<p>This is ridiculous. The morning of that financial aid was supposed to be applied to our accounts, I got an email that my Sub loan had been reduced, because I had to drop down to part-time. I expected this, but the amount it was reduced to was too much. I had gotten a professional judgment increase for housing costs (finally!), but then they reduced the sub loan down to part time and they took away the housing adjustment, which I had been told would not happen. This is the day of disbursment! So I called, actually it took three calls before anyone would do more than just say, sorry, its because you dropped a class. Finally, I spoke with someone who actually looked at my information, and that financial aid counselor said I was right, they should not have taken away the housing adjustment. So she added it back in, but its never that simple. It had to be done as a supplemental award. Even though she said it would still be disbursed on time, that amount was missing from the initial disbursment. So I called the counselor back and she said it would be included in the next disbursment, which should be next week. Thats fine. Web services has been down since before disbursment, but I was finally able to log in today and check everything. That housing adjustment was part of my Sub loan, but when she redid it on Friday, she did it as Unsub! </p>
<p>I have no idea how they can fix this. I do not want to delay the disbursment even further, so I don't think I will call the counselor until after I get my refund next week. Surely they can fix it, they took my Sub loan down to almost nothing when they shouldn't have.</p>
<p>What is your cost of attendance as a part-time student and what is your EFC? It sounds like your COA decreased to the point that your need (COA-EFC) would not support the entire amount as a subsidized loan. If that’s the case, I’m pretty sure they can’t change it from unsub. I don’t think they can change it after it’s disbursed so you really should ask about it now.</p>
<p>When a school changes your financial aid award, you are sent this. AND you have to accept the award(s)…did you get an amended award and did you accept it? Where my kids went to college, UNTIL the student accepted the award, it was NOT disbursed. One of my kids had an error on an award. We looked at the first one and knew it was wrong. Kid did NOT accept that package at all and instead contacted the financial aid department. They made the correction with the corrected AMOUNTS. Kiddo then accepted the portions of the award she needed. </p>
<p>You should have received an amended award with a date for acceptance of the award. Did you get this…and did you look carefully at it? Your post makes it sound like this is all happening the day before disbursement. If that is the case, call the financial aid department and inquire.</p>
<p>If you have dropped to part time status, your financial aid award cannot reflect full time cost of attendance money…it just can’t. This may be part of your issue.</p>
<p>Actually schools do it differently and not all schools physically send notification of awards. My daughter’s school never sends any paper notification. All the awards are online on the financial aid page of her student information account. And some parts she has to accept (also online) while some parts are automatically accepted for her by the school ( for instance a state grant). There have been several occasions when her financial aid has changed after she has accepted it. Usually it is changed on her student page then at some point she receives an email telling her about the change. And again sometimes she has had to go and accept a change (especially if it loan related), sometimes not (when a loan has changed to a grant, which happened one summer and we did not even realize = nice surprise).</p>
<p>That aside, changing to part time can and does have an impact on financial aid. Certain grants such as the pell will reduce if you are less than full time even if your need is not met. And loans may be affected as the COA is based on full time enrollment. </p>
<p>The impact on FA of changes in enrollment status is something students need to be very aware of. Even dropping a class before a certain point during the semester can impact aid and reduce aid for the next semester or even make some aid have to be repaid. My daughter only ever dropped one class and I made sure she went and talked to the FA people before she did it to make sure she was not going to have some unexpected repercussions down the road.</p>
<p>Agreed…notification of aid doesn’t have to be on paper. And to my knowledge NO SCHOOL would automatically accept a loan on a student’s behalf. The student would have to do so…whether online or on paper.</p>
<p>I do not believe the school will disburse a loan until the student ACCEPTS it as a form of aid.</p>
<p>Perhaps one of the finaid officers can clarify.</p>
<p>If the student requested in writing that the aid be increased to COA, and if there was no sub eligibility for that increase, the only way to increase to COA would be with unsub. The aid officer might have interpreted the written request as approval to accept unsub on the student’s behalf.</p>
<p>I do not accept loans on the student’s behalf (the student must accept electronically). However, I will increase/decrease an accepted loan with the student’s written consent for the revision.</p>
<p>As noted in my other thread, I had been asking the financial aid counselors about any possible adjustment since I had lost my job. Finally I heard back from one of them that they could do a professional judgment for a housing cost increase of $1000 Subsidized per semester. I received email notification of that supplemental Subsidized award and accepted it. Then the day of disbursment, I received an email saying my Sub loan had been reduced because of my drop to parttime status, which I knew was going to happen. I had already been told that my Sub loan would be reduced by $503 per semester because of the dropped class. Instead, it was reduced by $1503 per semester; which meant they had taken away the supplemental award they had just given me. I called and the FA counselor said, yes, that is what happened and that it should not have happened. She fixed it, I received another email notifying me of the award, but it was just a duplicate of the first email I had received for the award I had already accepted, there was nothing new for me to accept. Then the web services website, which has all the awards and payment info, was down for several days, including the date of disbursement. As soon as the site was up, I logged in and saw that I am now getting a $1000 Unsub loan instead of the accepted $1000 Sub loan. That’s where I am now. </p>
<p>This was the school’s mistake, per the FA counselor. The award was given and accepted as Sub, then mistakenly taken away. I don’t know why or how it was then given back as Unsub, because all the FA counselor said she did was reinstate the erroneously removed $1000 Sub loan. With the system down for four days, I had no way to know that had happened.</p>
<p>Just to add, I’ve been trying to get a counselor to call me back about this, but as usual, I cannot get a return call or response to my emails. I do not want this to result in another delay in disbursement, not when the school made the mistake in the first place. The morning of disbursement, when I first got the email with the incorrect reduction in my Sub loan, I started calling immediately. I spoke with several counselors that would not even pull up my student information; they just kept repeating that it was all because of my drop to parttime status. Even when I told them that I knew it should be reduced but that the amount was incorrect, no one would look at my information to verify that I had gotten a supplemental award. Finally I reached a counselor that did pull up my information, and she immediately saw the mistake and said she would fix it and that it would be fixed in time for the first disbursement. Well, it was fixed, but still not correct, and it was not included in the first disbursement. Now I cannot get even that counselor to return my calls. </p>
<p>Since this wasn’t my mistake, I truly hope it can be fixed, and without delaying the disbursement. I have been proactive to a fault in trying to make sure I’ve done everything I was supposed to do to get my FA on time and correctly, so I don’t think I should be penalized for their mistake. Even if they end up disbursing the aid incorrectly, it needs to be corrected. I can’t do much more than attempt to reach them.</p>
<p>So you received a budget adjustment of $1000 per semester for housing, but did not get/request professional judgement to reduce your EFC based on your job loss, right? After dropping one 3 credit hour grad course, you are now considered a part-time student and they said your COA would be reduced by only $503 per semester - this seems very low for a grad level class…are you sure that it’s not $503/credit hour dropped?</p>
<p>I think that you should go in to the FA office and have a face to face meeting and take your notes/emails from previous discussions. You need to get your current COA (including the budget adjustment) from that person and do two quick calculations to make sure that COA-EFC=sub loan and that sub+unsub=COA. If it doesn’t, they should fix it immediately. If it does, you’re stuck with unsub loans unless you request they use professional judgement to reduce your FAFSA income. That will result in a lower EFC and more eligibility for subsidized loans. You may want to take documentation of your job loss and current income with you.</p>
<p>I’m not sure it’s worth going through endless adjustments to switch unsub to sub though. I believe the rate is the same for both and, if you’re only a grad student for this year, the difference would amount to $68/thousand.</p>
<p>Every counselor I spoke with said that reducing my EFC would not result in more FA because I was already awarded at COA, whether thats true or not I don’t know, but I gave up on that because no one was willing to make any changes on my EFC. I did get the professional judgment for the housing cost. $503 is the correct reduction for dropping one class; that was the reduction that was made last fall and that was the amount I was told it would be reduced by for this semester too. </p>
<p>Since the supplemental award was already awarded as Sub, I’m not sure why I should have to do anything to get this corrected. I have the documentation that it was initially awarded as Sub. I know its not going to make a big difference, but I think they should correct their mistake. If I had forgotten to dot an i or cross a t, my aid would have been delayed and I would have to fix the error; so should the financial aid office.</p>
<p>Changing your EFC may not result in more aid (loans) but it would change the amount of subsidized loans vs. unsub. COA-EFC=need…you can only get subsidized loans for a max of $8500 or your need.</p>
<p>I’m not saying they shouldn’t fix their error but, at the end of the day, it’s you who have to pay the extra interest charges if they don’t. It sounds as if they had awarded you correctly the second time around, but you dropped a class and that changed things. If it were my money, I’d take the hour to get it straightened out in person.</p>
<p>I didn’t mean I shouldn’t have to ask them to fix it or go in person, I don’t mind doing that. I didn’t think I should have to provide any documentation or anything, besides the award letter showing I was awarded the $1000 as a sub loan. If I haven’t heard back from anyone by Tuesday I will go to the FA office. I think the second disbursment is Tuesday, so by then it will probably be in my account, and I just wasn’t sure if they can fix it once that is done. </p>
<p>The counselor I spoke with said my EFC would have to be reduced to zero to make any difference in sub or unsub, and she said that wouldn’t happen because I did make some money last year. I’ve asked at least three counselors about reducing my EFC and they either really don’t think it will make a difference, or they just don’t want to do it. I would be interested to know how much, if any, difference it would make in the amount of sub versus unsub, but I gave up on that. </p>
<p>Thanks for the help, I will hopefully get this resolved soon.</p>
<p>This does not sound right at all…EFC does NOT have to be 0 to receive max sub loans and it’s not a complicated formula! Was this a professional in the FA office?! I would find a more knowledgeable/experienced person to talk to!</p>
<p>Good luck and please let us know what you find out regarding changing the unsub to sub post-disbursement…it’s a question that I don’t remember ever seeing before!</p>
<p>Yep, it was one of the counselors, not an assistant. I’ve talked to several counselors and she was the only one who even gave me a partial explanation; the others just said “it won’t make a difference” and that was it. This is why I really believe they just didn’t want to make any adjustments, because they obviously were just trying to get me to stop asking </p>
<p>This has been a good lesson for when my son starts the college application process in two years. I’ve never been so frustrated as I have with this financial aid office, so I’m going to try to learn as much as I can about what he needs to do before he starts filling out paperwork.</p>
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