<p>As the acceptances come in, I would like to know opinions on taking a merit scholarship where the amount does not change from year to year and you know exactly what the yearly cost of going will be for the family share vs. taking a great financial aid package and perhaps it will change every year, depending on income (family owned business).
It seems to me that taking the merit scholarship takes the "worry" out of the equation, however I'd like opinions if this is the "right" way of thinking. As the economy changes, will a school's generous offer for next year perhaps change the next year? Will they look at home value differently? I am not sure the anxiety about whether DS could stay at the university without knowing is worth it...any previous experience would be welcome here.</p>
<p>Generally speaking, the merit scholarship is the better bet. However, sometimes merit scholarships have strings attached that may make it difficult to keep - some parents on CC have kids who didn’t make the high gpa required of their kids to keep a scholarship - this can be a real problem. If you are comfortable with the terms of the scholarship, then merit is great.</p>
<p>Merit is not good if you really don’t want to attend the school & your family <em>could</em> handle paying for another college where you might be happier.</p>
<p>Merit aid also can be a fixed amount (say $15,000 a year). As tuition/fees etc. increases every year, the merit amount does NOT. Parents find themselves having to fork over a lot more money in each successive year as the gap between merit aid and fees widens. There are some scholarships that are set as a percentage of tuition (say, half-tuition scholarships). That’s a little better, since scholarship increases as tuition increases.</p>
<p>Not sure I understand the home value thing - are you thinking the value of the home would increase? They’re probably not likely to change their way of looking at things, ie. their methodolgy. I can relate to the uncertainties of self employment though! I would look at whether this last year has been unusually low for the business and try to project where the business is going in 2009. Difficult, but we are almost through the first quarter and that would give you an idea of the financial aid package for her first two years (assuming the school’s ability to give need based aid doesn’t change next year.) If the business does much better in a few years, would income/assets be available to make up the difference in FA? Or would you be willing to take out parent loans? Is all of that need-based aid available to continuing students ? D’s been offered several multi-thousand dollar awards that look great on the FA award but are restricted to freshman.</p>
<p>I like the packages that offer good ongoing merit scholarships - the future is in her hands, and she can count on it if she keeps her gpa up. But the best offers my D has, imho, have both good merit and good non-merit components and are at schools that we could probably afford even if she lost one or the other. I’m saying no to schools that we couldn’t possibly pay for without maximum aid and max loans every year (and she agrees). But we have to plan for 2 years grad school too, so that’s my $.02!</p>
<p>Thanks for all of your input. I have no fears that my DS will keep his grades up to handle keeping the merit scholarship. I had not thought about the price of school going up, but I guess that would happen at any of the choices. My concern is that a school that gives alot of need based aid the first year, will pull back the second year and cry poverty and then we are stuck with a DS that loves his school and no way to cover the gap between their second year offer and what we can afford. I guess I have no idea how they really figure what we can afford…if we earn 20,000 more dollars next year for example, will they assume it is all for college even if we qualified for a Pell this year and clearly need the money at home? I suppose one will never be able to speculate the answer to this.
I suppose they would never guarantee the need-based offer for all 4 years, correct?</p>
<p>Pell is completely FAFSA EFC driven and if you qualify for it at school A you would qualify for the same amount of Pell at school B. But if your income goes up the next year to where your EFC is too high for the Pell then you would not qualify for it at any school. However schools would not generally expect you to use the entire income increase toward school - the formulas usually take a % of income. For instance the FAFSA % of income (over the protected income allowances) considered available for the EFC can vary from 22% at lower income levels, up to 47% at higher income levels. Never 100%. Profile schools will have different %s but I doubt any will expect 100%. Of course that is just an opinion.</p>
<p>If he goes the merit scholarship route don’t be too complacent about him being able to keep the requirements up. I have known several very smart, hardworking kids with high or perfect HS GPAs and high ACTs/SATs who have started school with excellent scholarships and lost them the first year during the adjustment to college period. A couple of them were top students who I would never have expected to lose their scholarships (and their parents were very shocked also). I guess they go in thinking it will be the same as HS and some of them find it takes a while to adjust. One thing I would suggest is to not load up on difficult courses the 1st year if possible (some kids that have found HS fairly easy tend to do just that). Getting a nice solid GPA the 1st year gives a little cushion the subsequent years and helps keep that scholarship. My daughter has a full tuition + some cash scholarship and she had a very high GPA her freshman year (she didn’t choose easy courses but In retrospect I wish she had put off a couple of her sophomore classes like organic until her junior year) it has dropped a little her sophomore year (classes she hates but has to have like organic chem). If she had had those sophomore grades the freshman year her scholarship would have been gone after her freshman year. As it is the high freshman GPA has balanced out the less stellar sophomore GPA so her scholarship is safe at least through her junior year, and probably through senior year as required classes she hated but had to take are over and the rest of her classes will be subjects she loves. Something to keep in mind when deciding on freshman classes.</p>
<p>Thanks for the tips about freshman classes! I had not even thought of that yet! Great point!</p>
<p>Agree with swimcatsmom. Very few colleges bait and switch in terms of need based aid. What you see in the first package generally shows the college’s approach.</p>
<p>Merit, however, is easily lost. Many feel because their kid was a top student in high school things won’t change. But there is often a different level of competition and many distractions. </p>
<p>At most schools, I’d prefer need based aid.</p>
<p>Here’s a new twist. After conferring with the family, DS feels he “earned” the merit aid and that the need-based aid is charity, not really "earned’ by him, but by our lack of money. So, he’d prefer to take the merit money and work to keep it. Is this gonna be a mistake or will his integrity drive him for the good grades he’ll need to keep the merit aid?
Obviously we will encourage him to take a “lighter” academic load freshman year, but
I had not thought about this twist. He can be happy at either school in his opinion, so that is not an issue. What to do???</p>
<p>DinDune- Wonderful advice from Swimcatsmom, hmom5-I will “third and fourth” their advice with our own current experience. We have twins who are at a top 50 LAC-now completing their freshman year. We did not qualify for need-based aid, but each child received a merit award covering around 30% of tuition, renewable IF they maintained a 3.0 GPA. </p>
<p>Since both graduated with Weighted GPA’s >4.0 in extremely rigorous curriculum in private prep. school, we assumed ( you know that old adage) that maintaining a 3.0 would be no problem. To quote Paris Hilton on Larry King Live: “If I only knew now what I knew then.” Both kids registered for classes they thought they needed to take as soon as they could Econ. philosophy, mandatory writing seminar, Biology with lab, etc. Sounds like a normal demanding high school schedule but as prior posters have said-college classes are different and adjusting to being away from home, managing time and dealing with demands of professors is very different than life as a high school senior. In all probability only one of two children will keep merit scholarship past freshman year and tuition increase was just announced at around 5%. Definitely plan schedule to allow for some bumps in the road and freshman adjustment. Also, find out grading scale-we were not prepared that all B’s were not created equally. S finished first semester with 1 B+ 1B and 2B- 's so GPA was below 3.0.</p>
<p>Re. Home Value: I might be wrong, but I’ve heard that, with the changes in FA rules, the “equity” in a home can no longer be counted. Anyone hear anything different?</p>
<p>What change in FA rules? </p>
<p>Home equity is not counted by FAFSA or for federal aid. Schools that use CSS and provide their own institutional aid can count whatever they want, including home equity.</p>
<p>Not to disagree with hmom5, but we’ve had different experiences with the 3 FA offers so far and their institutional need-based grants (offered above merit scholarships). One was $3,000 and renewable based on need and maintaining a 2.0 - great!. One was $3,000 - pamphlet enclosed states that’s only awarded to freshmen - not so good. The third had a $2,400 grant renewable with need, a 3.0 gpa, and “ongoing participation in a university-wide activity” - not sure what that means yet, maybe a club or team? Anyway, glad I read the fine print!</p>
<p>D’s merit scholarships all require a 2.7-3.0 min gpa, but moot 'cuz below 3.0 she’ll be out of her program anyway!</p>
<p>It’s fine to disagree as we’re just trying to get to the facts and what works best!</p>
<p>Colleges know they will lose kids if they don’t stick with the need based aid they give the first year. While loans certainly go up, generally the package stays static in my experience. Most care greatly about student retention.</p>
<p>But there seems to be a lot of stories about kids losing merit aid. Some are not well prepared for college academics, others focus on the party…all sorts of things seem to happen.</p>
<p>While the OP’s DS is earnest in his approach–wanting the prize he earned–he doesn’t yet know what he doesn’t know! While there is some merit aid fully won on merit, most is enrollment management strategy to discount to get the kid to enroll.</p>
<p>Lots of food for thought.Thanks everyone…good thing we have a few weeks to finalize the decisions!</p>