<p>I recently discovered that my college has a hold on my account for over $8,000. They reversed my financial aid for Fall 2009, and for a semester in 2010. I never failed, withdrawn or dropped any courses. I kept a gpa of 3.0+. I never had an outstanding balance the entire time I attended. They are telling me that I ran out of financial aid money, and that is why they reversed it for those semesters, then I speak with someone else and they claim I was overawarded one semester which is why this happened</p>
<p>Two days after transferring to another college, this is when the hold was placed on my account. The school alluded to it being an error and they tell me they will investigate it. Well, this has been going on for over 3 weeks and I still have a hold on my account at my old college. I call the supervisor of the financial aid department and she never picks up nor returns any of my voicemails. I spoke with just about every person I possibly could and I keep getting bounced around. It’s very hard to get someone on the phone in financial aid, I have to keep calling all day before someone picks up.Students are not allowed to in the financial aid office unless by appointment–which I can barely book since they dont always pick up the phoen. They all promise to investigate and look into it but never do. I am very frustrated and will never be able to pay back $8,000 that I have no business owing. </p>
<p>could someone explain to me what I should do?</p>
<p>You need to dig out all of your own records about this from when you were at that college. You need to have solid evidence to show them that your bills were all paid while you were there. This may be an accounting error on their part, or it may be some kind of strange malicious behavior. However, without all of your paperwork in order, you aren’t going to be able to show them where they went wrong.</p>
<p>One you have your papers straight, pick up the phone and call the person who is above the head of the financial aid office. This might be the dean of the college, or another administrator.</p>
<p>I have never heard of financial aid being reversed like this before. Is this something that typically happens to students?</p>
<p>I am having a hard time even contacting someone in financial aid. They are not taking this seriously enough. When I do get a hold of someone on the phone, the financial aid advisor promises to investigate the situation and to contact me shortly after–which almost never results in anything being done. I have called the financial aid supervisor, the dean of the school, I’ve been transferred to several people in office and none of them have been of any help.</p>
<p>when I transferred I placed the new college first on the drop down list to received financial aid. should I have called financial aid to cancel?</p>
<p>and if I wasnt attending the old school how could i still be getting money if i wasnt even registered?</p>
<p>You might try calling an elected official.(such as county supervisor, councilman, state legislator, etc.) They frequently have people working in their offices that will help constituents. Tell them you story, especially the part about them being non-responsive. I had a problem with a state agency funding a scholarship and had to call my Governor’s office to make things happen. Good luck.</p>
<p>Try to relax spoiledcandy. I believe it is your state legislator. Since the school never notified you in writing about any changes to your FA, I m sure it is an error. I would start gathering up you proof of payments for each semester and your FA award letters. Are your bursar records on line so that youncan print them off? If everything is in order as you say, than you do not owe anything. Are your parents available tom help you solve this. Maybe .you can call the president of the college.</p>
<p>Have you talked to the Dean of Students? If so, and if you did not get any assistance, I would suggest asking for an appointment with the President. You are owed an explanation. I can’t begin to guess what happened - none of us can - but you need to know why this happened.</p>
<p>I called State legislator today and they said they will take care of it. </p>
<p>I was calling Financial aid again and one of them hung up the phone on me. Something is just not right. They don’t want to do their job at all. Well, I will have to make them.</p>
<p>There is no need to contact a state representative or the dean of students. Just contact the financial aid office at the old school and request that aid be cancelled for the current term. </p>
<p>Changing the school on the FAFSA does not cause the first school to cancel aid that they had already awarded.</p>
<p>They are not giving me a chance to do that zlc. No one is returning my phone calls or picking up the phone. Occassionally, I get someone and they will promise to look into and call me back…but they never do</p>
<p>they told me that I exceeded my loan limit. this is the reason why I owe 8,000. I wish there was something in the system that would have warned me or not even let me register for classes. I cannot pay this off</p>
<p>does anyone think there is a way i can convince the school to lift this hold? i exceeded my loan limit, which is why i owe the 8,000. it sucks that I was allowed to register for classes, i would not have done so if I knew I was gonna owe this much money. my academic future is pretty much ruined. i’ll have to start all over again. i took 3 years worth of classes and i cannot get access to my transcripts to apply for nursing school</p>
<p>only 1 other school has my transcripts and i am on the waiting list for their nursing program. in the meantime i wanted to apply to others but i cant with this outrageous hold on my account. this is devestating</p>
<p>This is odd. I’m curious as to how you came to exceed your loan limit if you just took classes for 3 years. The maximum Stafford loans for a dependent student are freshman $5500, Sophomore $6500, third year and on $7500. The aggregate (cumulative) loan limit is $31,000. Do your loans exceed $31,000? </p>
<p>I don’t quite understand how you even got enough loans in 3 years to cause you to exceed your limit, especially as the school has to certify your loan eligibility before loans are disbursed and they should know whether you are eligible for loans, including whether you have exceeded your loan limit.</p>
<p>They said that their system didn’t detect that I exceeded my loan limit until after I transferred to another school. I’m glad that I left to a university when I did, at least they have my credits. Anyway, she told me that since its a community college you are allowed to borrow less money which is why I exceeded my loan limit. </p>
<p>I dont understand anything either being that only my sister and I are one of the few people in our family to pursue higher education. So my mom nor dad couldn’t tell us anything about taking out loans or financial aid. This really sucks. I’m learning as I go along</p>