 classes left so I need to find 2 extra classes to fulfill that requirement. However, these are classes that I don’t need and will have to spend the additional money to buy the books and the time to attend the class. My question is, how will they balance out my needs for financial aid grant?
At the moment, 12 units equates to 3.4k in tuition and the grants that I receive is a total of 4.3k, which leaves me with $900 refund. Let say a unit at my college is around $200-300 and I want to take only 9 units,. Therefore, the tuition for 9 units should be around $2800 - $2500. That’s $600-$900 less in tuition so if financial aid were to decrease my grant would they be balancing out and leaves me with the same $900 refund or way less or how does it really work? Because if I still get the same amount of refund, I see no point of taking the extra class just to spend money on the books and energy to pass a class that I clearly don’t need. However, if they do decrease it to a significant amount then taking that class would be a good idea.
What are your guy’s advice in this situation, should I or should I not take those extra classes that I don’t need?
I believe your FA would be proportional to the number of credits you need (if you take 6 you can get half the aid). Talk to your FA office to make sure.
Do you receive Pell? If so, you’ll get 75% of the semester amount (37.5% of the annual award) for 9-11 credits. If you get loans, you can get the full semester amount (but see my note below). Your school will have a policy for any other aid - some schools will not award SEOG for less than full time, while some will prorate it. Some schools will not pay institutional grants if you are less than full time. Always check with your aid office. By the way, if you take a class you don’t need for your degree, you may well find that those credits won’t count toward your credits for financial aid eligibility (aid is only supposed to cover classes you need for your degree, and it’s relatively easy to figure out that you don’t need a class once you get close to degree completion).
Note: When you are in your final semester, if you are track to complete your degree at the end of a semester that is the first semester in the award year, your loans have to be prorated based on enrollment. Sometimes this results in more than half the annual loan award, sometimes less than half the award, and sometimes exactly half the award. It depends on the number of credits.
I actually called the financial aid office the other day and you are correct, I have to take classes that matches my major. However, I was lucky since my school just swap to semester system and there are more classes available for my major. This semester at least should be fine, I’m just worry about the next one since I would only have 2 classes (6 units) left and the new classes being available is based on the whether the instructor want to teach it or not.