I’m trying to access my UC Davis financial aid page and I have to authorize/decline the aforementioned before I can continue (why?).
Can someone give me the pros and cons of authorizing/declining for each thing?
You mean past vs. present vs. future charges?
You wanna approve present charges, cause you have to pay them anyways.
For past charges, I think they mean stuff that they should’ve charged you for but for some reason forgot to do so. You don’t wanna approve those, b/c it’s stuff you didn’t really plan for/weren’t expecting. So you might want some sort of payment plan instead of leaving your bank account blank in a snap. Who knows, you could even argue against paying it since it’s their fault. If you loose though, prepare to pay the charges.
Future charges cons: If you get student loans now, you don’t want to have a greater loan that will accrue even more interest since it’s an older loan. You want the loan for that year to pay for that.
Plus, if you get a new scholarship in the future, I don’t know how getting your $$ back would work. Most schools would give it back, but some might reduce your scholarship? It’s unlikely, but some schools have weird policies. Check first. Only pro: if you find yourself short on $ the next year, you’ll have your stuff paid for.
Title IV authorization is asking you if you authorize your financial aid to be credited to charges that are not tuition and fees. For example, you might be charged for a parking pass … if you say no to allowing your aid to pay for other charges, your aid will not cover your parking pass. If you receive more aid than you owe for tuition/fees, you will get a refund … but you’ll still owe for the parking pass. You’ll need to actually realize you owe that money, then you’ll need to pay for that yourself. IMO, it’s a pain. You need to pay for all your charges, anyway, so just authorize aid to pay for all charges.
For prior year: Federal aid cannot cover prior year charges in excess of $200. Let’s say you owe $250 from the prior year (spring or summer charges), 2015-2016. When fall 2016-2017 rolls around, the new aid you are getting for the 2016-2017 year cannot be used to pay for your charges from 2015-2016. If you don’t have money to pay that $250, your school may not allow you to be enrolled in classes … but if you had allowed 2016-2017 aid to pay off that $250, you would be able to enroll. I think this is also a good thing to say yes to, just in case.