Would I have to pay back the grant?

Do I have to pay back my pell grant money since i dropped out of school?

• I was in cosmetology school for only six weeks and decided this wasn't for me. The school took $2600 of my $5300 in pell grant money. Am I responsible for paying this back if I do not transfer to another shcool. If I do go to another school, for something else am will I have to pay this pell grant money back?

• Answer:

  The answer is definitely yes. You will be obligated to pay at least part of your Pell Grant back. It's a little complicated, but basically, if you withdraw from school with less than 60% of the semester already completed, you will be required to repay part of your Pell Grant. Your school's financial office will use a formula that computes what is known as the "unearned" portion of the Grant - and they will be required to return that 'unearned' portion to the Department of Education. In turn, your school is required to get a refund from you. If you want to roughly estimate the amount that you will be asked to repay, figure out how many days there are in this semester, then figure out how many days of the semester will have passed as of the day you submit your withdrawal paperwork (not the last day you went to class). If you divide the second number by the first, that's what percentage of the semester you attended. Suppose the semester was 100 days long and you withdrew on the 18th day. Easy calculation - you completed 18% of the semester. That's how much of your grant you "earned", and the rest - the 82% is unearned. If you received a $2000 Pell Grant, the unearned portion of that grant is 82% of $2000 which is $1640. Your school gets to make certain deductions for its expenses, but they'll be required to pay most of that $1640 back to the Department of Education, and when they do, the school will turn around and bill you for 50% or more of that amount. If you can not afford to pay it all at once, your school can make a payment agreement with you, but you must repay that money - or be making payments on a school-negotiated payment plan, before you can regain your eligibility to receive any future federal aid funds. The information I'm giving you is absolutely accurate - by federal law, you must repay Pell Grant funds if you leave school before you have completed more than 60% of the semester. No one can waive this requirement for you. Good luck.