<p>I recently applied for 3 scholarships provided by my college and I was wondering if I can use those scholarships for anything other than paying or college tuition, room and board, and other college expenses? I had taken a look at those scholarships and there was no clause or fine print that says that I have to use it for college expenses other than saying that I must be enrolled in a bachelor's degree program.</p>
<p>If I can use it for personal expenses I would either use it to:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Fund the college club (aviation academic related) that I am president of at my college, so my club can use it to pay for field trips, guest speakers, etc.</p></li>
<li><p>Use it for regular personal expenses like buying groceries for my dorm room.</p></li>
<li><p>Save that money so I can pay for my flight training to learn to fly for fun or as a hobby.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Scholarships usually are applied to tuition, room, board and fees first and foremost. If there is extra money after that, it can be used for YOUR current college expenses, which include YOUR personal expenses such as books, transportation, school supplies, etc.</p>
<p>If you GET scholarships from your college, they will not be paid to you. They will be paid to the college bursar to cover your costs of attending. Colleges typically do not award aid of any kind that exceeds their cost of attendance.</p>
<p>I’m not sure you will actually HAVE any extra money. What makes you think you will?</p>
<p>They can, depending on your personal situaton. As Thumper says, a lot of scholarship sponsored by a school are paid into your school account and the school takes out anything you owe and you can request what’s left when you don’t owe the school anything.</p>
<p>Are you on financial aid of any sort? Because if you are, the proceeds may replace some of package, usually self help first, but colleges have their own policies on how they treat these things.</p>
<p>Using the money for number 2 in this OP is certainly fine, in my opinion. Using it for 1 and 3 is questionable unless you happen to get a refund. Remember that if you have unsubsidized Direct loans in your financial aid package, you will be paying 6.8% interest to subsidize numbers 1 and 3.</p>
<p>This can happen, as others have said, but is rare. My D is lucky enough to have full merit at a state flagship school that reached the COA at her school. She has about 6 different merit awards that are allowed to be stacked at her school (not all schools allow stacking). She gets a hefty refund which she puts aside to pay for personal expenses like gas and off campus meals. Yes, she could use the money any way she liked, but that would not be wise. </p>
<p>She works hard to make sure this windfall continues. She has to keep a very high GPA.</p>
<p>Most schools that allow stacking of all awards ONLY allow this up to the cost of attendance. But this COA does include room, board and personal expenses. NOTE…it does NOT include club expenses or costs not related to college.</p>
<p>You can if you cheat the system but this is very ill advised. You most likely will lose the scholarship if they find out you are soliciting the scholarship funds. I used one of my scholarships for back to school shopping but I had to contact the scholarship committee directly requesting permission. If you lose a scholarship for something like this, your name actually gets black listed in a system, this makes it very, very difficult for you to get accepted for future scholarships and jobs as well. Don’t waste education money on trivial things. </p>
<p>1)Your college club can raise funds easily through fundraising events. </p>
<p>2)Wait until you have an actual job to get aviation training (4 years won’t kill you)</p>
<p>3)Get a part time job if you are so invested on buying groceries or buy a meal plan which will be able to get covered by scholarships and loans.</p>
<p>Oh ok, thanks for the warning HurdGirl95. I won’t do that. I know that usually scholarships are to be used for paying for college expenses but I thought there were some scholarships out there that have no specific rules on what to use them for.</p>
<p>The money goes directly to the school. After all of your university bills have been covered, if there is excess, the money goes to you. I don’t believe there’s any accountability system after they dispense the money; you can use it however you want, provided the scholarships don’t say otherwise.</p>
<p>Even if scholarships top out at COA you might get some back. My D gets overage checks every semester. Usually because she is not getting a meal plan or not staying in most expensive dorm so she has extra to spend however she pleases as long as she still can pay for food and books. COA usually does include a number for some personal expenses and books so it depends on how you spend.</p>
<p>And of course you have to remember that all excess money after legit educational expenses (and room and board are not considered legit educational expenses) is subject to federal and perhaps state taxes…</p>
<p>At D’s school COA is tuition, fees, room (highest amt) and board (highest amount) plus some number for books and personal expenses. This is also the number you want to look at when deciding true college costs beyond just tuition.</p>
<p>COA is cost of attendance. It is usually an estimate by your school based on dorm, meal plan, tuition and student fees. If you opt to commute or go without a meal plan then your cost of attendance is reduced. If you get scholarships that exceeds your cost of attendance then by the end of the year you typically get a refund check with that amount! (This is exciting.) You can use that money for whatever you want but most people simply put it back into their school account. My best-friend got a Mac Book Pro 2 with hers check. Some scholarships automatically carry over though but most schools give you a refund check.</p>