You can try and appeal your EFC through your financial aid office, but a financial aid office will not consider paying real-world bills and being in debt as extenuating circumstances. If you lost your job, or a tornado hit and destroyed your dwelling, etc. – those would be extenuating circumstances. It doesnt’ hurt to try, though.

What about your employer? Does it offer any tuition reimbursement programs? You could also see about outside scholarships:

College Board Homepage

www.collegeboard.org

FastWEB

www.fastweb.com

Free Scholarship Search

www.freschinfo.com

Gates Millennium Scholars Program

www.gmsp.org

Also just ask your financial aid officer if s/he has any suggestions. Best of luck to you!

Second, Check your fafsa carefully for errors, if you truly are low income it could be there is an error on your ap. One girl came in my office crying because she didn’t qualify. Careful inspection of her mom’s income said she made $180,000 a year. “What does your mom do?” “She works at a fast food restaurant.” … uh hu? She had entered the cents .00 on her fafsa by accident. Remember there is no cents in financial aid.

Re: an appeal, you can always apply for fin aid next year.

Using your 07 income.

Third.. Check out other schools besides the one you are looking at. Many people never compare prices and are therefore clueless when the school hands them a $10,000 bill and tells them loans is the only way to pay for a college education. What they mean is, “Loans are the only way to pay for OUR college education”. Sometimes loans are a necessity. The interest rates are very low and you don’t have to pay them back until after you are out. I ended up borrowing a lot to get my degrees, because it was either that or not go, but I ever regretted it.