I got a full ride scholarship at my community college for 2 years. In order to keep it, I had to join a club and attend a cultural event. I am on my second year and I figured, now that I have my classes payed for I don’t need to continue attending my club since I am transferring to a university in the fall. Today I got a call from my counselor saying she will revoke my scholarship and I will have to pay for the tuition unless I prove to her I fulfilled the requirements. Today was the last day of the semester and the deadline to pay for classes was back in February. Are they allowed to do that??
Of course they can!
It’s too bad that you didn’t fulfill the requirements of the award. Scholarships can come with conditions (GPA and so forth) and if they’re not met, colleges are well within their rights to rescind them. It’s unfortunate that you knew the conditions of the scholarship and chose not to complete them. At least you’re learning that lesson at a cc and not a more expensive 4-year school.
Did your counselor tell you that transcripts aren’t released to transfer schools until bills at previous colleges are settled? The college you plan to attend this fall may not allow you to register if there’s a financial hold on your records from your current school. You need to get that cleared up as soon as you can.
Did you file FAFSA for possible Federal Financial Aid for last semester? I think the deadline for 2014-2016 FAFSA is in June of 2015.
Of course the school can revoke that scholarship. YOU didn’t fulfill the terms of receiving it.
If you want your transcript released to your next university, you need to make sure your bills are paid. Interesting choice you made.
I would file FAFSA and get a loan, if you haven’t already.
When did you stop participating in the club?
YOU broke the agreement, not the school. You were expected to be in the club in order to receive the scholarship. The scholarship was for this year, and the expectation for you to be in the club was for this year. The expectation/requirement for you to be in the club ends when the covered period for the scholarship ended - the end of classes for this year, just like you were expected to attend classes if you wanted credit for those classes.
Sorry, but you now owe them the money. And to make it worse, your final transcript will not be released to the new school until payment or arrangement for payments is made.
While I agree that the scholarship terms needed to be followed, wouldn’t the scholarship have already been paid to the school by now? How can the scholarship people “take back” the money from the school?
It sounds to me like the scholarship was awarded by the school. The school can take back it’s own money from the OP’s account.
Did you quit the program as soon as the semester started? If you quit halfway through the semester (for example), and you can document that you at least partly completed some of the requirements, they might be willing to prorate the scholarship so that you don’t lose all of it. It’s still an unfortunate situation that you put yourself in, but it won’t be as bad as having to pay for everything.
What were the exact terms