Important Financial Aid question! help!

thumper1
Wed, 23 Mar 2011 20:57:50 +0000

OK…with a $5555 EFC, you would NOT be eligible for a Pell grant at all, I don’t believe. But even that EFC indicates a relatively low income.

Some schools will give you a small amount of merit aid if you agree to play in their ensembles and they NEED your instrument. You should ask…but it’s not going to likely be enough to fill the gap in the aid you apparently are receiving.

What kinds of aid have you gotten? You say you’ve gotten “no” financial aid. By completing the FAFSA, you would have gotten the Stafford loans.

Are you willing to tell the schools? If so, someone here might be able to give you some information about how those schools meet financial need…or not.



I’m going to do a special case form and see if that helps in getting some money in anyway because their engineering program looks attractive.



What IS your special circumstance? In most cases, special circumstances relate to high unreimbursed medical expenses, or sudden LOSS of employment leaving the family without income currently (not two years ago). That doesn’t sound like your situation. You say in your original post that your family has “impressive gross income”. What does this mean? What is the difference between their impressive gross income and their adjusted gross income? AGI is what is used in the financial aid formulas. The exception would be for Profile schools which sometimes add back in business expenses for the self employed.