<p>My school has denied me aid for my student loans saying that even though I am 26 years old that if I live with my parent They count me as a Dependant student and or a student without housing costs. I was supposed to help by paying rent and it put My mother in default as she had counted on my being able to support myself . She is unemployed and disabled. They wanted a revision form stating that my housing situation has changed from that of living with my parent to living somewhere else and a formal letter from me stating how the housing changed and a letter supporting the information that I gave from my mother . I cannot move as I have to also care for her.Can they do this and is there any recourse .</p>
<p>???</p>
<p>Is this a community college? If not, what is it?</p>
<p>How much is your school’s COA</p>
<p>Did you submit a FAFSA? If so, what was your EFC?</p>
<p>Are you saying that they won’t let you take out a Federal Direct student loan?</p>
<p>For FAFSA purposes, I don’t think they can declare that you’re a dependent. However, if you’re asking for institutional aid, they may have their own rules for that.</p>
<p>It really sounds as if your student budget won’t support the loans you’re requesting because their COA doesn’t include room and board for students living with parents. Did they specifically tell you that you’re being considered a dependent student? That would be contrary to federal policy but would only lower your federal student loan limit. If you can’t take the dependent undergrad limit due to COA limitations, I don’t think it’s going to make a difference whether you’re classified as dependent or independent. </p>
<p>Did you ask what the procedure is for requesting a budget increase? If your mother writes a statement detailing your repsonsibility for paying room/board it’s possible the school will grant an increase since you are (or should be) an independent student.</p>
<p>Do a request for a budget increase, and focus on the fact that while you live with your mother your monetary contribution to the house payment is necessary in order for you to retain a place to live. They may make an adjustment, especially if they would increase your budget if you had to move because you lost the house to foreclosure.</p>
<p>could he bring some kind of lease/rent agreement between his mom and him to the FA office.</p>
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could he bring some kind of lease/rent agreement between his mom and him to the FA office.
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<p>ONLY if he’s PAYING them some money. If he’s living with his parents at no cost to him, I’m not sure bringing a “lease agreement” is going to make a speck of difference.</p>
<p>Some schools have three ways to compute cost of attendance
- Resident students (those living in college owned housing)
- Off Campus (those living in off campus housing but not at home
- Commuters (those living with their families at home).</p>
<p>Usually the cost for commuters is far less than the other two because the college assumes that the student bears no cost. If this student is a commuter, it might be that if they included loans, his cost of attendance would be above their computed cost of attendance.</p>
<p>Thank you for all the responses. We put in a request for an increase in loan amounts. We have not heard anything back. I am having to transfer schools because of this. Spring term,Many other students are having the same problem. They are unable to go to school or are leaving because of the aid issue. This is a com coll,that contracts with another com coll. They contracted with a different college last year and even though the cost of living was higher, it was so late and there were not enough staff to handle the aid issues correctly. It was actually a night mare. The paperwork was submitted to the school of attendance to the contracted school and then sent back to the school of attendance Because of the above the school of attendance got another school to contract with. This new school does not allow for much COA housing for anyone,does not respond to the requests or emails in a timely manner and does not give needed information access to the school of attendance, There is no access online to student financial aid information ie ;My award info amounts, or status, and the amount of aid was cut by over half. The school I will be attending gives the maximum after the age of 24 regardless of where a student lives unless they pay no housing .That com coll, said that it should not matter where the student lives as they are considered an independent student. We did not include the information about the default to the current contract school as it was bad enough that we had to tell them about my moms disability and personal info. It also appeared that as long as I lived with her, it would not matter if this would result in foreclosure as we had emailed her at one point stating that this would be the result. I wont go into any more detail but this has been so stressful I could have been an A student and instead have had to focus so much on financial aid issues, registration issues and surviving issues that my grades have been affected which caused more issues. Thank you all and the school is within its rights as you state with its own COA.The backlash from so many students being negatively affected is that the school of attendance says there will be changes (again ) starting with summer term. Which is to late for me.</p>
<p>I am so sorry to hear how all of this has affected you. It may be a blessing in disguise, in that you will be transferring to another school … perhaps it will be a better place for you in the end. I wish you the very best. Keep working you hardest, and you will find your success.</p>