A note at the bottom of the list of approved majors for financial aid seems to imply that financial aid is awarded only if you are working toward an Associates Degree, and NOT if you are planning to transfer to a UC. It states: “Major Preparation for Transfer is not an awarded program at Palomar.” Can anyone confirm this? I don’t understand why financial aid would not be made available to students who want to transfer to a UC.
That sounds odd. Maybe it means that you need to work towards an AA at the CC (in the major that you will eventually do at the UC). Maybe it means that you can’t just take classes w/o working towards the AA degree.
What is your major?
What is the AA major at that school that works with that?
When I was in college in Calif, I had some friends who went to the local CC. Back then, rules were different. They would just look at the UC or CSU req’ts and only take those classes, while ignoring other classes needed for the AA. So, they would transfer w/o the AA. Maybe that method won’t get FA.
However, there is no rule that if you get your AA in something that TAGs to a UC then you wont’ get FA
edit…Is your quote perfect? I can’t find that quote on the website. Please correct the quote to the exact wording.
They want you to finish with an AA. Their financial aid priority would go to students who finished it.
My guess is that this policy was aimed at the typical community college population: older students who have other commitments, and thus take less classes at a time/are less likely to graduate. These people usually aren’t looking to transfer to a 4-year college, just trying to get an associate degree. So they figured that they’d use aid as an incentive for people to graduate. Like at most CC’s, straight-out-of-high-school kids looking to transfer prob are a minority. Thus, y’all were overlooked, I guess.
I think @auntbea is right. To get FA you must be “working towards a degree” at that school, which would be an AA. It’s fine that you’re taking the classes to transfer to a UC, but you need to include THOSE classes within an AA degree.
Here is a link to their list of majors. The financial aid reference is at the bottom of the last page. https://www2.palomar.edu/pages/fa/files/2015/05/Maj-Code-15-16-FinAid.pdf
Definitely check with the FA office, but I think in this context, “not an awarded program” doesn’t have anything to do with financial aid. Rather they’re letting you know that while you can get the prep done for a specific major for transfer, you won’t be awarded an AA/AS for that specific major. Instead the AA/AS degree will have a more general title. For example, you can complete the prep to transfer as an Econ major at Palomar, but the degree you would be awarded would be titled AS in University Studies: Emphasis in Business.
What major are you hoping to transfer into?