I hear you. But it is very possible that your aid was disbursed and the timing was such that the correct an overage was disbursed to you. In other words,…you dropped a course…but the amount was incorrect because you had already dropped a course. Is that possible?
Try the financial aid office again, ask to speak to someone higher up if they give you the first person gives you the runaround.
@thumper1 I’m looking at my transcripts and I have 4 classes for the semester. So I don’t think would be the case
@annoyingdad thank you I’ll keep asking until they give me someone who can really prove their was an over payment
alisa- if your defense is that it was a long time ago and they should have caught it earlier that is not a defense. Based on what you’ve posted, it is entirely possible that you received government funds to which you were not entitled (i.e. money paid on your behalf to the college for a course that you didn’t end up completing). This is going to follow you around regardless of where you try to enroll in the future.
You need to get your paperwork organized- construct a timeline which shows what you paid when, which classes you registered for and which classes you completed. Someone in the bursar’s office will have their own timeline- what their records show, i.e. date of registration, date of payments, etc. Together you guys will be able to figure out if there was a posting error (money that shows up as having been paid which was misallocated, you have a similar name as another student, etc.) or if in fact, you have a balance you need to pay.
The point is not for them to prove anything. The point is for you to help them sort this out until you can wipe the slate clean.
They said they have no idea why I would have an overpayment in other words they don’t know what happened.
Since you did not receive aid at two schools at one time, this does not appear to be the reason.
Were you originally enrolled in at least 12 credits, then dropped to below 12 before the end of drop/add … even if you added a class after the drop/add period ended, the credits won’t be allowed to count for purposes of Pell. If you dropped below 12, your Pell would have had to be adjusted - reduced by 25%. Was this possibly the reason?
Another possibility is that your file was verified and the EFC changed, resulting in a lower Pell payment. If the school didn’t have the new EFC set as the one to use for payment, you might have received too much Pell - they could have caught it later and made the adjustment at that time (again, they have to make the adjustment, even if they find it much later). Or you may have made a change to your FAFSA after they verified it - students do this a lot - allowing the computer system to pay you at the wrong EFC. They may have caught it later and would have had to adjust your payment.
Yet another possibility is that you were not selected for verification, but you made a change to your FAFSA after you received your Pell … the EFC was higher, and your Pell had to be reduced … and the school didn’t catch it until later.
The problem is that financial aid files only have to be held for a set period of time - yours may have been shredded already. In that case, it may not be possible to find out what happened. You would then be stuck paying what you owe, because they say you owe it.
Talk to them, be really nice, and if they say you are stuck paying it, see if they will compromise. They very well may not, but it’s worth a try.