<p>I’m a junior at the University of Southern California. The only reason we can afford my tuition at this school is through massive doses of financial aid.</p>
<p>This past November, I got a bill from the school asking me to PAY BACK my federal grant and Pell Grant for the current semester (Fall 2013). In retrospect, I should have asked for help on here then, but the same thing had happened the semester before that and cleared up without trouble, so I foolishly thought the same thing would happen again.</p>
<p>After a few weeks had gone by, I grew concerned when the bill remained the same and went to the financial aid office to ask them what was going on. They told me that it was standard procedure for them to withdraw these grants and then put them back in, and that the reason these grants remained on hold for me was because I needed to have a U.S. permanent address filled out on my FAFSA.</p>
<p>The FAFSA has always let me put in a foreign address as my permanent address (my home in Taiwan) and USC, up till now, has always accepted it. The people I spoke to at the financial aid office said they didn’t know why this was happening either, just that that was the reason for the hold listed in their database. So I corrected my FAFSA, putting in a trusted friend’s home address (in the U.S.) as my permanent address. (It was either this or list my temporary on-campus address, which seemed even riskier to me.)</p>
<p>I made that correction on the 21st of November. I went to the financial aid office again right before I flew back to Taiwan for Christmas break on or close to December 14th. They said they hadn’t received my FAFSA correction, and it’s true I didn’t receive an email from FAFSA either confirming that my correction had been processed (although I don’t know if that email is sent out for every single correction). The FA office said to give it a bit more time.</p>
<p>It’s now been over a month, and I need to pay USC’s newest bill by the 10th of January. They still haven’t paid me back for my paying back my federal and Pell grants, and in this latest bill, they’re also withholding those grants for the next semester (Spring 2014). This is costing my family $20,000 that we really can’t afford, and I really don’t know what to do next.</p>
<p>I don’t know if the school’s not receiving my FAFSA correction because something’s wrong on the FAFSA’s end, or if it’s a problem on the school’s end. I don’t even know why this correction needed to be made, seeing as the FAFSA itself still accepts foreign permanent addresses. I’ll contact the financial aid office again as soon as I fly back, but I fear that I’ll just get another student worker who only knows what the computer tells her and won’t be able to help.</p>
<p>Has anyone else encountered anything similar to this, or can offer advice?</p>