doesn't play fair.

I was using a pell grant for the fall semester. It was a pell grant that would cover all my tuition. or it would have, if I had been in the system as in state.

I'm going to see a navy lawyer tomorrow, but i thought it would be a good idea to go and try to see what could be done before i went into the appointment. I went to domicile, then financial aid, and finally the coordinator. At that final stop someone finally found the problems. thats right, plural.

on my application, which i had done on 2 different occasions for different community colleges. and for the question 'are you requesting financial aid' it says 'no'.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!?!?!?!?!?

what?!

obviously it was some mess up that occurred while i was filling in the application online. its pretty fucking obvious, especially considering the other mess up on the application.

on the question concerning if i was military, the answer was no, even though earlier in the application i stated that my occupation was with the us navy.

and the last thing they have against me:

when i was still waiting to find out if i would get a pell grant i had decided to look into my other options. so i went and spoke to the school representative on my base, and we discussed tuition assistance, which i was considering and was going to try to route the chit for it but i found out it had to go way up the chain of command so i decided not to. well apparently the woman i spoke to had put some note in my file saying that i was to bring documentation to prove i was military. not knowing about the note, i never did.

so now, im going up against a school who is saying its my own fault i now owe them money for last semester because of my own oversights and negligence. i should have had it taken care of during last semester. a little hard to do when i was in baltimore for my baby for 2 months and when i finally do find out and call, im told that nothing can be done! really think coming in and talking to somoene is going to be a priority when i've already been told that im screwed?

so now i have an appointment at navy legal tomorrow to try and get this fixed. i dont know how this is going to go now that i know why they had me set as out of state.

the thing is though, i am in state. i was born and raised in virginia. so why cant they just fix it, knowing that? yes, apparently i made a mess of things, but if the situation were reversed and somoene in one of their offices had granted me too much aid, once the mix up were discovered they'd be getting their money back. so how is it a different set of rules when the situation is this?

bottom line: i am in state, and should not have been charged as out of state. regardless of any mistakes i made, i am still in state. and that is the only matter that should be determining whether this situation gets remedied.

if navy legal wont touch it, i'll write my congressman. if he does nothing, there is always the media.

and if after all of that i'm still the loser, they can just go ahead and take the other half of the pell grant that is meant to pay for next semester, so its not coming out of my pocket anyways.

except for a psychology class i need to retake, i will not attend tidewater again if this does not get resolved.