Michelle answers:

If you are talking about your “Award letters” from both schools then you must understand that your awards WILL be different from school to school. Usually the difference is in state aid (if you are a resident of Oklahoma you likely qualified for state aid there). Or sometimes the school will automatically offer you a Subsidized Stafford loan, while NOT offering you the UnSub Stafford loan. Texas A&M may make you go back and ASK for the UnSub loan. Each school has its own awarding “standards” and they are not uniform and VERY situational to YOU like how early you did your fafsa and how quickly you turned in all your paperwork to each school.

Also, if you are comparing schools from different states the “Cost of Attendance” may be significantly higher at one, causing the amount of parent PLUS loans to be a great deal more.

Without more knowledge of what you are being offered, it’s hard to tell, more info would be helpful. There are certain federal aid you get that will be uniform no matter what school you attend, but not all, esp state and school aid will be the same. ALWAYS look at the bottom line of how much the school is going to COST you in the end (loans and cash) rather than how large your aid package is.
Good luck.

Michelle answers:

What’s the mailing address on your tax returns? Use that address. They won’t be sending you anything in the mail anyway. The FAFSA documentation is all handled on-line.

If that doesn’t work, get a PO box. They cost less than 20 dollars per month. You should really have a stable mailing address anyway.

Michelle answers:

PBE:

The FAFSA application process does not provide any type of allowance for “changed circumstances”, but your school’s financial aid office will.

When you complete the FAFSA, you must provide the exact information requested – for the exact time period specified. In other words, where the form asks for information about your 2008 tax returns, you’ll have to respond with the information, exactly as it was filed.

HOWEVER….

Financial aid officers are all permitted to make adjustments to a student’s aid offer if the student is able to document that his/her FAFSA application is no longer representative of their current economic circumstances.

Typical “changed circumstances” situations include:

Layoff of the student and/or the spouse or parent(s)
Illness or injury
Disability
Hurricane, flood, tornado or earthquake damage

Complete the FAFSA as normal – but contact financial aid, and ask them what you need to do to make a changed circumstances appeal. I can’t promise that they will make changes to your offer, but I can guarantee you that they will certainly consider it.

Good luck to you – I hope this helps you and good luck on the job front, too!

Michelle answers:

You need to ask this question of the Financial Aid Office. Each Financial Aid Office has a different timetable when financial aid awards will be processed.