I know I could post in the athletics forum but I figured here gets a little more traffic.
If you are offered a partial scholarship of 25% and say total cost for school is 32,000, that would equate to 8,000 scholarship.
I know there are other monies involved but I want to keep this simple. Say the only other money involved is a Stafford loan subs/unsub of 5500. Do I have to accept that 5500? My thinking is it would come off the 32,000 making the scholarship based off 26,500.
It would make more cents (pun intended) to not accept the loan because the scholarship will pay 25% of it rather than having to pay back 100% of the 5500… Am I off base here?
Yes, off base.
Athletic money can be a fixed amount (say $15,000) or a percentage of the cost of tuition, fees, room, board and books. (not total cost of attendance). In your example, say the COA is $32000 but the allowable athletic costs are $30k. You take your 25% of $30k, and subtract that $7,500, leaving you owing $22,500. How you pay for the rest that is up to you, with loans, grants, scholarships. In most cases, you can’t take institutional need based aid but Pell grants, SEOG, or other federal and state need based aid is allowed.
@twoinanddone got it exactly right. Keep in mind also that there can be some other monetary perks that come with athletic aid, such as free books and comped meals, reducing your bill even further.