Have been using this site for information for a while but this is my first post.Thank you for all being such a valuable resource.
My son is currently a freshman at University of Buffalo. We accepted all of the financial aid offered in August, had a payment plan in effect, I thought we were in good shape. I realize now that was probably a newbie mistake. Yesterday we received notice that our balance due has gone way up and in doing what research I can on a weekend, when no one is available to provide me any information, I am seeing that his TAP and Pell grants changed significantly. We were selected for verification back in March so I would have thought that if there were any big adjustments I would have been notified long before now. Is this normal? His TAP went from $3900 to $1600 and his Pell was reduced by about half as well. I know I will be able to get more answers on Monday through his financial aid office but it is super stressful and I am wondering if anyone could shed some light? Does financial aid get changed this much when students are 4 weeks into the semester?
No. An error was made somewhere… either by the school or by you when submitting information. It sucks that you have to wait the weekend to figure it out. Please let us know what you find out after you are able to contact the FA office.
Maximum [Url=<a href=“https://www.hesc.ny.gov/pay-for-college/financial-aid/types-of-financial-aid/grants/estimate-your-tap-award.html%5DTAP%5B/url”>https://www.hesc.ny.gov/pay-for-college/financial-aid/types-of-financial-aid/grants/estimate-your-tap-award.html]TAP[/url] is only ~$5165/year, so $3900 sounds like it was the award for the entire year. Both TAP and Pell are applied by semester so if the yearly TAP award is $3900, $1950 would be applied each semester. If you were chosen for verification, they might have reduced the aid by a few hundred dollars/semester. Have you logged onto the SUNY portal to see how the aid was split up? Is it different than the financial aid award letter they sent you?
Thank you. That gives me hope! As I said, we were verified and had our IRS return submitted back in March so it seems odd that all of sudden it is so different.I will let you know on Monday…
That was the annual TAP award. I have not checked the SUNY portal. I didn’t even know that existed as I have been only using UB website thus far. I will try that, thank you!
Yes, it is vastly different from the aid award letter we received but that was only the estimate. That is all we ever received and there are disclaimers everywhere that the awards can change. Ugh.
You can log on to HESC to see your TAP award
You could also log into your student portal to see your financial aid package.
As others stated if you have an award of $3900, it is for the school year or $1950 per semester.
If your award was adjusted due to verification, it went down from $3900 to $3200 ($1600 per semester)
Your PELL that you state has been reduced by half is paid out in 2 installments; half in the fall semester and half in the spring semester.
you are billed for everything by the semester
the direct cost (tuition, fees, room and board are about $20k) Even if you got full tap $5165 and full pell ~5800, you would need approximately $9000 (provided your did not take loans) or $3500 if they took the loans. this is not including books or other misc. items
His TAP award went from $1951 per semester, which was $3903 per year, down to $839 per semester. That seems like an absolutely ridiculous difference. The original Pell grant was $2633 per semester and $5265 per year. It is now reduced to $1482 per semester, and $2965 annual. He also was awarded a SUNY Tuition Credit that is now non-existent.
Did you check the numbers on your FAFSA as both the PELL and TAP are determined by the FAFSA. The school probably also requested a copy of your IRS transcript.
Is there any difference in your financials between that and what you put on the FAFSA that would have resulted in moving your EFC from close to 0 to almost 2k. Unfortunately the drop in TAP are big once you leave the 0 EFC I have seen packages where students have relatively low EFCs and were getting very little TAP.
Were there any changes in your household (child who was in college that is no longer in college) Assets, or monies contributed to a 401/403, self employment income?
Are you saying that you don’t understand the changes? You could check your son’s FAFSA. Any changes of Pell would require a FAFSA correction. You should contact the school if you don’t agree the changes.
Do you contribute to a retirement account like a 401k? If so, then maybe the contribution needed to be added back in. Do you receive any child support?
Can you go in and see if any of your FAFSA numbers were changed??
Thank you. I am checking the FAFSA. My husband took care of all of it initially and I need to check it for myself. The TAP and Pell awards we received initially indicated our EFC was $2822, not zero. His Federal Work Study award was $1200 and that hasn’t changed which seems weird because I thought that was connected to your Pell award somehow. Maybe I’m off on that. I really appreciate everyone’s advice. My brain is not capable of waiting until Monday when there is a chance I can reduce some of this confusion
Sybbie719- According the document you attached, our new and reduced Pell grant ($2962) matches the EFC that we received from the get-go. Why it was almost twice as high ($5265) on the award letter with the EFC of $2822 makes absolutely NO SENSE to me. I thought I was a fairly intelligent person and that financial aid awards from a SUNY school would be pretty straight up. I should have known better.
I checked the FAFSA, and in their system the Pell award has been $2962 since March 9th based on EFC of $2822. Our original FAFSA application made in Jan. used the prior year’s taxes, so it was an estimate, and our EFC was only $526, hence the higher Pell award of $5265. So the University made us TAP and Pell grant estimates using the EFC of $526 but the EFC printed on our aid award letter was $2822 so we didn’t catch it. I assumed it was updated. The SUNY Fastrack aid award letter is dated 3/11 and the FAFSA had been updated to higher EFC Feb.24. What I find really frustrating is that never were we sent any information that the award had changed since the financial aid package was made in March. That is incomprehensible to me. This is either a rare occurrence or there must be a lot of sorry kids out there packing it up when their aid comes through and they don’t have the money. It will be Ramen noodles for dinner in my house for the foreseeable future:( Hopefully the financial aid office will have some better news than I’m predicting they will.
I would have also expected that the financial aid award estimate in March would have taken into account the FAFSA update.
Did they have a financial aid priority deadline? For example they would base their award on the information received by Feb 15th.
When the FAFSA instructions say that you can estimate income so that you can file asap in January, you are not really supposed to use last year’s income, rather use the information on your paystub or W2 so that you can give the best estimate possible.
Your numbers must have been quite different if there was over $2000 EFC difference.
But you should have gotten a bill or a semester statement in the student portal showing all charges and credits from anticipated aid sometime after March and before now.
The good news is that on the FAFSA for next year 2017/18 that will be available to file Oct 1, the tax year 2015 will be used again. And you will have a better idea what your EFC should be.