School took making me pay back awards?

<p>So I got scholarships from UT Austin and it was a very good package. And then suddenly yesterday my business school informed me that they are giving me another scholarship - unexpected on my part.</p>

<p>Well, the financial aid office was not happy about that. They not only took that 2,000 dollar scholarship away that the business school awarded me, BUT charged me 1,500 that I needed to pay back and reduced my Spring semester awards.</p>

<p>I am so confused on what happened. So I just got penalized for winning another award and have to pay money back on top of not getting the award?</p>

<p>Can they do this to me? o.o I wasn't trying to hide any scholarships, I didn't even know about it! It was not even an outside scholarship.</p>

<p>Any advice on what to do about this?</p>

<p>Derp. Sorry about the title guys just noticed that. ^^;;;;;;</p>

<p>The scholarships and financial aid can not exceed your cost of attendance.</p>

<p>Can you detail the breakdown of all that you were first awarded…and then how it’s now changed?</p>

<p>COA:
EFC:</p>

<p>Old FA offer</p>

<p>Fall
grants
scholarships
loans
anything else</p>

<p>Spring
grants
scholarships
loans
anything else</p>

<p>New FA offer</p>

<p>Fall
grants
scholarships
loans
anything else</p>

<p>Spring
grants
scholarships
loans
anything else</p>

<p>The problem doesn’t seem to be that you’ve now exceeded COA, because if that were true, the school would just be removing the same amount as the amount that you were given. It sounds like a mistake was made…but maybe I’m not understanding. Fill in the above. Thanks.</p>

<p>My theory is that maybe they revoked a sub loan because the need no longer met the threshold. If that is true you can convert it to an unsub loan but you have to ask for that. This happened to us once. Just an idea…</p>

<p>I was originally offered work study at my school, but this was revoked when I got an extra $2000 from an outside scholarship, even though it was still below the total cost of attendance. This isn’t particularly unusual, I don’t think, to have a merit scholarship cut into need-based aid.</p>

<p>the strange part is that with this new award, the school is now demanding that he “pay back” some money. that’s what doesnt make sense.</p>

<p>Unless, the school had separately refigured his EFC, and took away a greater amount of need based aid, this doesn’t make sense.</p>

<p>OP, can you post the original aid package, as well as the new aid package? This is the only way we are going to be able to provide meaningful advice.</p>