Rising Freshman - Summer Pell Grant

Paying for College
1

Okay, so I think my school considers summer session part of the previous academic year. (So the 2014-2015 academic year would include fall 2014, spring 2015 and summer 2015.) I’m going to be entering college this fall as a first-time freshman. I didn’t take any classes last fall or this spring. Does anyone know if I’d qualify for a Pell Grant for the 2014-2015 year if I take a couple of summer classes?

Basically, the only way I could take summer classes is if I get financial aid. I figure I probably won’t qualify for financial aid until fall but thought I’d ask on the off-chance that I’m actually eligible.

2

You need to ask the school. I think you might if the facts are as you said, the school considers the summer part of the 2014-15 school year, but you’d have to complete the FAFSA for 2014-15 and meet the conditions (full time? more than half time?) Also remember that you have a certain number of terms for which Pell is available, and if you use some of it now for a small amount, you may be giving up a larger amount toward the end of your college life.

Many Florida schools want their students to start in the summer, but there is a problem because Bright Futures doesn’t pay for summer school. The FA offices have some tricks to make it work, and this might be one of them, getting Pell not used for the previous year for that first summer. I’m not sure. Sometimes kids also start in the summer but take the fall off, so they may consider the summer as part of the next school year for FA

3

Is it too late to file 2014/5 fafsa now?

4

Nope

5

Federal deadline is June 30, 2015.

6

I emailed the school since it was the weekend. (Of course, I had to think of this on a Saturday night.) I’m hoping to hear back from them tomorrow. I’ll be gone most of the day, though, so if I don’t get an email back, I’ll call on Tuesday. I looked at the available courses, and if I can get the financial aid, I’m hoping to take 12 credit hours.

Good point about using up the Pell Grant, but in my specific case I’m not worried about it. I think you can use it for the equivalent of about 6 years (if you do fall and spring, no summers). I’m definitely planning on graduating in four - I’m going to be on scholarship and it lasts four years. After that, I won’t be able to afford college with or without the Pell Grant. Plus, because of my family situation, I’m actually better off to get as many classes out of the way as soon possible - I’ll qualify for quite a bit of financial aid for this coming year, but I’m expecting it to go down quite a bit after that.

Anyway, I’ll post on here once I know one way or the other just in case someone else has the same question.

7

12 credits is too much, I think. Especially if they are your first college classes you will have the disadvantage of adjusting in general to the way college is paced and the work assigned and also a compressed timeframe. You often can’t gauge the load well enough before drop period. If you do take that many, only take one hard class. And have variety. Remember that your grades are on your permanent transcripts. Hope it works out, though. And I suppose you have already figured out that you will need your regular Pell for fall/spring main year, right?

8

Twelve is full time for a regular 15-week academic year semester. Six is plenty for an 8 week summer session.

9

Not sure if my college has a typical policy for summer courses, but 12 is the minimum to be considered full-time in the summer here, and six probably is the minimum that I’d be able to take if I want any sort of financial aid. If I take the courses that I would like, I’d have one three-week course (3 credits) in May followed by one six-week and one eight-week course in June/July (six credits) and one whole-summer course (from May to August, so like 16 weeks) (3 credits). Since it’s spread out like that, I don’t feel like it’s too bad, and two of the courses that I want to take sound pretty easy. Of course, I suppose they may end up being challenging, but there’s really no way to tell before I actually take them.

If it works out the way I want, I’ll be taking Introduction to C++ Programming (three-week class - that one could be a bear), Web Design in HTML/XHTML/CSS (eight-week class), Introduction to Food and Nutrition (six-week class) and Fundamentals of music (whole summer and will hopefully be easy since I’ve had some previous exposure to music).

I have already taken a couple college courses through my community college while in high school. Probably different than taking classes at my current college, but at least I have some idea of what they’re like (sort of).

And yes, I’ll need Pell for fall/spring this coming year, but since summer is considered part of the 2014-2015 academic year at my college (the financial aid office did get back to me on that), taking summer courses shouldn’t affect my aid for next year.

Anyway, since I have a bunch of questions and am in a somewhat unusual situation, I’m going to call my school tomorrow and figure out whether taking summer classes is a viable option for me. I’ll also see if I can ask about my potential course load to see if it sounds doable or if I should cut some classes. (Apparently the office that I’m supposed to call deals with everything from financial aid to helping students figure out what/how many classes to take for their goals/situation, so that’s nice.)

So yeah, sorry for writing a book. Thank you all for your help and input. I’ll definitely think about the whole course load issue, but I think as I long as I really focus, I can do it and pull good grades. (I need to keep at least a 3.3 GPA in order to be in the Honors College and a 3.0 GPA to keep my scholarship, so it’s definitely not a decision that I’ll take lightly.)