<p>Fellow Commodores/Future Commodores;</p>
<p>My D knows this young lady well--and the Vandy Nation rises to the occassion. There has been $9,000 raised for her in the last 48 hours.</p>
<p>gofundme.com/bOgedg --Cassie Wessley</p>
<p>Correct spelling of her name is Cassie Wessely.</p>
<p>And the Vandy Nation steps it up big time! There has been another $3,000 raised since the posting two hours ago. Amazing what the 'Dores will do for each other!</p>
<p>I’m confused why she isn’t receiving financial aid? To me, it sounds like a discussion with the FinAid department would earn her some grant $$… Anyways, what an incredible outpouring of support from the Vandy community though. Hopefully she won’t have to worry about tuition for the rest of her time here.</p>
<p>Very glad for her, but it seems like Vandy financial aid has <em>significantly</em> dropped the ball on this case. No doubt that she has contacted the financial office herself, but I would expect more from a school that would not want a high attrition rate. All of this is bad PR for their financial aid - makes one wonder what they were thinking. </p>
<p>I’m making some assumptions about why financial aid has not met the need from the write-up she provided asking for support. </p>
<p>Prior to her mother’s passing, her financial aid was based on her mom as the custodial parent. Assumption - mother’s income supported her receiving financial aid.</p>
<p>Financial aid is for the fall is based on 2013 income. Her dad recently lost his job. Assumption - He is now the custodial parent so his income determines financial aid. His income in 2013 did not qualify her for financial aid. But they don’t have the money to pay her tuition since there is no income.</p>
<p>Financial aid for 2015 will be determined by her father’s 2014 income. Since he has lost his job, she may qualify for aid in 2015.</p>
<p>It appears she was caught in the middle of the financial aid cycle. An option she would have had was to sit out a semester until her aid started again. For personal reasons, I’ve asked questions about how financial aid is determined since we will see a significant change in income in 2015. We are also caught in the cycle that aid is based on the previous year even if there is a significant financial change.</p>
<p>I think that the financial aid office is just following the rules that ensures that they can validate the information that the student and family are providing (ie a tax return). </p>
<p>Is there anyway to verify her story before giving? </p>
<p>I heard about this story from D whose Peabody grad program Facebook group was discussing it. Evidently one of the posters in that discussion questioned how financial aid was going to react to this campaign, particularly in light of the fact that she has raised more than $10,000 in excess of the amount needed. I don’t know the answer, but it would be interesting to know more. </p>
<p>I’ve always heard that VU financial aid would take into account extraordinary circumstances, so it would also be interesting to know how the situation got to this point. While dad may be out of a job, the stepmom may have a generous income or the dad and stepmom may have assets they are unable or unwilling to use in light of the dad’s situation. I’m not judging, but just saying there is probably much we don’t know. </p>
<p>This appeal also got some play over in the Parent Cafe in a thread about a couple who is crowd sourcing their dream wedding which is well beyond their means. At least in this case, the cause seems more worthy than funding a wedding which is based on the bride & groom’s choices that go beyond their financial means.</p>
<p>The young woman certainly seems like she is grateful and overwhelmed by the response. She mentions that she’d like to pay people back in one of her posts, but I imagine most would just like to see her pay it forward when she is in a position to do so. I wish her well.</p>
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<p>If this was the case, her financial aid situation could be corrected simply by contacting the financial aid department. Your aid is based on the previous years taxes, yes, Vanderbilt will recognize and accomodate any changes in income. This includes unemployment, one-time bonuses, withdrawal from a retirement account, etc </p>
<p>In the case of unexpected unemployment, they send you a form to predict your income for the year and adjust financial aid accordingly. It’s that simple. I know it because I’ve done it. </p>
<p>Maybe there is something more to her story, as @2VU0609 suggested. Perhaps her step-mother has one of those tough financial situations that gives them an EFC they can’t afford. Regardless, I do kinda worry that the lack of information is giving Vanderbilt’s financial aid a bad name, when it is simply top-notch. There has been a lot of negative feedback on social media about how Vanderbilt has treated her – even a post in this topic – and I don’t think it’s deserved. Hard to say without more info.</p>
<p>Update: One of my friends just spoke to her about her options on Facebook. Turns out she originally had no idea she could make an appeal-- she got her financial aid package, asked the department why there was so little aid, and just accepted it as their final decision. She just learned about the appeal process for unemployment/income changes. Kinda sounded like Vandy reached out to her about filing an appeal when they saw the GoFundMe campaign. She plans to submit the appeal form. I have no doubt that Vandy will cover most of her costs. Hopefully she posts an update to let everyone know that Vandy came through for her.</p>
<p>Who knows what will happen with all the extra $$. It’s her’s to keep, though she may feel morally obligated to give some back. Great story about the Vandy community regardless.</p>
<p>Pancaked - Thank you for the clarification. That makes more sense. </p>
<p>Pancaked, everything you guessed was 100 percent accurate. We expected to be responsible for part of her tuition last year (because Daddy’s income was not invisible in the application). Since we had no tuition to pay, we instead paid to send and full board her horse for her since we thought during the rough months after her Mom’s death she would need her horse. Then, again we expected to be responsible this year, we just didn’t expect the number to be so high and for my husband to be out of work. And as you stated, we are hesitant to get rid of assets because things will be tight if not impossible on my income alone. We had suggested to Cassie that perhaps she should transfer to a state school as the money in her college fund, the money she made and a student loan would easily take care of the costs. However, her emotional state has so improved with the support she received at Vandy that even we didn’t really want this for her. She wanted to at least give the GoFundMe a try. This is a darling, and giving young lady and she in no way had anything in mind but to stay another year. If the fund allows her to not only attend but saves her on incurring debt, I can not think of anyone more deserving.</p>
<p>Totally understood-- thanks for posting here. I do think Vanderbilt perhaps needs to be more clear about what to do in the case of unemployment or income changes. When it happened to me, I didn’t know there was an appeals process either. We couldn’t afford what we were expected to pay. I just called the financial aid department to find out what my options were. They were extremely accommodating and made it possible for me to remain at Vanderbilt. </p>
<p>It’s clear that Cassie had nothing but the most honest and pure intentions when she made her GoFundMe, but it all may have been unnecessary. Based on the change in income alone, her aid should increase significantly when Vanderbilt adjusts the award. Of course, without knowing all your financial information, it’s impossible to say how affordable the adjusted package will be. Plus, this income from GoFundMe could really complicate financial aid for the year and will certainly reduce financial aid in future years. </p>
<p>However it works out, looks like Cassie is set to remain at Vanderbilt, which is fantastic. With all this media attention, I just hope she makes an effort to clear up the full story of what happened – that Vanderbilt systematically and frequently adjusts financial aid for anyone who has changes in income, and she was just unaware of the proper avenues for making an appeal. The story is just coming across like Cassie was mistreated by Vanderbilt, kicking her while she was down, and that’s of course not what is going on.</p>
<p>Cassie is HUGELY concerned about the same thing. It doesn’t seem like any way she explains it that anyone gets it. She LOVES her school. We didn’t qualify for aid. Period. We knew it was coming. </p>
<p>I understand that this has been covered on the Today show and I also see that Cassie is $20,000 beyond her goal. I feel awkward asking this, but this is certainly not a typical situation. Why does the appeal remain open and what will she do with the extra funds? I am not asking in a judgmental way, but rather out of curiosity. Recently there was a segment on CBS Sunday Morning about how Zach Braff crowdsourced his latest movie and raised an amount well in excess of the goal and the same thing has happened with Reading Rainbow’s appeal. Obviously, those are more commercial endeavors, but I am just interested in understanding why the appeals don’t shut down when the goal is reached and what is done with the extra funding.</p>
<p>If I’ve overstepped, I apologize, but I suspect I’m not the only one wondering about this both specifically and in general.</p>
<p>If they include the GoFundMe income in their appeal, then Vanderbilt will account for the money and make a fair adjustment. However, my appeal only asked for the parent’s expected income, and this income should be all Cassie’s, so I don’t know. Clearly Vanderbilt knows about the GoFundMe $$. I suspect VU and this family are working closely to get everything sorted out.</p>