<p>Your average estimated costs for tuition, fees, room, board, and books will be covered by grants and work study. Grants do not have to be paid back. Work study is earned through a job - which is why the website mentions short-term loans. Basically, the school will look at all grants & scholarships you receive (Pell, ACG, Michigan Merit/Promise Award, Michigan Competitive Scholarship, outside scholarships, etc) - they will kick in institutional grants & work study to cover the difference between what you have & the costs. I don’t know for a fact, but I suspect that the EFC (if it’s not 0) is expected to be paid by the family & the balance of the costs will be covered by grants & work study funds. In your case, the $10 shouldn’t be too hard to come up with. </p>
<p>Some students may choose to borrow unsubsidized Stafford loans to help with personal costs. There are no loans included in the money that is awarded to cover the tuition, room, board, fees, and books. </p>
<p>It does say it’s for students who are eligible for a Pell grant. Certainly a $10 EFC qualifies! It would say 0 EFC if that’s all it was for.</p>
<p>I am eligible for all of the grants you named so I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I’m eligible for this. It would make life so much easier lol.</p>
<p>I expect that you will get an award letter in the next couple weeks, and you will be quite pleased. Good luck! It may not be much fun to be low-EFC, but it is definitely a blessing to be able to take advantage of a program like this.</p>
<p>romanigypseyeyes: It’s nice, and a refreshing change, to see someone on the FA forum actually excited and appreciative of the wonderful opportunities available. Instead of complaining about what you can’t have, you’ve embraced what you can have in this thread. Yeah for you! With your positive attitude you will have an awesome experience at Michigan State!</p>
<p>Aw shucks lol. I am just kinda slap happy after realizing that I might be eligible for this after pulling a couple of all nighters to do scholarship applications. I think I should get my fin aid letter this week and I think I am going to take a break from scholarships until then so I can enjoy my last week of theater. Ah, bittersweet. </p>
<p>Thanks so much kelsmom for the info and rrah for the support :).</p>
<p>Not eligible, apparently :(. Got my financial aid package today, about $7,000+ in loans. Oh well, guess I just gotta keep chugging along with scholarships. </p>
<p>I am very surprised. I am wondering if you entered some info on the FAFSA incorrectly& the school adjusted it - were you verified? You may want to call the financial aid office at MSU to talk to them. I re-read the info on the program, and your description of your situation sounds like it fits in. Obviously, I could be wrong - but I think this is important enough that you should call and ask why you don’t qualify for Spartan Advantage.</p>
<p>I made a mistake. The poverty cut-off for 2008 is $17,600. I was looking at 2009’s which is $18,300. So, according to 2008, I made about $400 too much to qualify. $400 cost me about $7,000 in loans. It’s actually really depressing lol.</p>
<p>That really, really s**ks!!! I am so sorry.</p>
<p>Do look at the “true” costs of MSU. Add up the tuition, room, board, and fees. You may find that you only need a small amount of the $7000 in loans offered. You can get a part time job to help pay your miscellaneous costs during the term. It still may end up being a good deal for you.</p>
<p>Well, $3000 of my aid is in work study, so do you think I’d be able to have a part time job on top of that? (I’m the first in my family to go to college so I’m not entirely sure how that works…) Also, I am still working on scholarships, but that would only get rid of my loans and not the aid they’re giving me, right? </p>
<p>Oh gosh, I’m starting to freak out a little bit right now. </p>
<p>But, I honestly won’t mind graduating with ~$30,000 in debt. I mean, it won’t be fun, but it could always be worse!</p>
<p>The work study is what you’d do for your job - the financial aid office will let you know how to go about finding a work study job. It’s important to understand that you won’t get that money upfront to apply against your bill. You will earn money as you work throughout the year - so you may or may not earn the full $3000.</p>
<p>Scholarships may not necessarily reduce your grants. I work at a public university in Michigan, and we do not reduce grants when a student gets scholarships unless the student ends up getting so much in scholarship money that she is over-awarded (that is, if grants & scholarships are more than the cost of attendance). MSU may do it differently, but you can find out by asking. </p>
<p>Was your Michigan Promise Award on the award letter? That’s $1000 for the year. What about Michigan Competitive Scholarship? And are you eligible for ACG? That is $750.</p>
<p>I realized about an hour ago that it was not included and sent an email to the financial aid office (they must be getting sick of me by now lol). I qualify and sent in my thing for the Michigan Promise about 2 months ago, and I think I should be eligible for the MCS. </p>
<p>Ok, so the weird thing is, I was playing around with the MSU financial aid calculator, and for 08-09 aid, they used the 2008 poverty guideline income ($17600) so that would mean they are using the 2008 poverty guideline income for 2008 again for this year, or else I should have been eligible for it… I mean, I should be? </p>
<p>Btw, thank you so much again kelsmom for helping me. CC is the only place I can turn to for this type of help!</p>
<p>If I were you, I would call MSU and ask to speak with a financial aid officer. It sounds like you are really, really close to being able to get a fantastic deal - I wouldn’t just let this one go without asking a lot of questions. Have them take a look at your info & tell you why you don’t qualify.</p>
<p>The Promise award, MCS, and ACG are usually not on the initial award letter simply because the info is not all in place to be able to verify that you will actually receive those amounts - that will happen later in the summer. But if you know you will be getting those amounts, it can help in your financial planning.</p>
<p>I am glad to be of help. If you have any questions, you can always pm me.</p>
<p>So MSU emailed me back and said that they have no record of me being eligible for the Promise Scholarship. Now I have to go through the state of Michigan so they can find my records. I never thought it would be so hard to get an automatic scholarship lol. </p>
<p>After I get all of that worked out then I am going to file a Special Circumstances thing so that I can hopefully get more aid. I am losing my social security in June (which literally pays about 1/2 of our bills), and I didn’t realize that my parents had over $10,000 in unreimbursed medical costs last year because of my dad’s disability. Grr… I feel like these are things parents should tell their kids, but oh well. I hope that I can get more, because I really don’t want my parents to have to take out loans. Right now, my financial aid package has them taking out a little less than $1,000 in parent plus loans, but I don’t even want to put that on them. </p>
<p>But, on the upside, I received my first scholarship of $500. Well, technically it wasn’t a scholarship, it was a bunch of donations that the parents of children I have coached in a basketball league I started gave to the organization to help me out. I had no idea that the president of the whole organization had sent them all calls explaining my situation and they all sent in money to help. I think this will be without a doubt the “scholarship” that I am most proud of. </p>
<p>Anyways, has that Promise Scholarship thing happened to anybody else?</p>
<p>First of all, congratulations on that scholarship. Obviously, you are an asset to your community.</p>
<p>You have to certify your Promise scholarship for the school you want to attend. Actually, you may not even have been sent the paperwork yet - I can’t remember when it came for my D (she graduated a couple years ago). You have to certify it by November of this year. So they won’t know yet - not until the list is sent to them with you on it. Go to this website to see: [SFA</a> - Michigan Promise Scholarship](<a href=“http://www.michigan.gov/mistudentaid/0,1607,7-128-38193_44522---,00.html]SFA”>SOM - 404 - Page Not Found). The link explains the process. MSU wouldn’t put this on your award letter now, because they don’t actually know that you will get it.</p>
</p>
lol. </p>