How is the pell grant dollar amount decided? (Going from full-time to part-time)

BillF · 11-26-2010, 04:35 AM

Does it go by credit hour?

I'm probably worrying over nothing but I'm going from a full-time (16 hours) to part-time (11 hours)

Right now I'm almost fully covered by grants. I know my grants aside from pell go by credit hour and should be fine because they'll adjust accordingly. I guess I just want to be certain that going from full-time to part-time won't effect my Pell aid to the extent that I'll be paying more out of pocket to be a part-time student than I would if I were full-time.

Now that I read what I wrote it seems silly. But I just want to be sure. Peace of mind.

Thanks

sk8rmom · 11-26-2010, 09:35 AM

Pell is also affected by your change from full to part time. You can find the award schedules here:

http://www.ifap.ed.gov/dpcletters/at...tSchedules.pdf

kelsmom · 11-26-2010, 09:59 AM

Basically ... 12+ credits=100% scheduled semester award. 9-11=75%. 6-8=50%. 5 or fewer=25%. If the EFC is relatively high for Pell grant eligibility, there may not be any payment at less than 12 credits, or there may be a payment that does not coincide with the percentages above. If your EFC is >4000, you will want to check the schedules for the effect of less than full time on your payment.

If any part of the award is in the 2nd 100% of Pell for the year, there are other rules, as well.

BillF · 11-29-2010, 11:54 AM

My EFC is literally 0.

Let's see if I understand correctly.

I actually found the webpage with my schools tuition rates.

12+ hours is $4,171
6-11 is $2,781

So if my total COA for the year is 21K. And I take away half of that from this semester I'm at 10.5K. With a tuition difference of 1.4K that makes 9.1K my estimated cost of attendance for next semester? Maybe a little less when you factor in less books and transportation. Let's just go with 9K for a nice number.

So would I now be looking at 3 quarter time? And that says 5550+ is 4163. Divide by 2 because it's for 1 semester = $2,081.50.

Or if I just multiply a full time pell by .75 I get $2,081.25. Wow, that was much easier. But the first way I get an extra quarter

So then I calculated everything correctly?

swimcatsmom · 11-29-2010, 12:01 PM

Yes, the max Pell for a 0 EFC is currently $5750 for a full time student., so a semester would be $2775. If you drop to 11 hours the Pell would drop to @ 3/4, so to around $2081.

kelsmom · 11-29-2010, 02:30 PM

Schools do have to take those pesky "cents" amounts into consideration! Some just make the first payment the dollar up & the second payment the dollar down; others use ".XX" in their calculations. The key is, the full payment cannot exceed the scheduled payment.

For most schools, this is the per-semester breakdown for 0 EFC:
12+=2775/2775
9-11=2082/2081
6-8=1388/1387
5 & fewer=694/694