From EdTrust: “Many financial aid packages won’t transfer because institutional scholarships and grants are often school-specific. Even federal aid, like Pell Grants, isn’t automatic. You must manually add your new school to your FAFSA and ensure your paperwork is complete, or risk losing eligibility. … When I transferred to GWU from St. Mary’s, I lost 22 credits that I had earned at St. Mary’s, pushing my class status from junior to sophomore. This is because each institution has their own credit system outside of other colleges. These lost credits result in delayed graduation, which costs me and other transfer students more money, and puts us at risk of exhausting Pell Grant or federal loan eligibility entirely.”
