<p>Hey eveyone. This is my first post, though I am a longtime lurker. I have a question about my financial aid from last year.</p>
<p>I attend Chapman University, in Orange, CA. Last year, I was awarded an ACG grant, but because of problems in the awards process, none of us recipients got our awards until the spring semester. Previously in that school year (2006-2007), I was awarded an institutional grant award. Anyways, in the spring, our ACG grants were finally awarded, but amazingly, Chapman took that amount as a deduction from my institutional grant. Thus, my $2125 institutional grant was reduced that semester by $650, exactly the amount I was awarded in ACG money. How is this legal? The whole point of the ACG was to help students better afford college by awarding additional grant money, but how can I get ahead when Chapman simply lowered the amount of my other institutional grant?</p>
<p>In the event that your E.F.C. is 0, then I would expect them to not lower your institutional grant, but regardless of your outside scholarships, the school still expects you to pay your E.F.C.</p>
<p>Not only is it legal - it is not legal to do otherwise especially where federal funds are concerned. Financial aid is awarded up to the amount your ‘need’ is calculated to be. So if your need has already been met the the ACG would cause you to be over awarded (EFC plus financial aid cannot = more than COA)and something has to be reduced. A lot of schools will reduce the self help portion of aid first. For instance my Ds school will reduce loans and/or WS.</p>
<p>But my aid definitely did not exceed my COA. In fact, my gap between awarded aid and my COA was something like $14,000. My EFC last year was around $1462, so that clearly indicated that my I’m not coming from a lot of money. I really think it was low of Chapman to do this, especially under my family’s financial condition. But then again, the financial aid office said that this happened to everyone who got the ACG award. Still, I think it’s pretty rotten. </p>
<p>The government created the ACG to help us better afford college, but thanks to Chapman, I was back exactly where I started.</p>
<p>Schools that do not have large endowments or are just tight on funds often do this, more well funded college may let students use outside merit scholarships to reduce self help efforts such as student loans, work study and student contribution from summer work for example Yale and Wellesley. Other college do this to a lesser extent, but also take some of the outside scholarships to reduce the college grant, such as Mt. Holyoke.</p>
<p>I can’t think of any law that the school is breaking. Which isn’t to say that there is none, but anyway I agree it’s pretty lousy.</p>
<p>For a long time, it has seemed to me that the reality of government student aid programs is that they operate to transfer wealth from the taxpayers to colleges and universities without helping students all that much.</p>
<p>Ryan,
Chapman may not have broken the law, but they certainly broke the spirit of the law. I think you should consider placing a call to your senate and house representative. The law was not meant to benefit Chapman, and they need to know in Wash. so they can fix it. You might also look up the author(s) of the bill, and let their office know as well.</p>
<p>This is also the case for other types of financial aid. I have seen cases where a student has worked very hard at several jobs through school to help cover the cost of tuition, only to find that their financial aid was reduced because their income increased.</p>