First you need to solve the problem of your loans. If Kaplan Withdrew your loans when you weren’t enrolled they committed fraud.
Second, it’s quite possible your degree, coming from a for profit school, will not be recognized for the Master’s. Prepare mentally for that. It is better for you to be taking classes at a ‘brick and mortar’ school once it’s possible.
Where are you planning to apply to for the Master’s degree? Do you need to take the GRE?
I am guessing the principal includes capitalized interest (if not, the school has overawarded the student).
You are out of Pell eligibility, which confuses me if you have only been in school five years. How many SEMESTERS have you attended school (maybe you were in school in summers back when they had year-round Pell)? If you only attended a total of 10 semesters, that is an issue.
Did they withdraw you after classes had started, or before? If they withdrew you before, they are obligated by law to return every penny of aid … they do not get to retain anything. Do you have an email regarding the withdrawal? That would be very helpful to have in order to prove the withdrawal notification date.
This all sounds so very wrong, although it’s possible that all of the aid that has been disbursed to date was disbursed within regulations. There is no way to know without all of the info. The first thing you should do is request a listing of all of your financial aid from the school: Date of disbursement, amount of disbursement, loan period, aid period (Pell). Compare this information to your actual enrollment to see if it matches up with reality.
I will have someone go over what the school has done but am giving up. I spend my days with veterans at the Veterans center here. I will simply keep helping them by listening, encouraging, and finding agencies they need for assistance. I enjoy it just got greedy and hoped to get paid for it is all. Instead, it costed me. At least I will be welcomed at the homeless center. Thanks for the information but I am simply too old to start over with 164 credits under my belt that mean nothing now. God bless all of you for what you do here.
And melanoma, the school claims to have no records, which, according to what I see is true. They have cleared everything butt this last month.
Oops kelsmom
Join a class action suit. -You won’t actually have to do very much.
Continue taking one class - at a community college, it should be rather cheap, and you’re very close to having a degree. Your plan is a good one, and indeed why wouldn’t you be paid for what you like to do?
Well the Depatment of Education should have records of which school they paid Pell grants and loan proceeds to in your name.
Can you contact your congressman’s office to help?
You are not greedy to want to work in a job to help others and get paid for it.
The Federal government does not pay Pells and loans without keeping a record of when it was paid, to whom, and on whose behalf. Agree with Mommdc’s advise to call the constituent relations person in your congressman’s office (there is actually an employee whose job it is to help the people in the district who run into trouble with a government program and they are especially attuned to the needs of veterans).
The school can claim to have no records- they can claim anything they want. But that doesn’t make it true.
You are never too old for anything. What are you- 45? In three years you’ll be 48. If you finish up your education credit by credit you will be 48 with a college degree, vs. 48 without a college degree. But you’ll still be 48.
Choice is yours. Big hug to you.
The school is required by law to retain your records - they should absolutely have all records related to your aid (the retention period for your records is still in effect). If you go to www.nslds.ed.gov, you will see the dates of disbursement for all of your aid. If you were not in school when aid was disburse, the school disbursed illegally. Please review the dates … do they match up with your dates of attendance?
I am going to add something here: There is a way to award financial aid that can cause you to run out loan eligibility relatively quickly … this particular method does not follow the normal aid year. If you take classes in the summer, the aid year can be set on two semesters, rather than the usual Fall/Spring/Summer. The result can be that a student exhausts eligibility faster than she would otherwise. It’s fine if the student is on track to graduate early, but it can cause students who are less than full time in those semesters to be out of eligibility without a degree. @Melanie111, if you did take classes year-round, this could be what happened …