How to Avoid Losing Your Funding
If you earn average or better grades, complete your courses each term, and finish your program or degree on time, you should have no trouble maintaining your financial aid. It’s a good idea to check with the financial aid office before you drop classes to make sure that you will not lose any aid.
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Some types of aid, especially scholarships, require that you maintain full-time enrollment and make satisfactory academic progress. Dropping or failing a class might jeopardize all or part of your financial aid unless you are enrolled in more credits than the minimum required for financial aid. Full-time financial aid is often defined as twelve credit hours per term. If you initially enrolled in fifteen credit hours and dropped one three-hour course, your aid should not change. Even so, talk with a financial aid counselor before making the decision to drop a course, just to be sure.
Remember that although the financial aid office is there to serve you, you must be your own advocate. The following tips should help:
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- File for financial aid every year. Even if you don’t think that you will receive aid for a certain year, you must file annually in case you become eligible in the future.
- Meet all filing deadlines. Students who do not meet filing deadlines risk losing aid from one year to the next.
- Talk with a financial aid officer immediately if you or your family experiences a significant loss (e.g., loss of a job, death of a parent or spouse). Don’t wait for the next filing period; you might be eligible for funds for the current year.
- Inquire every year about criteria-based aid. Many colleges and universities have grants and scholarships for students who meet specific criteria. Such aid might include grants for minority students, grants for students in specific academic majors, and grants for students of single parents. Sometimes a donor will give money to the school’s scholarship fund for students who meet certain other criteria, even county or state of residence. Determine whether any of them fit your circumstances.
- Inquire about campus jobs throughout the year because jobs become available after the beginning of the term. If you do not have a job and want or need to work, keep asking.
- Consider asking for a reassessment of your eligibility for aid. If you have reviewed your financial aid package and think that your circumstances deserve additional consideration, you can ask the financial aid office to reassess your eligibility. The office is not always required to do so, but the request might be worth your effort.
STEPS TO QUALIFY FOR FINANCIAL AID
- Enroll half-time or more in a certificate or degree program at one of the more than 4,500 institutions that are certified to distribute federal financial aid. A few aid programs are available for less than half-time study; check with your department or college to see what your options are.
- Complete the FAFSA. The first FAFSA that you file is intimidating, especially if you rush to complete it right before the deadline. Completing the FAFSA in subsequent years is easier because you need to update only items that have changed. To make the process easier, get your personal identification number (PIN) a few weeks before the deadline. You’ll use this same PIN throughout your college career. Try to do the form in sections rather than tackling it all at once. Most of the information is basic: name, address, driver’s license number, and things you will know or have in your billfold. For most undergraduates the financial section will require your own and your parents’ information from tax materials. If you are at least twenty-four years of age, married, have dependents of your own, or are a veteran, your tax information (and that for your spouse, if married) will be needed.
- If your school or award-granting organization requires it, complete the College Board Profile form. Review your college’s admission information, or ask a financial aid adviser to determine if this form applies to you.
- Identify any additional applications that are required, such as scholarship applications with personal statements or short essays. The organizations, including colleges, that are giving the money will provide instructions about what is required. Most have Web sites with complete information.
- Follow all instructions carefully and submit each application on time. Financial aid is awarded from a fixed pool of funds. When money has been awarded, usually none is left for those who file late.
- Complete the classes for which you were given financial aid with at least a minimum grade point average as defined by your academic department or college or the organization that provided you the scholarship.