<p>For schools that give out merit and financial aid, if you receive some merit aid and your family qualifies for some financial aid, can you receive both?</p>
<p>In many cases, what happens is that the merit aid scholarship reduces your need, causing your need-based aid to go down.</p>
<p>But surely you would get more money from merit and financial aid combined than you would financial aid only right?</p>
<p>That depends on the college and it depends on what the aid package is made up of. I’ve heard of some colleges that, if you receive a scholarship for $5000, they remove $5000 worth of institutional aid. Others allow you to keep up a certain (small) amount of merit aid without impacting your need-based financial aid. Still others reduce your loans and work-study amounts first before touching your grants and other free institutional aid. In many cases, financial aid of any form can’t exceed the actual cost of attendance. It is something that colleges decide on their own and there isn’t really a universal standard.</p>
<p>Gardna is right…it depends on the school.</p>
<p>Some schools have an odd policy that the most they’ll give is up to tuition (including scholarships). Some will let aid and scholarships add up to need.</p>
<p>No, I don’t have any intention of getting more money than is needed for tuition + room & board. I’m wondering if my merit aid can add up to my financial aid to be close to the total cost, since I most likely will not be receiving substantial fin. aid.</p>
<p>Most schools that offer merit aid are schools that do not meet need.</p>
<p>^ Ok, how about RICE?</p>
<p>*I don’t have any intention of getting more money than is needed for tuition + room & board. I’m wondering if my merit aid can add up to my financial aid to be close to the total cost, since I most likely will not be receiving substantial fin. aid. *</p>
<p>**
Ok…now you’re talking about a different issue. ** </p>
<p>If you won’t qualify for much aid, that means that your family will be expected to contribute a lot. </p>
<p>You can’t get financial PLUS merit to cover your family’s contribution. The school will remove FA and only let you have the scholarship.</p>
<p>For instance…</p>
<p>School COA = $50k</p>
<p>Family Contribution is determined to be $30k.</p>
<p>Your "determined “need” is $20k. (which could get covered with a $13k grant, a $5k student loan, and a $2k work-study.)</p>
<p>But, say you get a scholarship for $20k per year.</p>
<p>You don’t get that $20k scholarship PLUS the “need” amount. In other words, you don’t get to use that $20k to reduce your family contribution (which is $30k in the example). Instead, the school would take away all of your FA.</p>
<p>Anyone who has a high family contribution that is unaffordable needs to…</p>
<p>1) find out how much parents will pay each year. Edited to add, I see your parents will pay $10k - 15k. You need to find out if it’s closer to 10k or 15k.</p>
<p>2) find out which schools will give big enough scholarships that combined with parent money and maybe a small student loan will cover all costs. Apply to those schools as your financial safeties. </p>
<p>3) apply to HYPS which have super generous aid packages (assuming that your parents can pay 10% of their income.</p>
<p>The only ways to reduce family contribution are…</p>
<p>1) go to a school where the COA is lower than family contribution.</p>
<p>2) Go to a school where your scholarship is so big that when subtracted from COA you owe less than your family contribution.</p>
<p>3) Go to HYPs where their generous FA formulas have a lower family contribution for families with your income.</p>
<p>*
My parents can pay only about $15 to 20k a year. </p>
<p>yeah our income is around 120k, so i guess thats upper middle class. so basically my plan will be to apply </p>
<p>.*</p>
<p>Are these your stats?</p>
<p>Asian
2300 SAT, 35 ACT
4.10 W GPA
3.85 UW GPA</p>
<p>Yea, those are my stats, and you’ve given me this good advice already in another thread. I only posted this thread because I was looking into some schools where I can get some merit aid (Rice) and was wondering if it could be combined, but I guess not. Thanks though</p>
<p>Don’t make assumptions based on what might or might not be…most schools allow merit aid to be stacked - that includes both institutional and outside scholarships - and once you hit the “threshold” for need-based aid, they will start reducing that (generally removing your loans and workstudy, then grants). Merit aid can, and often does, cut into the family’s EFC but then you have no “need”. Several posters last year experienced this - they received so much merit aid that they lost certain need-based grants and Stafford loans as, by law, the schools cannot overaward federal aid. If you’re not likely to receive need-based aid other than loans anyway, it’s probably not worth worrying about.</p>
<p>For federal aid such as PELL, SEOGH, subsidized Perkins and STafford loans, the amounts MUST get reduced when the need is reduced to the point that you no longer have need for those monies. You are not permitted to “make” money from those programs. </p>
<p>How colleges handle financial aid money that comes from their own coffers when the student also gets merit money depends on the college. Usually, the financial aid office works with the admissions office in integrating the financial aid with the merit award, so the process never is revealed to the student. For instance, if you qualify for $20K in aid, and the school decides to give it to you (assuming a no loan school with a cost of $60K), and then if admissions comes up with a $20K merit award, you will get that, rather than the financial aid. If you should be awarded with $10K in merit money, fin aid will award you with $10k. </p>
<p>There are some schools, however, that give merit within need, and in that situation it is possible to get both financial aid and the merit money. The school in that case would give you both. In that situation, as in every situation, you would lose any need based aid from the government, but the school can do what it wants with their own money. </p>
<p>I know a young man who got a half tuition award from his college. In addition to that award, he gets some financial aid from the school too. So he is getting extra money that goes towards his expected contribution , just as a no need kid would be getting from merit funds. </p>
<p>It really is unfair that kids who are eligible for financial aid get this aid integrated into merit money whereas merit scholarships are pure gravy for those have no financial need. An example of how the “rich” get richer. But that is how most colleges do operate. And it is also how most colleges treat outside scholarships. They are not usually just added to the financial aid package, but used to replace those awards.</p>
<p>I only posted this thread because I was looking into some schools where I can get some merit aid (Rice) and was wondering if it could be combined, but I guess not.</p>
<p>If your need is - say $20k - and a school gives you a need-based grant for $20k, but then you get a scholarship for $15k, then you don’ t get to add the two together to get $35k in aid. The grant would be reduced to $5k and with the $15k in scholarship, you’d still have $20k in “aid” consisting of merit and FA.</p>
<p>But, if your "need"is $20k and you get a scholarship or several scholarships that total $30k, then you’ve effectively have reduced your family contribution by $10k.</p>
<p>So, you need to look for HUGE scholarships in order to reduce your family’s contribution - which seems to be your goal.</p>
<p>Some of these scholarships will be competitive (such as at Rice, USC, Vandy) and some will be assured, so be sure to apply to some of both types because a competitive scholarship award may not happen or may not be large enough to reduce your family’s expected contribution.</p>
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<p>Cpt, Pell is an entitlement and cannot be reduced, even if sufficient merit aid is given. Other grant and loan programs, and institutional aid, can be cut by the school to avoid overawarding, but Pell cannot. That’s why Pell is always awarded first, before other aid. Either way, it doesn’t seem like any of these grants would apply to the OP.</p>
<p>Thanks, SK84mom. So if a student gets a full ride merit award, one of those biggies that are so hard to get, if s/he is PELL eligible, s/he gets that amount on top of that award, and makes money?</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>Not really because full-ride scholarships usually don’t fully cover a school’s stated COA (which includes personal expenses and transportation).</p>