$12,000 scholarships revoked from hopeful students
Like a magician, now you have it. Now you don’t.
The University of Buffalo made a big mistake, and now more than 100 students may not be able to afford to go to school. U.B. accidentally gave too much financial aid this year to 134 students, maybe more, and now those students will have to pay back anywhere from $90 to $12,000.
This is a total huge bummer. One minute you are jumping in the streets doing cartwheels because you landed a huge scholarship only to have the carpet abruptly pulled out from under you. To go from the positive of $90 to $12,000 to “sorry we made a mistake” now you owe up to $12,000 to the school that was going to be your home for the next few years.
This is yet another reason to “Know Before You Go.” It is essential to research the colleges your future student has interest in and find out as much as you can about the college. Financial aid history is one item of research.
Research the giving pattern of the colleges is crucial so parents know if they are being fair, ripped off or overly generous. So that this will never happen to your student.
Every college is required by law to notify the IRS how much money they gave out and in what form, scholarship, grants, loans etc.
When your future college student receives his/her award letter, having the knowledge of whether it is fair, under standard or over standard based on the information that the college gave the IRS would determine if it truly was fair and equitable.
Jumping into a college blindly is like walking up to a cliff backwards and blindfolded. There will be a big crash at the end. Knowing beforehand is paramount in creating a plan so parent and student don’t end up in the poorhouse bandaged and bruised or worse, raid the retirement piggy bank to fund college.
Human error can be expected. Putting the decimal point in the wrong spot or transposing a number, however allowing any college to pull a fast one or do parlor tricks is evidence of corruption. Parent and student must arm themselves with knowledge and importantly knowledge of the system as to avoid human error or blatant fast-ones.
J.D. Wyczalek says ... Know before you go.
[…] on their door, the New York University in Buffalo (I won’t mention which one but you can figure it out). Anyway the college had to call back several hundred students who had to give back upwards of […]