How much money can I make and still get a Pell grant?

Can I qualify for financial aid if I made a lot of money last year but won't make any this year?

• Hi, my situation sounds strange but please bear with me. I am a full time student at Florida Atlantic University. Over the summer and fall and I was an intern at Research in Motion, the BlackBerry company, in case your not familiar. I made a fairly good salary and together with working very minimally at my job in a grocery store, about 8 hours a week, had a net income of $30K over 2010. I recently did my fafsa and the response stated that I wasn't even eligible for a federal pell grant, as my EFC was 12430. I'm pretty sure that the pell grant is the easiest grant to get. As I was only an intern with RIM, I am not currently employed by them and will certainly not make the same amount of money this year, meaning that I won't be able to afford attending in the future without some sort of aid, aside from taking a loan of course. Should I contact them and make them aware of this? Do I need to change anything? Can I change anything? Please help!

• Answer:

  You should have gotten some money from the pell grant...unless you have a lot in assets. I applied for financial aid for the first time this year for this august, and had to use my parent's income to determine it. My dad made 51,000 in 2010; with no other assets and only about $100 in the bank at the time and I got $700 from the pell grant. If you don't hav a lot in other assets, then you may have entered something wrong. I'd go back in and see if something is wrong. oh also my efc is 4,800 something. EDIT: OH, and from my caculations, you'll make $8,448 for a whole 12 months...depending on when you got the job, that could be less. So yes...you'll receive a significant amount from the pell....my guess would be anywhere from 2,000 to 4,000. Good luck :) Also, you must redo your fafsa every semester at most schools or at least every year, however you can change information at any time.