- Jurisdiction
- California
Hi, thanks for reading my weird story, I'll try to keep it short
I took a couple of community college classes last semester. I filled all the info out and was approved for instate tuition in California (where I lived/live for about 15 years). Instate tuition was below 200 bucks for both courses and I paid in full.
After classes ended I received a letter claiming they tried to contact me multiple times, stating the following:
"We are notifying you to let you know that after a secondary review of your residency status, we determined you are missing some required documentation that resulted in a change of your residency status to non-resident status for the Fall 2018 and/or Spring 2019 semesters. This has resulted in a change in the amount owed for tuition purposes and the loss of the California College Promise Grant (CCPG) if you previously qualified for the before mentioned semesters. Previous attempts to contact you have been unsuccessful. "
I took the classes just for fun (already have an MA), didn't think much of it, but now I suddenly owe 3,000. Since I'm not able to pay this they will hold my transcript and I cannot apply for any schools in the fall (they require transcripts from all accredited schools) if I don't pay.
They require proof I do not have (I graduated from HS in CA for example, but they require 3 years whereas I was there for only 1). They also require CA vehicle registration and CA license, both of which I have, along with a million other things they rejected, as they only want to see my CA taxes, which I didn't file.
The question regarding filing taxes was/is on the application, and I specified no. I passed the initial check, but not this secondary one, so my questions are fairly straight forward:
1) Why/how is this legal? (if you have case law or something I can read, that would be great, so I know what to do to avoid this in the future)
2) Is there anything I can do since I would have never agreed upon 3200 for a couple of intro courses? (I teach in this field, making this even more frustrating).
I stopped using credit cards over 10 years ago (as in, I don't have any debt and try to keep it that way) but they want to place me into debt again which really sucks, especially since the deadline to apply for the program I wanted is in 5 days =/ I'm currently traveling outside of US and have no recourse - till mid-summer.
Thank you for taking the time to read this and any advice you may have.
edit: I don't know if this matters, but over the phone I caught the admin stating they checked 1200 students - was I chosen simply because of the taxes (and if so, since I stated I didn't have them filed prior to being approved, would this make a difference) or is it possible it's because I was naturalized or because I'm traveling in Mexico or something else? (There are 25k enrolled as of right now) I guess I'm just flabbergasted that a school waited until I was no longer able to drop the classes before doing this weird check. As another minor note - I was enrolled in this same CC 3 years prior though I ended up dropping the couple of classes I took back then as I moved elsewhere in CA. Either way, I'm just trying to figure out how/why this check happened, why it was so late, if there's anyone I can contact about this since it was entirely out of my control and I would never agreed to this.
Hell, my parents have had a house in the area since my senior year.. I'm not sure where the hell they think I live =/
I took a couple of community college classes last semester. I filled all the info out and was approved for instate tuition in California (where I lived/live for about 15 years). Instate tuition was below 200 bucks for both courses and I paid in full.
After classes ended I received a letter claiming they tried to contact me multiple times, stating the following:
"We are notifying you to let you know that after a secondary review of your residency status, we determined you are missing some required documentation that resulted in a change of your residency status to non-resident status for the Fall 2018 and/or Spring 2019 semesters. This has resulted in a change in the amount owed for tuition purposes and the loss of the California College Promise Grant (CCPG) if you previously qualified for the before mentioned semesters. Previous attempts to contact you have been unsuccessful. "
I took the classes just for fun (already have an MA), didn't think much of it, but now I suddenly owe 3,000. Since I'm not able to pay this they will hold my transcript and I cannot apply for any schools in the fall (they require transcripts from all accredited schools) if I don't pay.
They require proof I do not have (I graduated from HS in CA for example, but they require 3 years whereas I was there for only 1). They also require CA vehicle registration and CA license, both of which I have, along with a million other things they rejected, as they only want to see my CA taxes, which I didn't file.
The question regarding filing taxes was/is on the application, and I specified no. I passed the initial check, but not this secondary one, so my questions are fairly straight forward:
1) Why/how is this legal? (if you have case law or something I can read, that would be great, so I know what to do to avoid this in the future)
2) Is there anything I can do since I would have never agreed upon 3200 for a couple of intro courses? (I teach in this field, making this even more frustrating).
I stopped using credit cards over 10 years ago (as in, I don't have any debt and try to keep it that way) but they want to place me into debt again which really sucks, especially since the deadline to apply for the program I wanted is in 5 days =/ I'm currently traveling outside of US and have no recourse - till mid-summer.
Thank you for taking the time to read this and any advice you may have.
edit: I don't know if this matters, but over the phone I caught the admin stating they checked 1200 students - was I chosen simply because of the taxes (and if so, since I stated I didn't have them filed prior to being approved, would this make a difference) or is it possible it's because I was naturalized or because I'm traveling in Mexico or something else? (There are 25k enrolled as of right now) I guess I'm just flabbergasted that a school waited until I was no longer able to drop the classes before doing this weird check. As another minor note - I was enrolled in this same CC 3 years prior though I ended up dropping the couple of classes I took back then as I moved elsewhere in CA. Either way, I'm just trying to figure out how/why this check happened, why it was so late, if there's anyone I can contact about this since it was entirely out of my control and I would never agreed to this.
Hell, my parents have had a house in the area since my senior year.. I'm not sure where the hell they think I live =/
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