Our twins have been accepted to several colleges, my son got a merit award good for up to 5yrs without a minimum GPA requirement. We knew that our 2019 tax return would be about 40% less than our 2018 and had planned on going through the “appeal/change of circumstances process”. Does anyone know if we did an appeal could they possibly shift part or all of the merit award to need based aid? My concern is that the need based aid might not be renewable and we would have another child in college next year…
Is the merit award sufficient?
Why are you appealing your need based award? Does this college meet full need for all accepted students?
I’ve not heard of merit awards turning into financial aid awards. However merit reduces need, so it very much reduces financial aid in many scenarios.
A lot of this depends upon how the schools involved define financial need. Some schools specifically do ask what any siblings’ college costs are—after any aid/scholarships are applied. Some do not.
I know of a family who had 3 in college at one time. The oldest went to Duke, and at the time Duke did not ask net costs of siblings college. That school simply took applied a fixed fraction (based on number of kids simultaneously in college) to what their need calculator showed for a single student, regardless of whether those siblings were going to an inexpensive local school, has full ride scholarships or were given no aid at a very expensive private school.
The second student did go to an inexpensive state school, which reduced the cost for her older sibling drastically. The youngest child reduced the cost for the oldest further by the same fraction even though her costs were very high at a private school. That college was not as generous s Duke, and it did take into account the actual cost of what the siblings were paying for their colleges in calculating what need might be for that student. But then it did not meet need anyways.
No it’s not … we are appealing because it is not enough, our FAFSA/CSS was based on a much higher income … we dropped 42% between 2018 and 2019 tax return.
I do not believe it is a meet needs school.
At most schools need based aid must be applied for each year and it is based on that year’s FAFSA/CSS submission. Some schools do promise not to reduce aid if finances basically stay the same, but it is not really renewing the need based amount.
It’s unlikely they’d ‘move’ the merit award to a need based one, but they will consider that merit award as meeting some of the need. Ex., COA is $60k and your (recalculated) EFC is $40k. If the merit award is $15k, the school will take $60k-$15k= $45k. Will they give you that $5k as need based aid? They may, but they aren’t going to give you the whole $20k as need based aid and then give you a $15k merit scholarship.
You can ask for reconsideration…but do keep in mind…a ton of people are experiencing job losses and income reductions now. I just can’t imagine how colleges would be able to meet the increased needs of all the folks who will be asking.
How much more does your kid need to be able to attend this college? If it’s more than a small amount, it’s probably not an affordable option.
We could definitely do it w 15K but might be able to swing it with 10K. Thanks for your thought and I guess we will give it a shot and see what happens.