What qualifies me for a federal Pell Grant

• The first thing you need to do is complete your FAFSA. Your FAFSA is the key to any and all financial aid.
• Second, you must be enrolled in an undergraduate course of study, though there are some rare teaching certificate exceptions
• If you have received an associate degree, or any diploma below a baccalaureate, and you enroll in another undergraduate program you are still eligible.

What would make me ineligible for a federal Pell Grant

• If you already earned a baccalaureate
• If you are pursuing a professional degree such as pharmacy, dentistry, or veterinary medicine. Professional degrees are not considered undergraduate, and thus, are not eligible.
• Securing your bachelors degree from another country, unless the school provides written documentation stating that your degree is not equivalent to a U.S. bachelors degree.
• If you are currently incarcerated

Additional Notes

• Undergraduate studies are usually only four or five academic years. If the program is longer, like a six-year pharmacy program, then students are considered undergrads for only the first four years unless the school designates that the graduate program begins after the end of the third academic year.
• Grants and scholarships are always what you should strive for first as they do not require repayment. Join scholarshippoints.com for FREE for a chance at winning over a $100,000 worth of scholarship money for school.

Academic probation may cost you your federal aid, or worse, your enrollment in that institution.

Satisfactory academic progress standards are set by the post-secondary school you are attending, which means no one size fits all solution exists. The formal academic probation process at Southern Cal may be entirely different from that of Florida State. Generally speaking, however, academic probation is when your overall GPA has fallen below a 2.0. You are then given a semester to raise your cumulative GPA to above 2.0 (the probationary period). If you are unable to do so you may be sanctioned to financial aid suspension or dismissal from the school.

If a student is dismissed they will need to enter another school, raise their academic standing, and then apply for reinstatement. As for your federal aid, you remain eligible for aid during your probationary period, however, if you fail to reach the 2.0 marker your next semester will be in jeopardy. It is also important to note that you must complete a certain percentage of your classes as well – usually greater than 75 percent. So enrolling in 5 classes and then dropping two won’t cut it. The classes attempted vs. completed ratio is important.

Be sure to check with your school for more details. Remember, if you are in need of funds for school there are always scholarship opportinties worth exploring. ScholoarshipPoints is giving away over $100,000 in scholarship money this year.

When you hear the term “federal student aid” that can be classified into one of three categories.

Grants: Free money that doesn’t have to be repaid, except in some cases when you withdraw from school.

Work-study: You earn money to pay for your education.

Loans: You borrow money for school, which you must repay with interest.

In order to have the ability-to-benefit one of the most important criteria pieces, in order to receive Title IV program assistance, is that a student must have earned a High School diploma or its equivalent.

Students who are not high school graduates (or who have not earned a General Educational Development Certificate) can demonstrate that they have the “ability to benefit” from the education or training being offered by passing an approved ability-to-benefit (ATB) test.

The FAFSA blog is sponsored in part by:

Five most recent FAFSA form help blog posts:

Subscribe to RSS headline updates from: