aid stackability at these schools?

Paying for College
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My D has conducted many visits and is narrowing the list and we’re digging deeper into the aid process - many thanks to the helpful responses to my other post on NPCs and “need” discrepancies.

Now we’re trying to figure out how the combo of need and merit aid works. I understand one group of schools (including many of those that “meet 100% need” state explicitly they provide NO merit aid. Clearly there is wiggle room in that statement for some, but in many cases (ivies for example) they’re pretty firm. So … for those schools the NPC and need-package is what it is … though it may adjust to meet another one.

Many other schools however give both need and merit, and while in many cases the merit aid simply replaces need aid and so makes no difference in the ultimate package, other schools do appear to stack aid if they want you. If previous threads provide lists that help us sort this out wonderful, but if folks have experience in aid stackability at these schools below, I’d love to hear about it.

I realize it’s an eclectic list - my D is very strong both academically and musically, and is trying hard to balance those interests and so far (despite our discussions that she won’t be able to “do it all”) is trying to keep options open to pursue both, possibly in double majors, or dual degrees, or just taking a year or two to explore and then decide (part of the purpose, after all, of an LAC!) Obviously, we also understand that even if a school does stack need and merit, a student needs to earn the merit (!), whether through academics or arts, and yes she’ll be auditioning at some of these schools, voice and piano.

Barnard College
Berklee/Boston Conservatory
Boston University
Columbia University
Depauw University School Music
Lawrence University School Music
Luther College!
Macalaster College
Oberlin College
Pomona College
St Olaf College
University of Michigan School of Music, Theater, and Dance
Vanderbilt University
Vassar College
Belmont University
Colorado College
Furman University
Gettysburg College Sunderman Conservatory of Music
Ithaca College School Music
Kenyon College
Lewis and Clark College
Muhlenberg University

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For UMich (and most other schools), the stacking of merit and need based aid depends on the types and the sources of the aids. It also depends on your in-state or OOS status. In general, the merit aid would replace some need based aids, but it does not mean it would not make a difference. For OOS students with gap, the merit aid would fill the gap first, and then offset some loan and work study before hitting the grant. For in state students, there is no gap as it is need met. So it will reduce loan and work study first. Nevertheless, if the scholarship came from state money, it will reduce the grant first. In any case, your EFC would be the last to be touched.
In other words, there is no simple answer for your question.

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Honestly, you will need to contact each of these schools directly for the answer.

I will only comment on the ones I know.

Boston Conservatory/Berklee - even if they allow stacking…don’t count on getting a lot of aid to attend.

Boston University- no stacking. A merit award will reduce your need…and therefore your need based award will be reduced. Some music students DO receive both music performance, and academic merit awards…but both are merit. They would reduce need. But do call BU and ask. My info is from when my kid went there.

Columbia University and Barnard- no stacking. And they don’t give merit awards. If you receive an outside merit award, you must report it to the school. Your need based aid will be adjusted.

University of Michigan- I don’t believe they allow stacking.

The number of colleges which allow stacking is actually pretty small.

Also, schools that do allow stacking will not allow you to use your awards to meet your family contribution as they determine it to be. They still expect YOU to contribute that amount.

Really, your best bet is to contact each of these schools and ask.

We toured 28 colleges with our kids and only two allowed stacking…University of South Carolina, and Duquesne.

1 Like
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For schools that meet 100% demonstrated need, your merit aid will most likely be where merit will be a component of your need based package (merit with in need).

For example if the school’s COA is $65,000 and your EFC is $15,000

You would have a need of $50,000

If your D got a $10,000 merit scholarship, then your need would only be $40,000 and you would receive a financial aid package based on $40k need .

Your EFC would never be covered unless you got a “full ride” package or received an outside scholarship that would cover all of the need based aid first.

Barnard and Columbia do not give merit aid. Any outside scholarships that your receive will first replace the self help aid (student loans/work study contribution) after that it will replace the institutional need based aid.

Also remember all scholarships over the cost of tuition and books are taxable income to your child.

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^ For UMich (which meet 100% needs for in state students), merit aids are separated from need based aids even if it has a need component. They factor in the merit aid after calculating the need based aids first every year even for renewal merit scholarships.

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Based on personal experience:
Vanderbilt, Gettysburg, and Ithaca are definitely no. Beware, Ithaca gaps big as well, Vanderbilt is extremely generous and Gettysburg is in between.

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OP, what is your definition of “stacking”?

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@ClarinetDad16, I consider stacking to be providing merit aid in a FA package that goes beyond the family’s EFC (whether FAFSA or IM).

I understand many full meet-need schools make it clear they provide NO merit aid, that all FA is need-based. In those cases there can still be wide variation in how they define your need, as has been extensively discussed and I try to get at in my other thread on NPCs.

But many schools - including some full meet-need - provide both need and merit aid. Some make it clear that any merit aid will only offset need and not go beyond, which makes the merit aid an honor but not a financial help relative to any other full meet-need school (at least one with a similar need calculation for your family).

But some schools DO provide merit aid that adds onto - rather than only replaces - the need FA package. In some cases it first offsets the direct loan and work study requirement within the school’s package, but even so that is staking b/c the family could still then go get the direct loan if necessary. Stackability is important to many because even for if students are accepted to meet-need schools, they may not be affordable.

Apologies for the rambling, but the aid process is complicated and convoluted these days, the schools can be very opaque (some are transparent, but not all) and I’m looking for feedback from parents that have experienced stacking, especially at the schools I listed.

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Check school web sites and/or contact the school directly if the web sites are not clear.

It appears fairly common to allow “stacking” of merit scholarships up to the amount of the student contribution (i.e. student loan and work expectation) and sometimes unmet need before reducing need-based financial aid grants, although that can vary depending on the school. Examples:

http://financialaid.stanford.edu/aid/outside/
https://students.ucsd.edu/finances/financial-aid/types/scholarships/

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OP, I think, at some schools , you are confusing “grants” with Merit scholarships.
Both dont need to be paid back to the school.
But Merit scholarships are given based on merit, not Financial need.
They are often given to students that the college REALLY wants to enroll, sometimes with larger grants instead of loans in the FA offer, and sometimes in the form of a “sweetener”- grant $$ replacing work/ study- or in response to a FA letter of appeal AFTER a student has been admitted.
Merit $$ ,for the most part, are given to students who are statistically in the 90+% of a schools applicants.

There is no NPC that , in advance, will tell you how much a college will really want YOU.

Yes, it is complicated and that is because FA calculations are a “black box” in many cases, because all direct aid- loans, scholarships, grants, etc- in reality all come from the same pot.

My recommendation is to accept the answers you have been given above by those with thousands of posts re schools that do NOT give Merit $$- they know what they are talking about , and look at these 2 lists compiled by CC members, of colleges that DO offer merit $$. If you need additional $$ to go to college,above and beyond what the NPC’s are telling you, AND have the stats/ qualifications to qualify, then consider applying to some of the colleges that offer merit scholarships on these lists.

http://competitivefulltuition.yolasite.com/

http://nmfscholarships.yolasite.com/

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OP, are you expecting your EFC at many schools will not be a number you can afford?

If a school provided full tuition merit would that be a better package than a full need met school will provide?

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@menloparkmom yes I understand well the difference between need and merit aid, and between grants and loans. I realize that merit is awarded by certain schools to students they really want, and that one will need to be in the top 10% or so academically and/or have other qualities the school really wants, and so is competitive. I also understand the NPC can not be used to predict merit aid, BUT there are some NPCs that actually do include some merit scholarships based on standard criteria, and to do so their calculators ask about scores, grades, etc.

I’m not disregarding any advice, I understand which schools on my D’s list do and do not offer merit aid, and which she might qualify for. The murky part that is not well explained on most web sites is the interaction between need and merit packages, that is all I was asking for among parents that may have been in a similar situation with certain schools.

@ClarinetDad16 yes, we like many families are in the broad middle between full pay and full need households. I have run a number of NPCs (with very accurate data) for a wide range of schools, and the EFC varies widely based on their IM - by as much as $10K. So meet-need schools that are on the more generous end of IM EFC will likely be affordable and others not - though I also realize the NPC is an estimate and not a final pkg.

Example: School W with COA of $67K, meets-full-need-no-merit, NPC suggests our family EFC is $23K so the school meets that with $6K of student loan/work and then $17K of parent/family outright - maybe affordable. School X with COA of $66K meets-full-need-no-merit, NPC says EFC $32K, school offers $7K student loan/work, leaving $25K parent/family outright, not affordable to us. School Y meets-full-need-yes-merit with COA of $62K, EFC $29K, loan/work package brings family contribution to $21K, probably not affordable BUT the school offers merit that doesn’t only displace the need package, but could reduce the family contribution from that $21K to $10-15K - affordable. School Z not-full-need-yes-merit, COA $57K, EFC $30K and $23K net price after loan/work portion, also not affordable EXCEPT that the school also offers stackable merit, which if awarded would bring the net price down.

That may be more info than necessary here but I’m throwing out the range of what we’re seeing hoping it also may be helpful to others. The “meet-full-need” is a great concept but within that there still may be affordable and not affordable, depending entirely on your family situation AND on the school’s widely varying methodology for determining need. Among schools that offer merit, if a student is awarded, it can either significantly bring down the total cost or simply replace existing need based offer (whether or not the school is full-meet-need or not), and so make the school affordable or just be a nice but very frustrating honor and still not be affordable.

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OP, you should target schools where full tuition merit is possible. Sounds like that will be your best bet.

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Something doesn’t look right with all of these examples. Federal direct loans and work study are part of the aid package offered; they are not supposed to reduce the EFC. They are meant to be part of the package that covers the difference between EFC and COA. EFC is supposed to be covered through current family earnings, prior savings, and other loans (i.e. parent plus or private), either alone or in combination.

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You have summarized what thousands of frustrated parents have found over the last many years.
All you can do is have your daughter to send out applications many schools, including a few absolute safety schools that are ALSO completely affordable to you.
That is why so many of us recommend that you make sure she applies to schools where she is guaranteed merit scholarships.

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I think you are doing all you can do in the calculations you made above. We could say “Yes, school Y allows stacking”" but it may work out in your case that the merit is allowed to offset the $5.5k in loans but nothing else, so still leaves you with an EFC that is $25k and not workable for your family. As you proved, there are as many ways to deal with it as there are schools

I don’t think there are many schools that are going to allow you to get a $20k merit scholarships and use that entire amount for the EFC, and still give you $30k in need aid. Some school might be better about letting the scholarships stack if they are outside scholarships. At D’s school, they seem a lot more concerned about ‘their’ money and how it is applied to the bills and a lot less concerned about how I request they apply outside money. They don’t want to refund to my daughter any of their money. When she lived on campus and had a big room and board bill, it didn’t really matter as all her grants and merit went to ‘the bill’, but this year she lives off campus and the school was fine with giving her ‘other’ grants, loans and scholarships for rent and groceries, but none of their merit, grant, athletic money. They will not cut a check.

Even some Ivies allow students to get about $5k in outside scholarships before they start reducing aid.

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@menloparkmom yep, a large number of applications is definitely in the offing. But it can’t just be shotgun either, the selection of schools that meet D’s needs - and that she says she’ll be happy attending - and that cover the bases is not easy. Even schools where she will have high chance of merit scholarships may not be any more affordable than higher cost meet-need-no-merit, IF/WHEN their definition of need is on the generous end!
Anyway, thanks for your (and everyone’s) input, it is all helpful.

@BelknapPoint apologies if my use of EFC is off base. To clarify, those are all examples of NPC results from top-25 private schools that use College Board to host their calculators. So though their behind the scenes IM varies, the result printout is consistent. They all have three sections:

  1. headlined Estimated Cost Of Attendance, including the breakdown of tuition, room/board, etc and ending with a total COA ($60K give or take)
  2. headlined Estimated Grant/Gift Aid, which shows what they intend to give in "grant" or "scholarship", and the last row of that section is titled "Estimated Net Price". That net price is what I was terming the EFC.
  3. headlined Estimated Self Help, which shows student direct loan and work study, and the last row of that section is titled "Estimated Remaining Cost", which is essentially parent contribution.
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ok; this is actually a very helpful thread. even after 2 kids in college - i think i get it. . . . but i’m still slightly confused with aid/loans meeting up to your EFC – or aid/merit to EFC and loans as self help.

(my first two went merit route at safety schools. They are both very happy). For my next two i’ll be thinking about this all.

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@bgbg4us, say that a school COA is $70k, and the EFC is $30k, leaving $40k. A meets full need school can say you pay $30k, and for the $40k you must take $5k in loans, so the school is really only giving you $35k. Now you get a $10k outside scholarship. The school could say"okay, now you only have to pay $20k but still take the loan of $5k. What more often happens is the schools says “your need is now less, so instead of $40k, you only need $20k.” A nice school might say that you no longer need to take the loan, so in the end you pay $30k, outside scholarship pays $20k, school grant $20k, no loan. The $20k scholarship only saved you $5k (the loan).

OP is looking for schools that would allow the outside scholarship, or a school merit scholarship, to be applied to the EFC or eliminate the loans before the need based aid is reduced.

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OP are you talking about stacking Outside Scholarships?