Ultimate FAFSA confusion

Alright , ill probably sound stupid but i financial aid office isnt offering any answers to my questions so might as well try right? So i got my confirmation from the FAFSA website saying that my pell grant should be around $5,750. All cool and dandy BUT i was awarded 2,803 for the summer semester . The question now is do i get another x amount of money for my last semesters or am i done with the pell grant money completely or do i get some every semester???

There are a limited amount of semesters you can receive Pell. @Kelsmom is a financial aid officer, so she can probably tell you how summer sessions affect Pell lifetime eligibility.

The pell grant i received for the spring was titled “Spring 2017” which kind of caused all the confusion as in if ill be getting more or not

@juliaaleeah

  1. Why are you going to summer school?
  2. Is the summer 2017 term part of the 2016-2017 school year...or part of the 2017-2018 school year.
  3. Were you a full time student all of the 2016-2017 academic year?

@kelsmom correct me if I’m wrong. I believe the Pell is an annual amount. If the Pell is awarded for the summer term…the student won’t get as much diringnthe academic year. Is that correct?

  1. I missed my enrollment by 1 day and had to do 03/20/2017 classes so that counts summer
  2. 2016-2017
  3. I just enrolled (had issues finding paper work for a good minute)

If your summer pell was part of the 2016-2017 school year and you got pell fall 2016-2017, then you may have exhausted your allocation for the year.

Okay but it was written in as spring 2017 so thats what had me confused

You can only get $5750 innPell moneynfor the full 2016-2017 academic year.

How much did you get in the fall 2016, and how much do you have for the current term.

Any Pell money you get for,the fall will reduce the amount left available for the academic year.

I still don’t understand why you need to take summer classes. You say you need to do 3/20/2017? Is your school on semesters or quarters.

A term beginning in March is NOT usually a summer term.

My campus goes by semesters, I never got anything for fall 2016 due to me not actually enrolling at the college until February. For spring 2017 they awarded me 2,803 and fafsa said i would be eligible for 5,750. The current classes i am registered for begin 3/20/2017 due to me not having been able to enroll for the 2/21/2017 classes (my fafsa kicked in but my school suddenly couldnt find my test scores anymore which then resulted in me not being able to register fro classes)

Sorry , i got confused earlier. I meant quarters. I have about 1,400 left out of the 2,800 so that should cover another quarter of classes and books but then after that quarter ill probably have to take out a student loan to cover the rest of the school year unless of course i get more FAFSA. Currently my FAFSA is covering literally nothing but classes and book (I still need more book so its not even fully covering those at this point) . So really the whole reason i asked in the first place was just for me to figure out if i have to figure out a student loan situation or if everything will be taken care of.

Fafsa gives out NO money. It is a financial aid application form.

The Pell Grant is awarded based in your FAFSA EFC. You can’t get a nickel more than what you are entitled to.

You need to go to the FA office and ask how they split up your Pell grant. For a school on semesters, it is usually half in the fall, half in the spring. For a school on quarters, they usually split it in thirds with nothing for the summer unless you request it. Because you didn’t use the fall, you can probably roll it over to the summer quarter.

Remember the amount you received is for full time. If you are only 3/4 or 1/2 time, you’ll get less even if there is still money in your pot and even if the school costs more than you receive. GO to FA and ask them to go through it with you on your bill. They may be able to help you maximize your Pell grant.

My current EFC is 00010 and I am currently a full time
Student. Thank you, I’ll definitely be going there next Monday to see what they say about this whole situation. I haven’t been able to get any real answers thus far from them so I guess I might just have to speak to another rep there . Thank you so much for trying to explain this entire fafsa thing to me because I have absolutely no idea how any of this works

I am confused. An EFC of 10 does not receive a Pell grant of $5,750. There is no annual award of $5,750 for Pell. In addition, $2,803 does not make sense with a $5,750 award, anyway.

You definitely need to talk to a financial aid officer.

Okay EFC for 2016-2017 is 00020 and then one for 2017-2018 is 00010
Pell Grant for this year was $5765 and my Grant was titled “Spring 2017” and was a total amount of 2,883.
Ive tried calling my FA office all morning no one is answering or i get hung up on. I went by yesterday but they were already closed. My emails arent being returned at this point either so im not sure what to do .

Im just not sure if i am able to get the rest of the grant to cover the rest of my classes or if ill have to take out a student loan but none of my questions are being answered by my FA office.

How can quarters start one month apart. Sounds more like 12 sessions or a flexible year schedule. What kind of school is this? My thought would be that classes starting in March are in fact considered spring and not summer. I do not see how Spring starts in late Feb and Summer starts in late March. 2883x2 is 5766 so it is clearly half of your Maximum grant which is 5765. It may be half because you did not go to school in the Fall. The 5765 is for one year full time as defined traditionally as 2 semesters or 3 Trimesters. You need to ask the FA office three questions. 1. What sessions starting with what dates do they consider 2016-2017 and what sessions with what starting dates would be 2017-2018. 2. What is the next session you can enroll in. (If your are in a later starting semester, do these courses end in time for the first summer semester dates or is it a later one). 3. How many semesters do you need to be full time. You may not have enough semesters in 2016-2017 to use the full grant amount. Depending on the start date, your next set of classes may be in 2017-2018 and you may need to get a new Pell grant for the new year. Have you done the second year FAFSA yet?

I think that March term is a spring term. $2883 is half of your Pell award.

My DD’s school was quarters. Fall was Sept, Winter was Jan and Spring was March. Summer was June.