Our estimate through CSUMentor in August showed us getting $11,117 in combined grant aid. My daughter just got financial aid letter from Cal State San Diego and instead we got nothing. I understand being off by hundreds or even an few thousand but off by everything. A friend of my daughter was estimated to get around $10,000. The award also showed nothing. Called school and couldn’t give me an answer. Did the “Dream Act” just kill our dreams?
Were you off enough that your income now exceeds the threshold for receipt of the Calgrant?
Perhaps the CSU Mentor was wrong? Either that or maybe you guys missed something on the FAFSA.
Students that don’t receive any grants or financial aid usually come from families that make around 90,000ish or more (From what I have heard.)
Here is the link to income eligiblity for Cal Grants:
http://www.csac.ca.gov/facts/2015-16_income_and_asset_ceilings_for_new_applicants.pdf
CSU Mentor does not even ask about assets so it is not very accurate. Do you or your child have significant assets? If you have a business it will not be accurate either.
The Dream Act is for undocumented students?
Does the student meet the requirements of AB540?
http://ab540.com/What_Is_AB540_.html
http://go.sdsu.edu/student_affairs/financialaid/californiadreamact.aspx
Our original estimate showed no Cal Grant money so I don’t have a problems with that.
Yes we initially entered that our income would be approx. 140,000. it was actually 133,000., but we have two other kids now in college which lowered our EFC to approx. 10,100 and no real assets. When we called SAN Diego States financial aid dept they advised that students don’t get aid until the EFC is around 5,000 meaning we would have to have 6 kids in college…rough. My daughters are U.S. citizens not eligible under the Dream Act but regular students.
I’m curious…what sort of Grant did you think you would be receiving…an institutional grant? Most need based aid in CA comes in the form of Calgrants. If you were not eligible for a Calgrant, I wonder what grant you thought you would be getting.
FAFSA efc is not what you get at CSU. You are not eligible for Pell grant, so I’m not sure what ‘combined’ grants would be. Did CSU mentor indicate you would get calgrant for actual income and family count? And what other grants? Max Cal Grant for CSU is 5,472.
At CSU and UC schools, this Cal Grant covers systemwide fees up to $5,472 and $12,192 respectively
If you look at the SDSU financial aid website under grants - you will see that if you aren’t eligible for CalGrant, there isn’t much else. you might still be eligible for ‘middle class scholarship’, but that amount won’t be determined until this summer. They do have a pretty good SDSU scholarship page where you can search for ones you might be eligible for. They require additional applications. We were also only offered loans at SDSU. Some on here say the UCs have better financial aid grants and they can even be cheaper than the CSUs. We haven’t gotten the packages from them yet to see if that is true for us.
Our initial estimate from CSUMentor was that we would be getting $11,117 in aid. $5645 from a Federal Pell Grant, $0 from a Cal Grant, and $5,472 in a State University Grant. At the bottom it of course said it was an estimate and not binding. It also said the State University Grant was based on the availability of funds. My only thought is that now the total amount available is being dispersed differently now that Dream Act students are included which would of course lower the threshold for grant. Now that the Dream Act is also federally honored I would think the same thing is occurring there. I just want to know but feel the school doesn’t want to say it because it is not politically correct to do so.
Something isn’t right. WHAT is your FAFSA EFC?
Full Pell grant with estimated income of $140,000?
How is that possible?
Our income freshman year for youngest was just under six figures. Our FAFSA EFC was just under COA, so we were eligible for subsidized Stafford loan.
That’s it.
Dream Act had nothing to do with it.
Stop bringing up Dream Act you are just confusing the issue, muddying the waters, it has nothing to do with you and you are just making stuff up.
Let’s face it, you made a mistake when you ran your numbers. I ran those numbers and it showed no aid. You are not Pell eligible (95% of Pell goes to families with 50k and under AGI), you are not Cal Grant eligible and I don’t know why they have a line for state grants as they are limited availability.
So nothing was taken away from you–you were never eligible. It is not off, there simply is no such estimate like that for those income and family numbers, sorry.
To be eligible for the full Pell, your EFC would need to be $0. To get the smallest Pell amount, your EFC cannot be more than $5000. Yours was $10,000. That would not make you eligible for a Pell…at all. Or the Calgrant…or any other grant that is given to lower income students.
And I completely agree. The dream act has not affected you at all. The eligibility guidelines for the Pell and Calgrant have not changed.
I can only say that we did the same thing we have done for the past two years with my older daughters and my wife is crazy anal with her figures. When we reran the numbers after getting the notice we also came up with zero and figured something came up to change the numbers. When I heard my daughter’s friend who was also supposed to get some aid received nothing, I figured something had changed with the formulas they are using. If nobody else is getting major differences, we probably did something wrong. Sorry to have taken up so much of your time.
What is the EFC for your two other children?
I haven’t had two or three kids in college at the same time ( so we’ve actually spent more than we would have otherwise), but with before tax income of $140,000, I would expect FAFSA EFC, to be at least $30,000, if not more, because it is often 1/3 of before tax income of over six figures, and 1/4 of before tax income for earnings of less than $100,000.
If you are self employed or have properties other than your residence, that won’t be the case.
This guide shows the calculations behind the EFC,
http://ifap.ed.gov/efcformulaguide/attachments/090214EFCFormulaGuide1516.pdf
As it does sound like something is off, but in my experience, college financial aid officers will correct your FAFSA, if something is wrong. ( although, they aren’t always correct in doing so)
Are your older kids getting need based aid from state schools?
If so, I would agree with you that it seems your next child in college would be eligible as well.
Especially if you then would have three kids in undergrad schools.