Desperately Need College Advice! ASAP!!

[Lady Neysa]

So here it is....back in June we were told that all of our paperwork and everything was in order for our daughter to start college in the fall semester. We were given our payment plan, which we had worked into our budget.  All we needed to do was get her signed up for classes and buy dorm supplies.  Then, just this week,  only 2 weeks before her move in date, we get a letter with a revised bill that was over double what it was initially supposed to be.  Several frustrating, getting shuffled around phone calls later, we learn that she lost her Pell grant!  This wasn't explained in the letter...just 'here is your bill, pay up'....
Now we are in a tailspin.  All of our funding options have been tapped, the usual fafsa, parent plus,(which we were denied for)her merit scholarship,etc.   We've been told she can't apply for personal loans til she turns 18 in October, and even then I'm guessing she'll still need a cosigner.  Embarassingly, no one out there is going to let us cosign because of our credit. We haven't tried yet, I'm just assuming this will be the case. Will we run into the same thing with Sallie Mae? 

She can't just decide to stay home and go to community college, because they don't offer her major, and she doesn't need most of the usual freshman classes . She already tested out of those. She can change her major to another program for the first semester which would be totally covered in the funding we have. Then, if we can secure additional funding, she can change back to her original major. However, if we can't get her a loan I have no idea what to do.  What's the point in majoring in something you don't want to do just because it's cheaper? Sure, she can get a job, but she has no license or car yet, so while it could still be done, it would be pretty dificult.  We haven't looked at on campus jobs because it's a very small campus, and I don't even know if there would be any jobs.  (very small, smaller than the local community college.) It's so frustrating!  I hear and read all the time "don't let lack of money deter you from going to college, there's plenty of help and money out there".  Well, I'd sure like to know where it is and how we can get it. It seems like we are getting balked at every turn. 
The financial aid office hasn't been very helpful at all, not nearly as much as I would have thought they should be.
This stinks. My daughter worked so hard through high school in honors and AP classes, and for what? The thought of her possibly having to drop out because we can't afford it or get funding is making me sick. She deserves better than this.   

[scarletnyx]

If I may ask a few questions here ( as a former college student who was on the receiving end of those letters quite a few times )...

Did they say -why- they denied her Pell grant? Most of the time, its due to not getting a piece of paper in on time, but from how it sounds you got everything signed, sealed and delivered way ahead of that. They should have sent you a "award letter", detailing how much she got in grants this year.

Also, don't take -anything- the FA office says at face value. If they tell you the sky is blue, stick your head outside and make sure. I don't know if it has to do with increased competition from students trying to get funding, but FA offices are notoriously staffed with DMV-like people. My father passed away right before I went into college for the first time, and for some reason the FA office did not believe me ( despite listing the coroner's office on my paperwork, making a copy of his death certificate, and my mother's official status with the US Army as a "widow" ) that my father was dead so I had to carry around his actual death certificate for months in case someone from FA wanted to "validate it" again with me. It was utterly humiliating, and the sad thing is the incident didn't really end until a year later where kinda the same thing happened; thought I had a Pell Grant, did not, had to take out a loan that is currently zapping my finances.

This is going to sound cliche, but it is oh so true... Nowadays, most colleges do not work for the students best interests. They serve their board of trustees so they can bonus/pay their teachers extremely well. And if you somehow go against what they need/want at the time, then God help you. I will definitely be sending you some good thoughts in the next few days, this sounds stressful.. But just know that as long as you have that award letter, I really don't think there is a lot they can do against you.

[raevyncait]

I have never understood how the school could state that a student "lost" their pell grant $, but it happened to me, more than once. The federal agency notified me that I qualified for the full amount, but the school (UTA) wanted to spread their Pell $ around, so THEY only awarded me half of it. The summer after my first semester back in school, my mother was hospitalized for ALL of the second summer term, due to a circulatory issue that resulted in not one but TWO amputation surgeries (the original and a revision) and ended up having to drop my classes. I provided the FA office with full documentation, including all 52 pages of the hospital bill, surgeon's, anesthesiologist's, and several other bills related to her stay, showing dates of admission, surgeries, and discharge.  They told me it wasn't sufficient. In the end it took me getting hysterical, literally, and telling them that I would go get her from rehab and bring her up there, and unwrap her still-healing stump if they wanted more proof.
I also learned, the following March, that the ONLY  way to prove everything had been turned in on time was to turn it in, have them stamp it received with their little machine, initial it, then make me a copy of the stamped/initialed stuff. I still got screwed by their office every year, but I could prove that it was THEIR mistake, not mine.

The advice I have is
* do as I just mentioned, be sure to get a copy back from them AFTER they stamp it received
* do everything in your power to get funding withOUT loans... They will try to suck you in with "it's only $50/month, starting 6 months after graduation", but they don't point out that it's $50/month PER $whatever amount, nor do they bother to find out how much you already have borrowed or help you calculate just how much that's going to be per month once you're on your 4th year of loans...  When I graduated and was able to secure a position (in a better economy than the current one, but still not a fabulous one), I was making around $9/hour which gave me $1440/month before taxes and insurance. I was taking home maybe $500 every 2 weeks, to pay rent, utilities, car payment, fuel, etc., AND I had a $550/month student loan payment.
* Look into campus work-study programs, it was never successful for me since they always lost my paperwork, even when I could prove when I'd turned it in, but it provides some pocket $ and money towards school too, as I understand it.
* It is short notice, but is there other stuff she could take at community college closer to home, maybe her PE credits, sophomore basics,  and such that she could get out of the way so that there's a little more time to straighten out the problem?

[Lady Neysa]

I don't really understand it all, and personally I don't think the people in the FA office do either, based on how many times we were shuffled around, promised phone calls back that never happened etc. Either that or they just don't care about one student.  We were given an award letter back in MAY , stating that she had federal pell grant, federal supplemental grant,Perkins loan,subsidized and unsubsidized stafford, and a presidential scholarship.  The original fafsa done way back in dec or jan, was just an initial estimate, as our taxes werent done yet. Here's where I guess we screwed up. The form said to list all persons in the household currently in college.  We had to call and ask about our oldest daughter, who at the time was a full time student, but no longer our dependent. They told us to put her on the form anyway.  Then when we did the revised form, we were at some point informed NOT to put her on the form, and THAT is what changed everything. With the different formuala they used, we no longer qualified. They said we make too much money!  Yeah right, is that why we live paycheck to paycheck, barely?  We were completely unaware of this back then.  FA had the revised info when we visited in June, but the person we talked to must not have had the new info or something. They gave us a payment schedule, which stated the amount we would be paying monthly for the first semester.  We did get signed copies of everything.  We were told we were good to go. Then fast forward to now. I understand that the dollar formula changed when we took our other daughter off the form, but we were only doing what they told us to do!  But for them to only let us know this fact, TWO WEEKS before her move in date in inexcusable!  They darn sure should have told us back then so we would have had a little more time to come up with something.

[William the Braveheart]

Do you have an attorney? If you think you're being screwed over by the college, get a legal professional to make a few calls or send letters/e-mail's. A lot of problems like this seem to mysteriously vanish quickly when a lawyer makes an appearence. They know you're upset and mean business when they're contacted by an attorney.........