<p>They’re keeping it because, in their opinion, your family ought to be making some of the contribution towards your college costs. Virtually all of the other highly selective colleges do the same, or are even less generous in how they handle it. Wash U is the only school I can think of that would have allowed this scholarship to apply to some of the parental contribution expectation. </p>
<ul>
<li>Most schools allow it to apply against loans. (But you don’t have any loans in your pkg)</li>
<li>Most schools allow it to apply against your student contribution, but some don’t.</li>
<li>Most schools use any remaining balance to reduce the amount of school-provided grants.</li>
<li>If there’s still scholarship money available after school-provided grants have been all removed, then the funds actually do reduce your family’s expected contribution.</li>
</ul>
<p>If’ you’d earned a $55K one time outside scholarship, I think that your family would still be on the hook for $3,050 in contributions unless you are by chance eligible for a Pell Grant. (I’d guess that would have been shown on your award if you were.)</p>
<p>Congratulations on a great award. If you earn some money that will further reduce what your family will need to contribute, and you might find that some of the costs in the school’s COA are a bit inflated, possibly reducing it more. Either way, it looks very, very doable.</p>