<p>I know this post is not that recent but it comes up very high in a Google search :re the Pell 12 semester lifetime limit, so I add this answer for anyone still needing to know how this works. </p>
<p>The correct answer is that past receipt of grants will affect you no matter how old. I can personally attest to having my limit used up by grants received as early as 1989. I had 100% (of the 600% limit) used up by receiving ~700$ one year.
So also beware. You only had to receive the full amount you were eligible for in a given year to use 100%. In other words, you didn’t have to receive the max Pell Grant award. They do prorated quarters, each quarter full time = ~33%, each semester 50%. Remember the lifetime limit is 600% not 100%. 6 years * 100% each year (100% means you went all 3 quarters or both semesters fulltime, i.e. 12 or more hrs each term, not including summers) if you went half time one semester that =25% (half of 50%).
I know it gets confusing if math is not your strong suit & I’m trying to explain it enough but not too much so I may be making it worse ;-). </p>
<p>There is a website that tells you your %. I have found it to be inaccurate and impossible to dispute. You can try to contact the Financial Aid office at your current or former school if your % seems off. </p>
<p>Also, summers are not so straightforward. Schools were required to treat summers as a full academic year in 2010 & 2011. You could receive up to a full year’s Pell Grant during the summer term, in addition to the regular school year grant. Therefore, many people used up 5 of their 6 years of eligibility just attending from fall 2009-spring2012. Yep in less than 3 calendar years you could be 2 semesters from being all used up for your lifetime. So a lot of community college students planning to transfer to 4 year schools & cramming in as many courses as possible (but still only 12 credits at a time just all year long) at cheap cc rates but still needing 2-3 years time to attend university to get a Bachelors (due to major sequencing) are getting big nasty surprises when they have no grant $ left to finish their degrees. </p>
<p>Throw in a past & you are doomed. Or if you had to retake courses, take 12 credits a semester, work/raise a child, had the audacity to ever have an illness, you know be human, well, I, won’t rant… </p>
<p>It is true that all study of laws not being able to be applied retroactively would lead one to believe this technically shouldn’t cut anyone off until 2016 at the earliest, but I can’t find anyone debating or suing over that. I assume the previous answerer thought it started counting with 2008 because the initial 18 semester limit DID specifically start as of the passage of that limit. It was the first time such a limit ever existed and it was NOT retroactive. </p>
<p>This one was RETROACTIVE with no cutoff point no matter how old & worthless the credits & many of us believe done specifically to punish those who accepted those summer Pells. My personal 2 cents is that a rolling limit say x years out of 10 seems reasonable albeit unnecessary as an infinitesimally small # of people are really willing & able to maintain academic progress & NOT graduate over that kind of time period. You have to be horribly unlucky or determined to accomplish that & it’d be pretty pointless, may as well graduate & work. I mean seriously, for 5k in grant money a year minus tuition? </p>
<p>To prevent someone from doing that, going back to credits 15 or 20 or more years old is absurd. Clearly in most cases people leave school because they can’t afford it, become ill, pregnant, family crisis, or for positive/neutral reasons like a great job or they just decide that the school/major isn’t their thing. In either case there should be a point in time or in an economic downturn when we say the past no longer bars you from needing help now. You were poor then, you’re poor now clearly whatever education you got then didn’t fix your economic problems. If you’re mature enough now to try again, we’re a great enough country to help you out.</p>