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Just to be clear - I think you either misunderstood the award letter from the school, or there was information that was not clearly stated in the award letter that changes the equation. If the letter showed "unmet need" then your son was eligible for a Stafford loan in that amount. </p>
<p>If you have the financial aid letter available maybe you can pull it out again and look at the exact wording and post everything --because I have a strong feeling that the issue is that the award letter was not clearly understood at the time. This is understandable, because the letters can be very confusing. You may find this web site helpful (or scary) if you play around with the option to "decode" sample financial aid offers:
<a href="http://www.financialaidletter.com/%5B/url%5D">http://www.financialaidletter.com/</a></p>
<p>The problem with the example you are posing is that it doesn't sound like you ever contacted the college to request an explanation. That makes sense if your son preferred attending a different college -- but it does leave open the possibility that the award didn't mean what it seemed to say.</p>
<p>My daughter's financial aid award letter from the college she now attends didn't mean what it said, either. In my daughter's case, there was one additional contingency: at the time of applying we didn't know whether or not her older brother would be returning to college the following year. We filled out the FAFSA as if he would attend school -- but we didn't have the name of a college to provide. My daughter's college sent a financial aid letter that had the federal aid programs reflected based on the assumption that the sibling would be in college, but had the college's own grant calculated based on the assumption that he would not be in school. So I called the college to ask for clarification, and learned that if my son did in fact enroll full time in college, then my daughter's grant would be increased. </p>
<p>Obviously, it was a good thing that I made that call because there was nothing in that letter that would have tipped me off that there was a possibility of a larger grant. Quite the opposite: the letter actually said that I needed to provide proof of my son's college attendance in order to keep the award offered. </p>
<p>I think that most college aid financial aid officers are trying to do their best to comply with the federal regulations as well as their college's own rules and policies. I doubt that any college would try to cheat a student out of eligibility for a subsidized loan that he is eligible for. So I really do think that when it comes down it, the issue in your situation is that there was probably a misunderstanding of a confusing and poorly labeled letter. Somewhere in the mix there is an explanation that simply wasn't spelled out in the letter you received.</p>
<p>Or else the college made a mistake, or failed to follow the federal regulations. If they did that --then you have simply presented an example of a college messing up -- it would be kind of like debating whether the speed limit along a road is really 55 mph like the sign says when you keep seeing cars zooming by going 80. The fact that those cars are in fact exceeding the speed limit won't change the fact that the legal limit is something different.</p>