Help! BVSc issue! murdoch/glasgow/edinburgh students please help!

[cocomisk]

I have been accepted to the University of Melbourne's BVSc program. It was accredited in early 2007. I applied for my Stafford loan - grad amount - $20,500. My school certified it and sent me a letter with my disbursement dates. Now, today I get an email from financial aid contact saying they received a letter from the USA department of education saying that a BVSc is not a graduate level course and so I can't receive the 20,500, but would only be able to get the 8,500 that an undergrad gets. I swear I've read on here and other forums that people have gotten the grad amount for murdoch and glasgow...so what's the deal??? I've got plenty of emails out questioning this but I'm wondering if anyone else that has just started to attend has had this problem? Or does anyone have any insight at all? I thought it was a matter of degree equivalency and we all know bvsc = dvm... I called the student aid hotline and they told me only the school can decide how much you're eligible for..? But now I think the financial aid lady is hesitant to let it go through. She's talking about cancelling it and recertifying for the 8500!

Anybody have any thoughts?? I'm freaking out here...

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[DDoc]

I'm in my first year at Glasgow and if I recall I recieved something like $12,000 and $8,000, one of which was subsidized and one of which was unsubsidized. Sorry I don't remember which was which. I also needed to take out a private loan for the remainder.
I'm honestly not sure what to advise to do, as I'm not the most financially oriented person and know virtually nothing about the process other than signing the papers.
My degree is BVMS which is equal to the BVSc and the DVM, so I can't understand why yours would be registered differently. My school is used to North Americans though and knows exactly what to do with it. Is it possible your financial aid officer is screwing things up here? If the school truly is the only one who can decide as you said it would certainly make me wonder about their abilities to register this correctly.

 

[birdvet2006]

I wonder if the school filed some paperwork as "undergraduate" instead of "graduate"? Since in Australia BVSc is undergraduate. Whereas as an American applying for loans, you need to apply as "graduate" to get your big money.

I have never heard of this happening. Somehow you need to talk to the federal people, which is a scary idea (I can imagine being put on hold or only being able to talk to machines, continuously...and only during certain hours, only to get nowhere). You need to say "hey - why is BVSc not considered graduate when BVMS and BVM&S etc. are considered graduate? Look at all these American people I know who are getting your money..."

I was able to get $18500 (split into subsidized and unsubsidized) each year, but I know the amount has increased since I graduated.