<p>The state in which DD is attending college has had significant budget cuts in the education field. All of the state universities are raising tuition and most are enlarging class size, etc. </p>
<p>Is it possible that an academic scholarship that has been awarded for four years, starting next fall, could be taken back by the university due to budget cuts?</p>
<p>let’s hope not. I’d be pretty upset if that happened to my son. He would have to leave his college if they did that to him. No way I could possibly make up the difference. But it doesn’t hurt to ask them and get the answer in writing :-)</p>
<p>Colleges are sensitive to changing aid to an existing student. More likely they cut back in aid to new students than reduce aid for existing students. They don’t want a mass exodus of upper level students. That would really mess up their admissions process.</p>
<p>Agree with Operadad, every reputable school I know says first priority is commitments already made.</p>
<p>Also, ask yourself this question:</p>
<p>1) School A offers you a FA package. Claims it is for 4 years. You just found out they have reduced pledged awards to existing students (retracted scholarships)</p>
<p>2) School B offers you a slightly worse FA package. Claims it is for 4 years. No bad press about reducing FA to existing students.</p>
<p>If you would be happy at either school, which one would you pick?</p>
<p>Therefor, the decision to affect aid of current students has an impact on the matriculation rate of new students. Hence the incentive is to keep your promise.</p>
<p>Thanks, everyone, for your input. I would agree that a college’s first priority should be to prior commitments. I didn’t think of matriculation and how important that is to college status as well as the student. I’ve already received my acceptance/scholarship letters and hope the FA offer letters from each school reflects the same award and helps ease the financial challenge!</p>
<p>actually I have seen very nice letters from colleges that not only are they honoring previous commitments, but they beleive that their first priority is keeping kids in school who are there, but whose families have changed circumstances. I do think this will make it tough for next years class.</p>
<p>If this were a small private you were considering, I would guess rather than retracting an offered scholarship they would simply increase tuition a bit more on everybody. They cannot afford to actually lose bodies and retracting scholarship $ would be a bad PR move. Raising tuition is expected, therefore to raise it a bit more would be less offensive and since it would hit every student with a smaller increase than taking away a few merit $, they may raise more money overall.</p>
<p>The college I plan to attend is a state school that has recently had tuition increases approved for the 2009-10 year. I had received my merit scholarship letter for this school prior to the tuition increase, so it was a disappointment, but still a big blessing! I’ll be a first-year freshman 2009-10. I would guess they’ll honor their commitments, but may increase tuition and other rates in these difficult times. I suppose I can call my college recruiter and ask her, but I don’t want to bother her unnecessarily.</p>
<p>If you have a written letter, I would be shocked if they wont honor it. The more likely issue is how much is the tution going up next year, etc.</p>