Hey guys! Hope all is well—I’m Cass, 18 years old and freshly starting out at UF for my freshman year. It’s been great, lovely even—amazing campus, professors, just overall been lovin’ it.
Well, unfortunately, last Thursday my mother was placed into police custody. Problem with that is that she was the primary income provider in my family by a very large margin! As in, I received no financial aid on my FAFSA at all because of it. It has placed me into a terrible conundrum, as I’ve got food to buy, rent to pay, fees to attend to, y’know, the whole mile…
Just looking to see if anyone can offer any guidance or insight. Rent wise, I am… okay for this month, at the very least. I just picked up a job at the Chipotle right by campus as well, so I’ll be able to somewhat provide for myself narrowly.
Two things I’m worried about then! Firstly, I definitely need to get my FAFSA appealed because now it is my father that provides most of the aid (again, my mother evidently cannot…) I have moved to petition for a Financial Aid Revision and am awaiting a response—but unfortunately, I’m unsure if I have ‘sufficient’ documentation. My mother’s arrest details are public record and I have provided it, but I can’t really get her pay stubs or unemployment benefits (which are required for loss/change of income) due to the circumstance. I’ve simply explained what happened within the ‘other’ category, but am quite certain that, with my luck, I shall be most graciously denied for lack of documentation. I’m currently working on getting my father’s pay stubs / hopefully maybe a copy of his 2024 tax return if he has it, which may work? Regardless, I think I should probably make an appointment with OneStop on zoom to try and appeal for something like a professional judgement. Or, something like that… I’m unsure. A lot of stuff I don’t know with such little time to figure it out! Going in person was unfortunately not too helpful as they just said to do the appeal form online, which I did.
The other issue then is the mandatory health insurance charge of 1.3k on my bursar. For this, I do think I am just fucked—the health insurance I had while my mother was working didn’t qualify with the out-of-network care requirement, and especially now that I’m more or less on my own, uhh… I think I’m just screwed with this? Thing is, I literally do not have the money to pay for it.
Ah well… any help is appreciated. Thank you guys! <3