<p>Question: At her high school awards night, my daughter received about $10,000 thanks to many private scholarships and awards. The intent of these awards was to help pay her expenses. Her college’s policy is to deduct these from her self-help first then from institutional scholarships. Any ideas on how to keep the money from reducing [...]</p>
<p>At least they let her reduce from self-help first. At my college, they take away from the university grants first, then if you have enough to cover what they'd give you the scholarship money is deducted from your self-help cost.</p>
<p>I think the problem is that most people don't know how it works. Financial aid nights run by high schools should include the information. It makes sense (for the institutions) to use the scholarship money to reduce their grants but it is also a shocking revelation for families when they finally figure it out. When the average person is raising their kid, all they hear about is the people that have gone to college with scholarships and think applying for scholarships is the way to go. The high schools perpetuate the myth, and by the time the award letters come in it is too late for most people to adjust to the reality.</p>
<p>Find out if the scholarship money could go toward room and board costs, which are substantial at many schools and which likely wouldn't then have an impact on any tuition-only academic needs-based scholarships and grants from the institution.</p>
<p>I've never understood the policy of directly reducing grant aid from the school by the full amount of the outside scholarship. That leaves zero incentive for the student to fill out applications, write essays, etc. A 50/50 split, as practiced by some colleges, seems to balance the needs of both parties.</p>
<p>I received two $500 scholarships from my community college. These are one-time-only scholarships. Prior to this, I had been offered over $4000 in UC Berkeley Undergrad Scholarship (merit based) which was broken out over fall and spring semester. After notifying UCB of my $1000 scholarship, I have learned that UCB replaced their $4k+ scholarship with the $1k scholarship! They basically took away $3000 just because I earned two small scholarships. This greatly affects my ability to afford school since I am an independent student and have no one to help pay for it. I have NO IDEA why I even bothered to apply for scholarships! The stress that I put myself through to fill out applications and get them in on time was in NO WAY worth it. What a rip off!</p>
<p>At D's school her outside scholarships offset the amount she is expected to pay herself, then reduces the grant amount. It still does help, because we don't have to come up with her share.</p>
<p>To thatgirltoo ...</p>
<p>After learning that your $4K in scholarship was being "replaced" by $1000 in community college awards, did you contact a Berkeley financial aid official to question or appeal this? It sounds like a mistake, so you should follow-up (persistently but politely).</p>
<p>what about scholarships that you can delay receiving? some simply need to be claimed within three years.
I mean, would I be able to apply it to the self-help/work-study portion of my second year's tuition instead of having the grants reduced even more on my first year tuition (first year self-help/work-study already erased by other scholarships)</p>
<p>Sally_Rubenstone: Yes, I did finally get through to a FA officer and it turned out that there was a mistake. I have never dealt with FA before, having paid cash for my community college courses, so I overreacted a bit. They reduced my UG scholarship by $1000, but it wasn't showing up on my FA summary as such and still isn't. I was assured that I'll see the fixed summary soon. Still, I would have preferred my unsubsidized loans (the only other aid offered to me) to be reduced instead, but at least I haven't lost any aid.</p>
<p>That's a relief, thatgirltoo.</p>
<p>I do have a hard time accepting colleges' common practice of lopping off grant money when students win monetary prizes. In a perfect world, the student should decide how that money is spent. But at least you didn't get hurt by your community college awards. That would've been truly crazy, and the notion waved some big red flags for me.</p>
<p>I realize that questioning or appealing financial aid practices can feel as daunting as taking on the IRS, but the outcome can be far more productive, and I encourage it when appropriate. Financial aid officers do make mistakes sometimes and are usually willing to listen to reason when your aid allotment makes it difficult--or even impossible--to enroll.</p>
<p>My two oft-repeated rules of thumb when dealing with the finaid folks are:</p>
<p>**1. Always act appreciative never entitled, no matter how small a crumb has been tossed your way. At many colleges, financial aid offers have a fair amount of latitude when it comes to deciding who gets the dough, so don't annoy 'em.</p>
<ol>
<li>Provide as much documentation as possible. Instead of simply saying "I can't afford to matriculate with the aid package I have now," present specific numbers to support your request --e.g., costs for transportation, rent, special medical needs. Most atypical circumstances--no matter how potentially embarrassing--are worth sharing. (Don't worry, those finaid folks have heard it all :eek:)**</li>
</ol>
<p>I had the same thing happen as above posters - a local scholarship just reduced my grant gift. I was a bit ticked off by this, but later realized that my college's finaid department now has that much more money to give away to some other student who may have a greater need than I do. If you are looking from a more altruistic view, you should still apply for outside scholarships because they will either directly help you or help a fellow student.</p>
<p>That's a lovely, generous attitude, coreypeak. What you lack in financial resources will hopefully be made up in good karma. :)</p>
<p>I agree, but my issue is that this information is not widely known. If the colleges made an effort to make this clear at the beginning of the process, people wouldn't feel so mislead.</p>
<p>What virtually all colleges' financial aid offices do tell you is that the college's total cost of attendance is calculated, then the family's anticipated contribution is calculated, and the difference between the two is considered the student's "need." The college then attempts to meet as much of that need as possible through a variety of methods. When outside sources give you additional money, they add to your ability to contribute to the total cost of attendance and therefore reduce your theoretical need. But as Roger suggest, that removes all incentive for students to continue seeking outside support.</p>
<p>Our Ds' school is willing to have you defer the scholarship to a later year (if the donor permits) or use it for a special purpose as stated by the donor. We've been successful having donors from arts organizations earmark some of D1's outside grants for voice lessons, which is OK with the schools aid office.</p>
<p>At least if you get screwed by being in the too-rich-for-financial-aid-but-too-poor-to-actually-pay category, the scholarships can end up helping. Schools can't reduce grants they haven't given. XD</p>
<p>
[quote]
A 50/50 split, as practiced by some colleges, seems to balance the needs of both parties.
[/quote]
Which colleges?</p>
<p>Some schools don't deduct them at all. Check with the financial aid offices of schools you're interested in.</p>
<p>^Also, my school (and, as I understood it before this thread, most others) will reduce loans first, then grants, when notified about outside scholarships.</p>
<p>Even so, I wish this was something my guidance counselor had covered when discussing scholarships with me- on her advice, I applied for nearly every one I qualified for and got over $5,000 for next year, but when I told my college, my federal student loans were reduced from over $5,000 to just over $1,000 (which I don't mind that much, really- debt is scary), and I lost my entire work-study award (which I do mind). I'll deal with this- I'm sure there are jobs on campus that aren't work-study, and thankfully I didn't lose out on my grants- but I spent pretty much every weekend in April and May applying for scholarships, and I'm not sure I would have invested all that time if I'd known what the payoff really is.</p>
<p>My school, and most that I have heard of, reduce the self-help part first (loans and work-study), if there is a self-help part. But the only real solution that worked for me, once I had exceeded the self-help amount in scholarships, was explaining the situation to people and asking for the check to be made out to me personally, rather than the college. This usually only works with local groups or people that you know, but it's worth a try. In my podunk town, even the groups that have been giving scholarships for decades don't really understand the process or this particular hangup in it. Most of them, though, don't want to here that they've essentially wasted their money and subsidized a particular school's financial aid program rather than a particular student going to that school, which is leverage in your favor. Whether this is unethical is another question (after all, you do have to conveniently NOT report those scholarships on your school's financial aid forms, many of which say in no uncertain terms that you must report ALL scholarships). But because I find this particular tactic of theirs weird, socialist, and downright immoral (basically the school is confiscating money from scholarship-giving groups, most of which don't know that this is happening) it doesn't bother me. They should at least give the scholarship-giving people a heads up as to what is going on, and the option to opt out.</p>