My son has received a small grant from one of the colleges he has been accepted to. With all his other acceptances, we have only received a letter saying that we could receive unsubsidized Federal Loans.
I was curious about the reliability of grant aid given by colleges as part of the FIN AID package? To me it appears it could be used to entice you to the school only to be taken away later when your child has settled in, made friends, connections, etc. Because this money if not guaranteed for all four years, I am very hesitant to allow my Son to commit. For me, if we cannot lock down a four year financial plan to pay for school then I cannot see committing.
Has anyone lost this grant aid if their incomes have remained fairly constant (i.e. 3-4% annual wage increase). It seems prudent to just simple disregard this amount.
My daughter has received an ‘alum grant’ for two of the three years she’s attended school. Small, very small. There are no rules to these grants, but the FA office just gives them out. Some of the awards are just for instate (she’s OOS), others are just for certain majors, so she’s only eligible for a few non-specific ones. So far, it is not on her FA portal for next year but the first year they didn’t award them until April.
Her merit award is renewable with a 3.0 gpa. Her talent award had to be applied for each year (with an audition). Other daughter has 2 grants that are guaranteed, and her merit award needs a 2.8.
I think if you need the award to be guaranteed, you need to ask the school if it is guaranteed, and get the answer in writing (email)
If it is need based…you will need to apply annually. We can’t predict changes in your income in future years…or know the thresholds your college has for offering grant aid.
@thumper1 I agree. One cannot predict what one makes or most importantly what the college is going to do in the future. Best to just forget about the grant money and stick with any Merit money.
Strongly disagree with @MassDaD68 - in our experience, needs based aid trumps merit aid bigly
We have been at a full-needs met schools, and while we do have to re-apply annually, they have met full need. The reason they want you to re-apply is because if your family situation changes - as in you go from a family of 4 to family of 3, when older sibling graduates, or something else like income changes (new job?) or asset changes (inheritance?) - they will want to recalculate the aid they give you based on your need changing. This is only fair.
Back when I went to school on merit, the grant money either slightly decreased each year, or the cost increased, so by senior year we were paying much more than we paid freshman year. I was very wary of this happening to my pups so I made a point to ask the FA officers specifically about this. I felt better asking in person, then following up with an email so I could have a written response in case something changed later.
The schools that can afford to meet full needs do not play games, certainly not at the expense of their students. One jokingly replied that “don’t worry, they can make it up in alumni contributions after they graduate, because we’ll ask every year for forever.”
Hi @3puppies You might be right at a full needs school but we are not in that boat. None of the schools my son is considering is a full needs school. You are totally right about the scholarship being fixed and we needing to absorb the annual $3-4K tuition increases.
I just feel the grant money is way too tenuous to even risk. These schools are not about to give money if they do not have to because there is just so little to give. Best to offer it to the freshman to suck them in and then take it away once they are here. This could be a major problem for many families if the money is taken away. Why set your kid up for heartbreak when you tell them the grant is gone and you have to come home and try to transfer into another school. Then your a transfer student with low prospects of Merit Aid.
Unless you get a better job and your need based aid drops
Unless you’re relying on programs like Perkins which then get cut (happened to a friend of mine)
Unless your school revises their financial aid policies and reduces your aid
Unless someone in the family gets ill and you can no longer contribute anything to fill the FA gap
There’s far too many moving parts when you’re relying on grant-based aid instead of “You’re definitely getting this money as long as you have a 3.0 and meet SAP” (merit aid)
Merit is far, far, far superior ON AVERAGE. Is financial aid better sometimes? Sure. You got lucky if your circumstances didn’t change AND your school was generous. This rarely happens. Guaranteed something >>>> not guaranteed anything. Solid rule of life.
It’s like a kid who just got into Harvard telling their friend who is going to Local State School 2 Miles Away that Local State School kid doesn’t need to worry about getting a good financial aid package, because they (Harvard kid) is fine!
OF COURSE Harvard kid is fine. But that doesn’t mean their reality is everyone else’s.
A TINY portion of college kids go to full-need-met schools. So no, that advice is simply not applicable to the vast majority of families.
One more thing (not to spam this thread): another reason I just can’t get behind that advice is because sometimes even a year or two of college can REALLY change a person/family’s financial situation.
When I left college, my mom was free to move to a better job (could not do it beforehand because of custody reasons). Her income went up over 20k.
When I left for college, I was suddenly eligible for lots of high-paid engineering internships, as well as decently paid on-campus research jobs, so my income spiked to about 50% of my mom’s. Our household income has thus gone from about 72k when I was a high school senior to nearly 150k.
College can be really life changing for kids, depending on their circumstances and field of choice, etc. If I had gone to a need-based school, I would be looking at paying FULL FREIGHT at this point. Instead, I wisely chose a school that gave me huge merit, and so the enormous change in income has had 0% impact on my education: I don’t have to transfer, etc etc etc.
You really need to have some foresight when you’re choosing a college.
I think the answer depends on the school - you are right to be cautious.
However, you may be able to confirm with the school (via email, and get a response) that the grant money is intended to be renewable each year unless your financial situation materially changes. If so, then I don’t think you need to be skeptical.
More importantly, for others reading this in a similar situation, one of the most common things that parents fail to do before committing, is to ask the schools how they anticipate they would handle any expected changes in your family situation - like siblings graduating, or perhaps an inheritance of XX happens (if an estate settlement is pending) or any other significant event (adopting another child to fill an empty nest?). Profile schools have different formula, and can treat these differently - they can have a big impact, small, or even none. The FA departments are doing their best to make sure the students that have been admitted can afford to come, and they understand these type of questions may make a big difference to families.
Let them help you - don’t think they are trying to be deceptive, they want to help.
@thumper1 Yes. I understand you never said that. To me the safest bet is to ignore it. It could very well be bait to get you to enroll. Calling the school would not be helpful imo because everything I read says it is not guaranteed. They have a vested interest in bating students and to expect them to reveal themselves is foolish. I think if the school actually wanted my son to attend they would have provided assurances in the form of Merit aid which would have been guaranteed. I get it. They want to get the most money they can and search for those families willing to pay it. Nothing wrong with that. I am just not that family due to my limited resources.
My D received a large Alumni Grant as part of her package (actually a significant part of her package) but it is not guaranteed. I spoke with the director of financial aid and she assured me that the grant would remain in her package unless household finances increased very significantly; ie., we win the lottery (but said grant is not earmarked as need-based monies). I took her word for it and D enrolled. She has received the grant her first two years and I have to assume she’ll get it for her next two. I can’t imagine they want a student transferring out because they can’t afford to attend after being “baited” with the grant money. Some call this preferential packaging.
OP, I can understand the concern, but you should call the FA dept at the school and just ask. “Bait and switch” does happen, but I don’t think you’ll be able to know for sure that the school in scope utilizes this or not until you see it happen (or hear about it from someone else). If you ‘ignore’ the scholarship and the school is still in play, then you should go ahead and factor the scholarship in since the school is a valid candidate…
A few things to amplify or give push-back to other posts:
the FA formula at a specific school should remain consistent for the same student year after year. Yes, the student's circumstances may change, but same formula applies. School may change policies, but it will be for the next incoming class. I'm sure there are exceptions but this should be considered normal.
Courtney's example is just as special as being a Harvard student. Massive increases in income are unusual (though not impossible). And besides, you know your own family's financial situation, so you can estimate future years' impact on FA for yourself.
lastly, you can evaluate the 'money matters' for the schools you're looking at in collegedata . com. ; look at % need met for freshmen compared to all ug students. A HUGE drop could be a red-flag. There are other factors (like # of transfers, kids losing merit scholarships, etc). The bigger the difference, the less consistent is the school's FA formula from year to year.
@lz57c4 Good tip. I had not thought about applying some analytics to the FIN AID trend or the transfer numbers. That could provide some insight.
The reason for this post was to try to solicit past experiences that people have had dealing with grant aid. The non guarantee is a huge red flag for me.
The school is my son’s top choice but I think we are just one of many families who cannot afford the top choice. Not much you can do about it if the package the school offers is not viable.
I find this thread very interesting. Just yesterday a good friend of mine that according to Profile has a lot of need received a very good package from a private university and all her need was met. However, as this being financial aid the award was NOT guaranteed for four years and my friend decided to move on. She got merit + aid at other private colleges but again she can not swing it with only the Merit. The student in the end will commit to the only school that offered a guarantee full tuition, a small state directional. The private colleges are in the 15% to 30% acceptance rate so very desirable. She told me the exact same thing that she thinks that is bait and switch and she had heard stories. I have to say I never heard of any stories and I though it is great to have your need met. I was actually hopping for a bit of need aid now that I will have more than one kid in college. Is this true? Do colleges really use that as bait and switch? Very confused.
My freshman dd18 got a housing grant that was to be in effect for 2 years. Found out they discontinued the grant. I was all up in arms thinking the same as you OP but they are honoring the grant for next year for all in my DD’s class it was on her award statement for next year, shew.
In our situation we were offered $15,000 in need-based aid to a University that cost $58,000 (tuition and room and board) and does not meet 100% full need. I called the school to determine if they would guarantee that amount of need-based aid for all four years. They would not. They said that the need based aid was offered because I would have two kids in college at the same time. So our expected family contribution (EFC) was halved but only for the time that we would have two kids in college at the same time. The financial aid officer said that we would likely be full pay, with maybe at most a small few thousand dollar grant, once our older kid graduated. This is an example of why it’s better to receive merit aid from a college–it’s easier to plan and it’s guaranteed as long as the student meets the minimum gpa.