Financial Aid Problems

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Ok so I am a little fustrated and was wondering if anyone else has had the same issue where they are at. I am currently attending Washtenaw Community College and I have been recieving the Federal Pell Grant since I started school last fall. Registration started in July and I registered for my last two general education classes for the RN program here and I was awared the full amount of the Pell Grant which is enough to cover tuition and books. Anyways I got a email Friday stating that I was ineligable for Financial Aid due to the fact that I had too many credits for my certificate/degree. I only have 32 and the RN program requires a minium of 72 hours. So I did do the appel on Monday and was notified today that my appeal was denied. So as of right now I had to drop this semester and more and likely next semester as well do to the fact I cannot pay for school out of my pocket.

I was wondering if anyone else has had this problem where they are going? Do any of you have any suggestions on what I should do? I am on the waitlist for the program which is 2 years long.

It just fustrated me that they waited until the last min before letting me know I wouldnt be getting my finacial aid. They sent the email Friday and payment for classes are due tomorrow the 18th. EFC is 0 and working a min wage job there is no way I can pay for school myself. Plus, I have never heard of a school denying finacial aid due to too many credits.

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Yeah I go to HFCC and that happened to a lot of us in the nursing program. Im going into my 2nd year in the fall and they sent a bunch of us the letters. We all had to appeal it and have the dean of nursing write letters. We are still waiting for the outcome. It really sucks!

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This is horrible.... I also attend HFCC, I am praying this doesn't happen to me. I waited 2 years to get into the program, I thought I would get money for the program from no worker left behind (which I also signed up for 2 years ago) only to be told the program no longer exist. This is really a bad situation, I hope you can get back into school soon...

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Yeah, I also tried to go the nwlb program, had everything ready to be told there is no money; that is because the money left once jennifer granholm left office, which sucks! I'm praying that we hear something soon so we can finish up the program.

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It's really odd you got denied! You've only taken 32 credits?

The rules are that once you've completed 150% of the credits that your program requires, you are no longer eligible for financial aid. In your program, that would be 108 credits...

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I am glad that I am not the only one that this has happened to. I put in an appel and hopefully will have an answer soon.

Greatlakes, yes I only have 32 credits. The program that they have me under along with anyone going into nursing is health care foundations which only requires 34-38 credits found that out from my counseler. They are not and will not change my major to NURSING until I get offically accepted into the nursing program which that program is like 72 credits.

Also, went over to schoolcraft for the fire academy and emt/paramedic programs and was never denied financial aid at all. I was well over the required credits for both programs and never had any issuses and with WCC.

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I'm fairly certain that they take into account every credit you've ever earned, not just the ones you've earned at one school. This is to prevent people from earning 150% of required credits at one school, and then hopping over to another school to continue reaping financial aid. So if you have a lot of credits at other schools, you may very well be over the limit. You should still be able to get private loans if you have a co-signer or income.

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I doubt it since I never had any of my credits from schoolcrft transfered over no no they did not take into account every credit i have ever earned. But thank you for your reply. At WCC they are only using the 32 credits I have earned at WCC ONLY.

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Greatlakes I got my federal pell grant back for this year and finanical aid said since I am going into nursing I will get it then also when I get into the program. They ARE NOT USING THE CREDITS FROM SCHOOLCRAFT they are only using the ones I have earned from WCC.

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I was just trying to help

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I have been told by some of my classmates that they had similar problems, denied because they have too many credits. They were taken by surprise at the last minute with this because before that they had every reason to believe they would be getting fin aid. Just to get into the program requires so many credits, wish they didnt count those because we are still at square 1 beggining 2 year degree after all the pre-reqs.

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