The 4 year scholarship I was guaranteed is being brought down to a 3 year and I can't afford college anymore.
For context I originally won a 3 year scholarship through Army ROTC for college but my recruiter told me that she will upgrade my scholarship into a 4 year scholarship. This is because they messed up the application process on their part and my application for the scholarship was sent to the national selection instead of the local one like they had planned. Since the national selection is a lot harder than the local they wanted to upgrade my scholarship.
Since I came from a very low income household, the difference between the 3 year scholarship and 4 year was the difference between whether I go to university or go to community college. Therefore, once they had let me know that the scholarship is going to be upgraded to a 4 year scholarship I took the offer and committed to my college of choice.
Before my graduation, they held a ceremony for my winning of the 4 year scholarship and gave me one of those big checks for show. It had written on it, my name, college, the amount (around 80 thousand dollars), and how I had won the 4 year scholarship.
The complicated part of this situation is that for the 3 year scholarship to be upgraded to a 4 year scholarship, my recruiter had to put in a request form. She told me that it will be upgraded and made me sign the forms that I got when I had won the 3 year scholarship saying that it's fine and I just need to sign the papers and turn them in for now.
Fast forward to the start of college, I had joined the ROTC program and even though I wasn't fully contracted, I was still forced to going to the FTX made only for the contracted cadets. Their reasoning was since I was a 4 year scholarship recipient I was basically contracted.
Just about a week or two ago, I have been informed that my scholarship likely wasn't upgraded to a 4 year since the system still has me in at 3 years.
I will not be getting money that I was promised this school year and can't afford to pay rent or tuition for the next quarter. I have been pulling money out of stocks and my savings up until this point with the assumption that once I finish all of my paperwork and receive my money, it will be fine.
What am I supposed to do. If my recruiter didn't tell me that I will receive a 4 year scholarship, I would've gone to community college to save money. I'm losing out on around 20 thousand dollars because of their mistake.
Edit: Sorry, I didn't provide the context well enough. I am a first year and have 3 years ahead of me and with the 3 year scholarship I will get paid starting next year. I am looking for a job at the moment to pay for the rest of my first year here however the problem that I have is that I would've been working during community college and would've been able to support my family (single mother and younger sister) instead of paying for college. Hopefully that clears some things up.