<p>Just notified today , on May18. Does this affect the FA pkg that was already sent out previously from a (state school) ? </p>
<p>The FA pkg was about 35 pct loans.</p>
<p>Is there an obligation to inform the college of these scholarships?</p>
<p>My son goes to a private college, my daughter to a state univ. Both require students to report any outside scholarships they receive. In your case, I think it’s likely her scholarship will just reduce her loans.</p>
<p>Yes, you are supposed to notify the school. Schools are federally mandated (I believe) to reduce financial aid (scholarships, grants,etc.) BUT ONLY AFTER the outside scholarship is used to reduce self-help aid (loans, work study, student contribution). If it is a large scholarship, you can ask the organization to split it over different years. The scholarship CANNOT be used to reduce the Expected Family Contribution. Definitely check the school’s website and call the financial aid office.</p>
<p>Often a scholarship is paid directly to the school (or the check is mailed to student but the payee is the college), in which case the school knows that it exists, and adjusts accordingly.</p>
<p>Schools are federally mandated (I believe) to reduce financial aid (scholarships, grants,etc.) BUT ONLY AFTER the outside scholarship is used to reduce self-help aid (loans, work study, student contribution). </p>
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<p>Actually, the only federal mandate is that need based aid cannot be awarded in excess of Cost of Attendance-Expected Family Contribution & that total aid cannot exceed Cost of Attendance (unless the only awards are merit based & Pell). How a school reduces the aid varies, however. If there are institutional grants, the school may reduce those … or they may reduce loans first. It depends on the policy of the individual school.</p>
<p>We were told by a fin. advisor that if the check is made out to your dtr then she does not have to report it. This is to be used for school expenses only, for exp. a computer etc. If the check is made out to the school then she would have to disclose it and it will reduce the amount the school awarded your dtr. if the school did not award your dtr any money then it would reduce the loan amount that you pay. But, only after it reduced the amount the school gave her.</p>
<p>I am surprised a financial aid person said that any scholarship did not need to be reported. All scholarships are supposed to be reported.</p>
<p>Much depends on the aid package and the school’s policies.</p>
<p>We were told that if the check is made out to the child, you are supposed to report it, but they would have no way of knowing. The financial aid lady was sort of like, don’t ask, don’t tell…
If the check is made out to the school, the school will use half of it to reduce financial aid, and give us the rest.</p>
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<p>In this case, how would the school likely adjust?</p>
<p>If you go to most schools web sites in the financial aid section there is a FAQ section. I have found the answer to the exact question of how outside scholarships are applied on every school’s FAQ I have ever checked. They all have their own way of applying the funds but they are very up front about how exactly they do it.</p>
<p>^^ True. And I’ve never seen any college website or literature that doesn’t say – unambiguously – “All scholarships must be reported.” If a scholarship is hidden and the college finds out, the student stands to lose ALL of their aid. Personally, I wouldn’t risk it. </p>
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<p>It varies. Some will reduce loans or work-study, which ultimately helps the student, but doesn’t reduce the out-of-pocket on the front end. Some will reduce the school grant. A few will allow you to “stack” the scholarship; i.e., use it to reduce the size of the check you must write.</p>
<p>The college my d is going to told me that any outside scholarship money would be taken off work/study or loans first. My d just got a $500 check made out to her. I told the school I wanted it to count against w/s so she could have some spending cash right at the beginning for books. They told me that was fine and it would be split between the 2 semesters, but that she “would still be eligible for the full amount of w/s” anyway which seems contradictory. Anyway, now I’m wondering if there is any point in reporting the money. But I am going to discuss this with them next week.</p>
<p>The point in reporting the money is if the school says right there on the paperwork you got that it is a requirement, and you don’t. you can get penalized. That they do nothing with the info is their business. The fact of the matter is that the schools do not always go after everything that is stated as policy. But if they choose to do so, and you are found hiding info, they may go after you. Really they don’t go “after you”, they simply cut off some or all of the money flow from them until they investigate the entire situation which can take forever.</p>
<p>I thought I recall Rice saying to us (before my son chose Williams) that they take a scholarship and will only apply it to the subsidized loan or federal work study. If the student only has unsub loan or a rice work study, they get nothing and it goes to the grant portion.</p>
<p>I was assuming at Williams that it would be the same but will check it out. That would be great if he could apply an outside scholarship to his unsubsidized loan portion…</p>
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<p>If the school reduces the student’s loans, a parent can reduce the out-of-pocket (and eat into the EFC) by having the student borrow the original amount anyway, via an unsubsidized loan if needed. </p>
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<p>It does seem confusing at first, but they’re offering a good thing - if your D retains her eligibility for work study and decides to work, in the end she would be ahead by $500. </p>
<p>It took me multiple conversations with FA offices (my D was still considering several schools) to feel comfortable with how they would use the $2K NMF scholarship to reduce the self help portion; not sure why but it wasn’t intuitive to me 
In the end, all of them confirmed it could be used to eat into the EFC which we were having trouble affording.</p>
<p>A school does not always follow the procedure that it says will be used on things. If they don’t choose to do so, they may not. If it is beneficial to the student, that’s fine. But that doesn’t mean the student does not have to make required info available to the college so that it can make changes to things if it so chooses. </p>
<p>Most organizations have some leeway on how they operate but want the info on hand in case it chooses to do what it has the right to do. I’ve seen this in a number of cases. I hate to say it in posts here, because it often get taken for a right or a negotiable thing when it is not, but some colleges will let kids keep their one year local awards. They may be easier in giving NCP waivers than the rules suggest, and they may not give a hang about multiple accepting or backing out of ED. But the fact of the matter remains that they have the rules down in print and if you don’t give due disclosure, there are possible stiff consequences.</p>
<p>On a similar vein as OPs question - if student receives awards (with $s) at graduation is this considered scholarship and reportable to the college? If this happens, I will, of course, report to D’s college but am curious to know.</p>
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<p>I guess you have to weigh which you’d rather reduce: your current out-of-pocket, or your student’s eventual debt load. </p>
<p>Last year D’s school drastically reduced her work study. At our request they bumped the WS back up to the previous year’s level, and reduced the federal unsub loan by the same amount. It was a win-win for D, since she likes her WS job and will have less debt at the end.</p>
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Yep, and isnt that the stuff of sleepless nights. In our case, it was very late in D2s search process before we admitted wed have trouble affording our EFC, basically after shed received aid packages at expensive meets 100% of need schools. Confirming those schools would let us eat into our EFC (a significant part of which we were borrowing) with the $2K NMF scholarship at least made those schools somewhat possible, although still a stretch; but in the end we were weighing D2s eventual debt against our own (and wed already borrowed a sizeable amount for D1s education so far) which was agonizing. We set up a sliding scale (D2 would borrow $1K to $5K per year depending on the school) and she opted for a merit award school where shes borrowing $2K per year and I think were all finally sleeping again :)</p>
<p>A work study job that your daughter likes sounds ideal, a great option for her :)</p>
<p>My daughter’s school took the local award money given to my daughter and reduced her need based grant. The check was made out to her and they told me to send it to their cashier’s office. Her scholarship money was applied the same way–reduced the need based grant. My EFC has never changed.</p>