Kenneth Fernandez had to ask his parents for help.
Before he made the call his sophomore year, the nuclear engineering junior stopped to think. How was he going to tell his parents he had lost $3,000 for the upcoming year?
"I didn’t want them to overreact," he said. "Yeah, it’s bad news, but I didn’t want them to take it too much to heart."
Fernandez, now 20, had lost his Federal Pell Grant — one of many UF students who have been losing Pell Grants in recent years. The federal government lowered the expected family contribution required to receive the grant in the 2012-2013 school year, said Richard Wilder, director of the Office for Student Financial Affairs at UF.
"The criteria to get a Pell Grant changes from year to year," he said.
The federal government awards Pell Grants to undergraduate students through the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA. Students can receive up to $5,775 based on family contribution, siblings in college and tuition cost, according to the Federal Student Aid website.
In the 2013-2014 academic year, 11,622 UF students were awarded a Pell Grant, a sum of more than $46 million, according to the SFA’s fact book. It was 224 fewer students than in the 2011-2012 academic year, when 11,846 students received the grant.
Serena White also lost her Pell Grant. The UF sustainability studies sophomore said she qualified her freshman year but was told she wouldn’t qualify this year.
The financial aid office told her that she received the grant last year because her brother was also enrolled in school, the 18-year-old said.
White now has to take out loans — a debt she’s nervous about paying off.
"It’s one of those things that you kind of push to the back of your mind," she said.
White said the aid office told her she should still qualify.
She had been getting about $1,900 from the Pell Grant before.
She said it will probably take her about five years to pay off the loans. She said she misses the freedom to not have to worry about money.
"Getting a job now is more of a necessity than an option," she said.
For Fernandez, his parents said they would back him up no matter what the cost.
After a summer interning, he no longer has to rely on his parents and will be able to continue school without the grant.
"I was trying to look at the upside," he said. "Yeah, it was a momentary downside, but I knew it would go back up. And it has."
