<p>We had a tough year and were fortunate to qualify for some Pell Grant money. I was very surprised to see that my daughter’s college backed out that amount from their own financial aid package, so we would end up with the same amount of money as we did last year, although our EFC is down to almost nothing. I guess we were under the assumption that if we now qualify for a Pell Grant, we are in pretty bad need. Has anyone heard of this? I asked the financial aid person and he explained that there was a greater need for financial aid this year from other students, so they had to back it out.</p>
<p>If it’s a school that doesn’t promise to meet need, then it will use gov’t money when it can.</p>
<p>Your student is a returning student, so there’s little incentive for them to bump up her aid. When she qualified for Pell, the FA office simply reduced their money (which is precious to them) so that their money would be available for another student …likely an incoming frosh.</p>
<p>Some schools have kind of a max award policy…such as…the most our FA packages will include is XXX dollars. So, if some money comes in from elswhere (Pell in your case), then an adjustment is made.</p>
<p>I know that this must be very frustrating because it doesn’t make the school more affordable at a tough time. Can your D work over the summer to earn some money? Can a parent take an extra part time job to earn some money? How will you cover the gap?</p>
<p>I had something somewhat similar happen to me. Before I committed to the college, I was awarded with a Pell Grant $4500. After the final financial aid awards were calculated, the Pell Grant was dropped from my package, and a little over $3,000 was cut from the university’s grant.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, awards can change after verification, sometimes quite drastically. Today I completed a verification for a family that misreported just about everything on the FAFSA. By the time I finished, their formerly 0 EFC was over 13,000 (income increased, taxes paid decreased, and assets counted). All grants (totaling around $9000) had to be removed. I absolutely hate that part of the job … I know that they didn’t report things incorrectly on purpose, but it really shows the importance of following directions carefully to include the correct info based on the lines indicated in the FAFSA instructions.</p>