<prompt> Human: My federal pell grant was originally 2960.00 on my original financial aid award letter. The student loans on the same letter were for a total of 3750. The financial aid office would not release any funds until the loans were either accepted or declined.I accepted the loans and then received an updated award letter with drastically different numbers. My Pell Grant was now 2,585. The student loans are now a total of 6,342. I checked to see if other grants or scholarships were also decreased to explain the loan being doubled, but the Pell Grant was the only decrease. The final cost of the schooling is also less than the total of my grants and loans. I went in person to my financial aid office and was told that this is my award letter and I can either accept it or not.None of this adds up to me. I dont want to take on more debt than necessary. Any help would be appreciated.  <response>: I am a financial aid professional. Is this for the 1718 or 1819 academic year? One semester or two? Are you currently attending this school? Heres what we know: 2960 is the one-semester, full-time amount of Pell Grant if you have a 0 EFC on your FAFSA, which demonstrates the most financial need possible... aka the maximum Pell Grant for one semester of attendance. 2585 is the Pell grant for a student with a greater than zero EFC. So, what is the EFC on your FAFSA? Did you just complete a verification process to submit tax docs to make sure your Pell Grant amount was correct? Have there been any recent changes to your FAFSA? When you went in to the office, did you talk to a front desk person, or sit down one-on-one with a financial aid counselor? Did you ask directly why the amount of the Pell Grant had changed? I recommend that you see if there is a specific financial aid person that you can email to ask the question. Put it in writing so you have a trail of the communications. Explain politely that you went into the office with a question that was not answered clearly and you would like to see if they can help you. Be friendly so you dont put them on the defensive. Ask them to look at the Pell Grant and loan activity and explain why they changed. FYI There are times when a student comes to me and ask why something has changed like why did my work study funding go away? and I look at the computer system that logs a permanent record of all changes to the financial aid package and the student was never awarded work study for that academic year. Something they look at the wrong school year or just assume it was there and I have to explain that they are incorrect. It is equally possible that something rightfully changed with your eligibility, or that something was incorrect and they had to fix it. Financial Aid is a highly regulated technical environment, and the Financial Aid Office is pretty much the final word on your eligibility. If they wont explain it to your satisfaction there are not a lot of options other then complaining to another department student services to shame them and possibly spur action. Cheers! 