<p>There is a lot of information here so bare with me please. I go to UNC Charlotte and living on campus is extremely expensive considering the awful housing options they have available. I was hoping to get a nicer one this year, but I was pretty much told there is nothing "good" available anymore. I have a couple of health conditions that make it hard to room with other people, especially people I don't know. Even if I got a doctors order, there are unfortunately no more single living rooms for me to chose so now I need an apartment which will be MUCH cheaper anyway. The cheapest dorm they have (that isn't falling apart) is $3400 per semester and my meal plan (that you HAVE to buy) is $1550 per semester. I was awarded $14509 from Financial Aid for 2013-2014. IF I do live on campus, I'll only have $4609 leftover for the rest of the year, which does not even begin to cover Tuition, Fees and Books. IF I get an apartment (the most expensive one will still be cheaper for a whole 2 semesters. I dd the math over and over again) I will need about $9480 (that's rent and $200 a moth for food) for the entire to semesters, which is $6448 LESS than if I was living on campus. Is it possible to take that leftover $ that won't automatically go to Housing and Meal Plans and use it to pay my rent for a good portion of this school year?</p>
<p>You need to ask the financial aid office what your aid package would be like if you lived off campus. Talk with one of the directors, not just whoever answers the telephone first.</p>
<p>As Happymom says, you need to talk to the FInancial AId Director Some schools base financial aid awards on whether or not the student lives on campus and has the meal plan. If that student does not live on campus, unless this is okayed by the school specifically, the student can lose a portion of the financial aid. This is the case, I have seen, at some schools that have invested a lot of money in on campus housing, and they need to have students living it them. They are not about to “pay” students to live somewhere else. It does not make financial sense for them to do that.</p>
<p>The way a school applies grants and other proceeds that go into your account is by taking out the tution and fees first most of the time, and then what is left goes towards the room and then the meal plan. </p>
<p>I have a friend whose daughter got a scholarship that made it just possible for her to go to a certain college. When she let them know that she was not living on campus and not on the meal plan, they cut her award accordingly. They refused to budge. But it depends upon the school That it makes sense for YOU to live off campus isn’t going to cut it, if the school has need and goals that it is trying to meet and the aid you are getting from them is to help offset some of that. It’s not just the YOUR math that is at issue at times.</p>