Financial Aid/Cost of Attendance Fact Sheet

Financial Aid/Cost of Attendance Fact Sheet

CFCC develops and publishes the annual Cost of Attendance (COA) in compliance with federal regulations. You can see those estimates at http://www2.cfcc.edu/finaid/cost-of-attendance/.

By law, awards are not allowed to exceed COA. Federal and state grants are usually not awarded in amounts that exceed COA. When student loans are added to grants, an over-award becomes possible. As a result, we often reduce the amount of the loan requested to keep total awards within COA. When scholarships,

third-party awards or other reimbursements are added to grants and loans, it is, depending on the amount of the loans, likely that awards will exceed COA.

What is CFCC’s policy when that occurs? Since we cannot let awards exceed COA, we reduce loans by the amount necessary to balance awards with COA. This benefits students by awarding every dollar possible that does not need to be paid back, and reducing the amount of dollars students are obligated to repay.

Here’s an example. Assume COA is $14,800, and at the beginning of the academic year, total awards are:

$5,000 Federal Pell Grant

$1,800 NC Community College Grant

$8,000 Federal Stafford Loans

$14,800 total awards, matches Cost of Attendance

The student later receives a scholarship. Congratulations! Let’s assume the scholarship is $1,000. The new award total is:

$14,800 previous total awards

$1,000 scholarship

$15,800 new total awards

We now have the issue of awards exceeding Cost of Attendance. We resolve this by reducing loans. The new award calculation would be:

$5,000 Federal Pell Grant

$1,800 NC Community College Grant

$7,000 Federal Stafford Loan (note the adjustment from the initial award)

$1,000 scholarship

$14,800 adjusted total awards that match Cost of Attendance

As soon as an over-award is known, we will adjust accounts as shown in the example.

We want you to gain the maximum benefit possible, and comply with federal regulations. We’ve determined when we are in an over-award situation, it best benefits you for us to reduce loan dollars you have to repay, and add award dollars you do not have to repay.