When do you know if your financial aid is approved?

My transfer school is refusing me financial aid when I already have it for this year?

• I am transferring to a school for Spring 2012. I am going to a school that costs about $700 less per year right now. At my current school, I have $2900 from FAFSA for the whole year. Now, my new school is approving me for 0, despite they even cost more. This makes no sense as my mom makes 59k a year, is a single mom, pays a mortgage and supports 2 kids going to college on her own. I think my school has made a big mistake, especially because I already have been approved for fall 2012-spring 2012 at my current school. They are saying her income is too high. My sister is also approved at this current school. I expect to get the same amount considering this school is more expensive. I don't know why this school is doing this. (CUNY Queens College). What should I do? My mom really can not spare me anything and I already have been awarded financial aid, so why is this more expensive school giving me none?

• Answer:

  It could be that you were selected for Verification when you added the new school's code. That means they would need to look at your family's tax documents to see if the information you reported on your FAFSA was correct. If you had mistyped or reported numbers incorrectly, it could make you ineligible when you had previously received aid at another school. An additional possibility is that your new college is more conscientious and caught more mistakes on your FAFSA than your first school. The changes would then make you ineligible. In any case, you can request that they perform verification to ensure that you get the aid you deserve. Also, you should be eligible for at least Unsubsidized federal loans as well, so that may be an option for paying for your education.