<p>I would call my schools office but they're closed today. Anyways, my parents just got a new award letter from my university in the mail. It says they're being charged an additional $5,000 for Fall semester because I am only enrolled in 9 credits instead of 12. Wouldn't it make more sense for me to be charged less? I'm freaking out right now. My parents are furious with me. I would have never dropped my 4th class if I would have known :(
I go to a private liberal arts university in California if that helps.</p>
<p>Were you receiving any financial aid? If so, your 9 credits would NOT be considered full time enrollment, and you likely lost $5000 in aid because you dropped to part time status.</p>
<p>Yes I received a merit scholarship and one more that my university offered. I now lost them for this semester :(</p>
<p>If you lost the scholarships…then the bills need to,be paid by your family. I’m guessing the $5000 is what they owe.</p>
<p>That sounds about right. I feel so guilty :(</p>
<p>Why were you only taking 12 credits to start with? That’s not enough to graduate ontime in four years. </p>
<p>Did you take out a student loan? If not, go that route if needed.</p>
<p>I’m not. I’m taking an additional 6 credits online from a local CC since my university doesn’t offer online classes. Parents are against loans.</p>
<p>Are you attending two schools with the approval of both?</p>
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<p>Remember that you can only be matriculated at one school at a time. Did your current school approve the on line credits that you are taking at the CC, before you enrolled? If not, you may have wasted even more money because the school is not obligated to take them.</p>
<p>I am sorry that your parents are against loans, however, you will have to pay the current outstanding 5k or you will not be able to register for the spring term. As a freshmen, you can borrow 5500 in direct loans from the federal govt. My recommendation is that you “pay your half” by borrowing the 2750 to pay toward this term’s bill.</p>
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<p>Depends on the program and school. There are many places where taking four courses fall and spring for four years in a row is the standard full-time program to graduate with one major.</p>
<p>^^</p>
<p>I didn’t ask why she was only taking four classes. Of course I know that there are high credit classes where a person need only take four classes per semester. </p>
<p>I asked why she was only taking 12 credits, and then dropped a class and was no longer “full time” and lost her aid. This is a semester LAC and likely a student needs more than 96 credits to graduate.</p>
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<p>This is an important point. OP, read your private school’s course catalogue about taking credits at other schools and see what it says. Don’t make any assumptions.</p>
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<p>Sorry. I misinterpreted your comment. Many LACs only require four courses a semester to graduate in four years. Credit count can be deceptive because colleges assign credits to classes in different ways.</p>
<p>And…who is paying for those online classes at the CC?</p>
<p>Agree with others, you usually need to get courses taken at OTHER colleges approved BEFORE you take them if you hope to have them apply to your degree program. </p>
<p>Some schools do NOT take credits from other colleges once you are a matriculated student. My daughter’s private university did not. My son’s did, but only lower level general education courses and only with prior approval. Nothing in his major could be taken elsewhere.</p>
<p>Make sure you find out what is needed to maintain the scholarship going forward and take steps to meet that requirement going forward. I know my daughter had a couple that not only required full time enrollment but that a certain number of credits be completed each school year (on top of GPA requirements of course). One of her scholarships required 24 hours to have been completed, the other required 28. You need to make sure that you meet all the requirements.</p>
<p>For future reference, don’t drop any classes without first checking the ramifications with the FA/scholarship people.</p>
<p>Thank you all of answering a load of questions I never asked.</p>
<p>AEgirl, I hope that wasn’t a snarky answer. The posters above are answering the questions you SHOULD have asked.</p>
<p>Part of the answer is that you get more for your tuition $$ than classes. At the largest level, you get access to the entire college/university, including library privileges, a computer account, and so on. The library staff will work as hard for you as they will for a full-time student. The college where I teach has a wellness center that does not discriminate between students taking a reduced load and students taking a full load; every student is entitled to things like mental health counseling. At a smaller level, it costs the same amount to set up and maintain a student’s college records whether they are taking 3-hours or 15-hours. All these things add up. Obviously, all students do not take advantage of all these resources, but the school cannot know that ahead of time.</p>