I know no disrespect was intended. Financial aid can be a complicated thing. You’re smart to ask questions.
Save everything you find about the Excelsior. One of my kids lost their grant after their first semester because their advisor signed them up for a class they (mistakenly) thought was required. It was beneath my child academically so they dropped it. If they’d stayed enrolled they would have lost the aid because the class wasn’t required, but dropping the class also triggered the loss of the grant. According to the college catalog our child wasn’t even eligible for the class (based on test scores), so the college should never have allowed the class to be added. We copied that information from the catalog and used it our appeal. We won, but the process took months. If you can find rules pertaining to your situation, download them and save them in a file.