conuly

Federal Student Aid is a set limit, and you must make up the difference.

From:

That's not accurate... They calculate how much you should contribute based on your income -- that's why students that are extremely poor or disabled (on SSI) have an expected contribution of almost nothing or zero, while ones with higher family incomes pay substantially more. (My expected contribution was zero almost every year, I should know...)

From:

I'm sure you're right. It's been many years since I filled out a FAFSA. Ignore me, Connie.

From:

meryls-corner.livejournal.com

That depends on what type of financial aid you qualify for. Many are the first type you listed. They try to figure out how much you could pay (assuming that you'll be working part time) and pay over that. The second type is what you might get if you were in a contest for a scholarship (writing essays, that sort of thing).
Did you ever go to FAFSA.org? That has some information that might be useful.

From:

conuly

Yes, but see... even though I've been applying for my FAFSA every year (and getting it), I haven't been paying attention to the mechanics of the situation.

From:

I assume it would depend on how you're getting it. With federal aid, they figure out how much you can reasonably be expected to contribute, then offer you whatever amount over that your school says a typical student will need.

From:

moroveus.livejournal.com

Someone on my F-list works in the financial aid office of a university, but I can't remember who. If I remember, I'll ask him...

From:

xmorningxrosex.livejournal.com

It's not always "no more" - if you have a change in financial situation, they can bump it up by giving you extra work-study or loans or grants (or all of the above), but that's an extra process to go through and prove that your situation somehow changed since the time you filed the FAFSA.

From:

Ah, a hell I am going through right now. The way it's working for my lothario:

He was told how much he could afford to contribute and what they'd give him as grant money. This worked out to him paying $2 for tuition and getting grants of just slightly over $1000 per semester.

This is nice, but not nearly enough for him to live on while being a full time student. He's able to get nice loans on top of this, but we don't know how much yet, and it's a maximum of $2500 / year, which is almost nothing as far as money to live on. So, we'll take the grants, the loans, and then look into private interest-earning loans so he can continue going to school.

Of course, it's harder for him than for many, because they don't realize he also needs to take care of a disabled girlfriend. Plus, there's a chance I'll be losing my income from disability soon, and they won't give a damn that we're an unmarried couple. But hey, they wouldn't give a damn that I can't work if we were married anyway, so *shrugs*.

But that's how it works. They tell you how much they think you can afford to contribute. Then they tell you how much they will give you. Then you look at it and go - okay... and either you go ah yes, I can live on this, or you go - dammit, can I afford to continue at school?

From:

conuly

Pity you aren't getting paid for all the support help ish work you have done/do do.

Sorry, random subject changey thing there.

From:

*shrugs* I knew what I was getting into. And it helps keep my skills sharp. It's not like there is any job whatsoever I can actually be hired for. If I could get a real job, I'd leave Support if I needed to to make time for it. But I can't. And so at least it's something I can do.

From:

conuly

Mind if I ask why you can't get a job?

I mean, I know, you're blind, and I suspect there's other things there, but I don't know. I'm horrible at remembering these things sometimes. But my lovely pc-persona is in there going "that shouldn't be preventing her from getting a job! what's wrong with the world" really loudly at me.

From:

Yeah, it's not the blindness. Blindness is annoying, but it's a minor thing. People always overestimate it.

I've got about 40 or so things wrong with me, so I can't really list them all. But the main ones are massive fatigue and weakness. I need about 11 hours of sleep per day. On bad days or if I don't get enough rest, I start to not get enough air into my systerm and need to lie down or else I can collapse. My limbs are weak. I can't support my own weight for too long. I can't lift or carry much. If I'm not careful, things pull and that's really bad.

I have good days and bad days. On good days, I can be productive... on bad days, I can't do much of anything. I can't predict which days will be good or not. Before I went blind, I was working as a substitute teacher, because I could pick the days on which I worked. But I can't do that with the blindness. Plus, I think some of the other issues have gotten worse since then.

My concentration and ability to think clearly comes and goes. I can do work, but only if there's no real schedule to it. I need to be able to focus on my good times. And what makes it worse is, if I need to go anywhere, I'll arrive in worse shape. So, I can do LiveJournal stuff since it's when I can and at my own desk. But if I needed to travel somewhere, I'd arrive out of sorts. I get intermittent vertigo, which seems to make me more likely to get car sick. Plus I'm more sensitive to pressure changes. This means BARTing to San Francisco is painful (you have to go through a tunnel, and the pressure change is a problem for me).

And just to make it all more fun, I get migraines. I'm more likely to get them if I don't get enough sleep or if I'm stressed or if I physically over exert myself.

This means I just cannot keep any sort of reliable schedule. I often have to cancel things I plan in advance. I'm not really comfortable scheduling anything as a thing to do in the future. I can mostly pull this off if I rest for several days in advance of the event. But that's useless for recurring demands. Plus, if I do something like go out to BART and then see a movie (to give you an idea of level of exertion), I will generally need to spend the next two days recovering.

So, I haven't managed to figure out any job that I could have any chance at. And I can't be a technical writer any more. Those parts of my brain don't function the way they used to. A lot of my brain functions differently than it used to, which means I'm still adjusting and learning. I seem to have acquired many ADD/auti-like symptoms, which makes pretty much no sense. I didn't think things like that ~could~ be acquired. And yet... I have a strong sensitivity to various stimuli I used to be able to tune out. I get overwhelmed easily when out in public. I shut down sometimes. And worse, it's recent, so I haven't spent a lifetime learning to compensate.

From:

conuly

Oy vey. *hugs*

From:

:) I like to think of myself as surprisingly able for a disabled person. They have little scales of disability, and I fall pretty far down on them, as I can't always care for my basic needs (which is why my lothario needs to assist me on a regular basis). Yet, I've done a whole lot on LiveJournal that I'm very proud of. But it makes for a very bizarre feeling. On LiveJournal I am respected and generally viewed as competent. Outside LiveJournal, I am generally viewed as highly disabled. And I usually come across as scatterbrained or stupid because I have problems understanding spoken speech, and I sometimes forget how to speak clearly. Out loud, words will get lost, forgotten, or twisted. For some reason, I can still type fluently. It seems to use a different pathway.

So, it's nice to have a place where people see my abilities. Most of the time I'm viewed as fairly useless. And I know that a lot of my doctors view me that way. Too disabled to be of any value. It's part of why I hate interacting with them.

From:

conuly

*laughs*

I almost wish I had your problem. ALMOST. Instead, I have people who don't know me very well (or at all) trying to tell me that I'm "just fine, perfectly normal" while all the time I'm screaming at them inside my head.

From:

Oh, I get that too. Lots of people think I'm lazy, malingering, or just weird. None of my disabilities are visible. Many of them aren't even visible to doctors. That's part of why they view me so poorly. I look like a fairly healthy, albeit poorly sighted, girl who for some reason keeps complaining of being highly disabled and in lots of pain. But I look so healthy...

They speech problems are a serious issue. They don't tend to understand that I can't understand what they say well, and that I can't communicate with speech well. And even if I try to explain it, people just don't get it. But then, every time I go to the hospital somebody either hands me written paperwork and says, "here, you can read this." (uh thanks, but no, I can't) or tries to direct me with hand-waving. I have the big white reflective stick with red bit at the bottom. If they can't even understand being blind means you have trouble seeing, then I doubt I can explain totally invisible disabilities. Some days I wonder if I'm really the blind one.

From:

conuly

That came out wrong. I'm sorry.

From:

No offense taken at anything.

From:

neurotica0.livejournal.com

When I fill out my FAFSA, my family's EFC is always less than $1,000, yet I'm paying $4-5,000 a year for my university (a $26,000/year school). Most of that difference is settled by scholarships. I really get hardly any financial aid, even though my mom makes less than the school costs.

So, I'm going to go with the latter.

From:

stejcruetekie.livejournal.com

Generally, federal financial aid is a combination - "This is how much you can pay, and we'll pay anything above, up to a point." If I understood correctly, the maximum amount of *federal* aid was something like $3,000-$4,000 (It goes up every year - at least it did until Bush came along... It also goes up the higher your grade - seniors get more aid than freshman). Frankly, $3,000 is next to nothing when you have $20,000+ tuition and housing expenses. The rest comes from you "family contribution," other scholarships and loans, and in my case, credit card (baaaad idea).

From:

interactiveleaf.livejournal.com

It's typically the latter.

From:

Federal Student Aid is a set limit, and you must make up the difference.

From:

That's not accurate... They calculate how much you should contribute based on your income -- that's why students that are extremely poor or disabled (on SSI) have an expected contribution of almost nothing or zero, while ones with higher family incomes pay substantially more. (My expected contribution was zero almost every year, I should know...)

From:

I'm sure you're right. It's been many years since I filled out a FAFSA. Ignore me, Connie.

From:

meryls-corner.livejournal.com

That depends on what type of financial aid you qualify for. Many are the first type you listed. They try to figure out how much you could pay (assuming that you'll be working part time) and pay over that. The second type is what you might get if you were in a contest for a scholarship (writing essays, that sort of thing).
Did you ever go to FAFSA.org? That has some information that might be useful.

From:

conuly

Yes, but see... even though I've been applying for my FAFSA every year (and getting it), I haven't been paying attention to the mechanics of the situation.

From:

I assume it would depend on how you're getting it. With federal aid, they figure out how much you can reasonably be expected to contribute, then offer you whatever amount over that your school says a typical student will need.

From:

moroveus.livejournal.com

Someone on my F-list works in the financial aid office of a university, but I can't remember who. If I remember, I'll ask him...

From:

xmorningxrosex.livejournal.com

It's not always "no more" - if you have a change in financial situation, they can bump it up by giving you extra work-study or loans or grants (or all of the above), but that's an extra process to go through and prove that your situation somehow changed since the time you filed the FAFSA.

From:

Ah, a hell I am going through right now. The way it's working for my lothario:

He was told how much he could afford to contribute and what they'd give him as grant money. This worked out to him paying $2 for tuition and getting grants of just slightly over $1000 per semester.

This is nice, but not nearly enough for him to live on while being a full time student. He's able to get nice loans on top of this, but we don't know how much yet, and it's a maximum of $2500 / year, which is almost nothing as far as money to live on. So, we'll take the grants, the loans, and then look into private interest-earning loans so he can continue going to school.

Of course, it's harder for him than for many, because they don't realize he also needs to take care of a disabled girlfriend. Plus, there's a chance I'll be losing my income from disability soon, and they won't give a damn that we're an unmarried couple. But hey, they wouldn't give a damn that I can't work if we were married anyway, so *shrugs*.

But that's how it works. They tell you how much they think you can afford to contribute. Then they tell you how much they will give you. Then you look at it and go - okay... and either you go ah yes, I can live on this, or you go - dammit, can I afford to continue at school?

From:

conuly

Pity you aren't getting paid for all the support help ish work you have done/do do.

Sorry, random subject changey thing there.

From:

*shrugs* I knew what I was getting into. And it helps keep my skills sharp. It's not like there is any job whatsoever I can actually be hired for. If I could get a real job, I'd leave Support if I needed to to make time for it. But I can't. And so at least it's something I can do.

From:

conuly

Mind if I ask why you can't get a job?

I mean, I know, you're blind, and I suspect there's other things there, but I don't know. I'm horrible at remembering these things sometimes. But my lovely pc-persona is in there going "that shouldn't be preventing her from getting a job! what's wrong with the world" really loudly at me.

From:

Yeah, it's not the blindness. Blindness is annoying, but it's a minor thing. People always overestimate it.

I've got about 40 or so things wrong with me, so I can't really list them all. But the main ones are massive fatigue and weakness. I need about 11 hours of sleep per day. On bad days or if I don't get enough rest, I start to not get enough air into my systerm and need to lie down or else I can collapse. My limbs are weak. I can't support my own weight for too long. I can't lift or carry much. If I'm not careful, things pull and that's really bad.

I have good days and bad days. On good days, I can be productive... on bad days, I can't do much of anything. I can't predict which days will be good or not. Before I went blind, I was working as a substitute teacher, because I could pick the days on which I worked. But I can't do that with the blindness. Plus, I think some of the other issues have gotten worse since then.

My concentration and ability to think clearly comes and goes. I can do work, but only if there's no real schedule to it. I need to be able to focus on my good times. And what makes it worse is, if I need to go anywhere, I'll arrive in worse shape. So, I can do LiveJournal stuff since it's when I can and at my own desk. But if I needed to travel somewhere, I'd arrive out of sorts. I get intermittent vertigo, which seems to make me more likely to get car sick. Plus I'm more sensitive to pressure changes. This means BARTing to San Francisco is painful (you have to go through a tunnel, and the pressure change is a problem for me).

And just to make it all more fun, I get migraines. I'm more likely to get them if I don't get enough sleep or if I'm stressed or if I physically over exert myself.

This means I just cannot keep any sort of reliable schedule. I often have to cancel things I plan in advance. I'm not really comfortable scheduling anything as a thing to do in the future. I can mostly pull this off if I rest for several days in advance of the event. But that's useless for recurring demands. Plus, if I do something like go out to BART and then see a movie (to give you an idea of level of exertion), I will generally need to spend the next two days recovering.

So, I haven't managed to figure out any job that I could have any chance at. And I can't be a technical writer any more. Those parts of my brain don't function the way they used to. A lot of my brain functions differently than it used to, which means I'm still adjusting and learning. I seem to have acquired many ADD/auti-like symptoms, which makes pretty much no sense. I didn't think things like that ~could~ be acquired. And yet... I have a strong sensitivity to various stimuli I used to be able to tune out. I get overwhelmed easily when out in public. I shut down sometimes. And worse, it's recent, so I haven't spent a lifetime learning to compensate.

From:

conuly

Oy vey. *hugs*

From:

:) I like to think of myself as surprisingly able for a disabled person. They have little scales of disability, and I fall pretty far down on them, as I can't always care for my basic needs (which is why my lothario needs to assist me on a regular basis). Yet, I've done a whole lot on LiveJournal that I'm very proud of. But it makes for a very bizarre feeling. On LiveJournal I am respected and generally viewed as competent. Outside LiveJournal, I am generally viewed as highly disabled. And I usually come across as scatterbrained or stupid because I have problems understanding spoken speech, and I sometimes forget how to speak clearly. Out loud, words will get lost, forgotten, or twisted. For some reason, I can still type fluently. It seems to use a different pathway.

So, it's nice to have a place where people see my abilities. Most of the time I'm viewed as fairly useless. And I know that a lot of my doctors view me that way. Too disabled to be of any value. It's part of why I hate interacting with them.

From:

conuly

*laughs*

I almost wish I had your problem. ALMOST. Instead, I have people who don't know me very well (or at all) trying to tell me that I'm "just fine, perfectly normal" while all the time I'm screaming at them inside my head.

From:

Oh, I get that too. Lots of people think I'm lazy, malingering, or just weird. None of my disabilities are visible. Many of them aren't even visible to doctors. That's part of why they view me so poorly. I look like a fairly healthy, albeit poorly sighted, girl who for some reason keeps complaining of being highly disabled and in lots of pain. But I look so healthy...

They speech problems are a serious issue. They don't tend to understand that I can't understand what they say well, and that I can't communicate with speech well. And even if I try to explain it, people just don't get it. But then, every time I go to the hospital somebody either hands me written paperwork and says, "here, you can read this." (uh thanks, but no, I can't) or tries to direct me with hand-waving. I have the big white reflective stick with red bit at the bottom. If they can't even understand being blind means you have trouble seeing, then I doubt I can explain totally invisible disabilities. Some days I wonder if I'm really the blind one.

From:

conuly

That came out wrong. I'm sorry.

From: