Without knowing the specifics of the school, my guess would be that the $29k merit is the full award with no additional “grant.” Not far off the $31k NPC - which is just an estimate anyway. The EFC is an artifact of FAFSA and has virtually no impact on actual aid awarded by colleges.
If you do get a grant in addition to the merit, consider it a bonus.
Since this school does not meet full need, I would just wait and see. It’s possible you won’t get any additional money because with a $29,000 merit award, the school could view your need as $29,000 less.
In any event, he can take the $5500 federally funded student loan.
Some colleges will use merit to replace grants first (the worst possible).
Other colleges will use merit to replace unmet need, student loans, and/or student work first (better than replacing grants first), although they will typically reduce parent contribution last.
There could be a work study component, most seem to fall around 2400-3k. ? If it’s not already considered in the merit number.
So off the total anticipated cost, 29 merit + call it 2500 WS (earn as you go) = 31.5. Leaves you with roughly 22.5 due. (And any expenses you forgot.) Then you decide where that comes from. Add in a student loan and your own COA comes down. Just don’t overload loans of any sort.
Be aware that the NPC can be off in both merit amount (as you found with getting $29k instead of $25k) and COA. The NPC may not be adjusted for not only the current year but for the tuition for the year you attend which may not have even been set yet.
Example, we were running them in the fall of 2013 to start school in 2014. The NPC was ‘set’ with 2012 numbers (tuition, amount of merit aid, Pell grant amounts) but the school had reset tuition in June 2013 and hadn’t changed the NPC yet by Sept. By the time my daughter actually started schools, all those numbers had changed again.
No idea as we’re in the same boat at a couple schools. I swear. Waiting for the FA packages to come out is more stressful than waiting on the acceptance letters.
it’ll be interesting to see how it turns out - if they’ll offer additional grants after they look at our fafsa in addition to his merit. I feel almost greedy wanting more aid and slightly awkward asking and thinking about it.
However, it’ll be hard to meet our EFC for this kid as our other kid is EFC+. He does have a safety lined up!
We ran NPCs on several private instate universities last year. They awarded merit and institutional grant aid based only on FAFSA and didn’t meet full need.
The merit and institutional grant aid awarded did not seem to exceed the tuition/fees cost at any school, we also would get a state grant there, which can be used towards room and board.
Our net price was right around our in-state public university cost, or a bit less with two in college, but grant aid decreased with only one in college.
Net price was at least $10,000 over our FAFSA EFC.