The title above sounds like the beginning of any college bound student’s nightmare. Can you imagine applying to colleges, completing the FAFSA, discerning your financial aid award packages, depositing to the college of your dreams, and then getting notified that all of your financial aid funding is being cancelled?

West Virginia University (WVU) recently put this type of scare into 14,000 of their students yesterday afternoon. University officials stated “that a random email was generated by a computer and started rapidly sending the notification out to students”. The following is the language that was included in that email:

“A review of your academic transcript indicates that you have reached the limit on attempted credit hours and are no longer eligible for financial aid. Any financial aid previously offered to you for 2011-12 academic year has been cancelled.”

Apparently, the email was only supposed to go to 688 students that no longer met the criteria of being eligible for financial aid. WVU is reaching out to the students that were not supposed to receive the email and assuring them that everything is “ok”.

As you are going through your educational process and receiving financial aid to cover the associated expense, please be aware that you could someday be on the recipient end of the email mentioned above. However, if you are a good student making great progress (academically) in your coursework, you should have no worries.