<p>If I am low-income and receive a full scholarship, what good would individual-outside-of-school scholarships do? Can they pay for ... living expenses or travel fees? (I highly doubt it but it's worth a try asking...)</p>
<p>If the check is made out to you, it's yours to fund your education as you see fit. A $1000 scholarship barely scratches the surface of what you will need for books.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, it is not exactly true that if a scholarship check is made out to you you are free to spend it as you see fit.</p>
<p>It is important to discuss this with each individual college, because each school has their own policies on how outside scholarships will be applied to the total cost of attendance. </p>
<p>Some schools will use outside scholarships to reduce loan amounts or eliminate work study from your FA package; Others will apply the amount of outside scholarships to reduce the amount of your grant if you do not have any self-help aid. </p>
<p>If you have travel or other expenses directly related to the cost of attendance which are NOT met by the college's scholarship or financial aid award, individual colleges <em>may</em> allow you to apply it to those costs, but, again, each college has its own policies. </p>
<p>Finally, there are federal regulations on "over awards" which limit how much above and beyond the cost of attendance a student can receive in outside scholarships. </p>
<p>Here is a helpful article that explains how outside scholarships are treated by colleges and the federal government: <a href="http://www.finaid.org/scholarships/outside.phtml%5B/url%5D">http://www.finaid.org/scholarships/outside.phtml</a></p>
<p>So, the bottomline is: Don't assume. Ask each college how they will treat outside scholarships above and beyond the cost of attendance, and pay attention to those Federal guidelines as well.</p>