<p>If you get scholarships, does it take away from the financial aid you would receive from a college due to your parent's income?</p>
<p>Some schools let you “stack” financial aid. Others view the outside scholarship as lessening your need, and adjust accordingly. You need to check with each school’s financial aid office.</p>
<p>Many/most schools will remove FA if your merit scholarship meets your need. Many/most schools will not let you stack merit and FA if they exceed need. </p>
<p>Keep in mind that many/most schools apply your merit FIRST…so then your remaining “need” (if any) is determined, and then aid is given. It’s for this reason, many/most schools won’t let you stack need-based-aid on top of merit aid that exceeds “need”.</p>
<p>For example…</p>
<p>COA = $50k
EFC = $20k
Need = $30k</p>
<p>So, if you’re given an $25k merit scholarship, then the school will say that you still have $5k of “need”. It will then either give you a $5k student loan, a grant, some Work Study or some combo.</p>
<p>However, if you were given MERIT scholarships that stack up to $40k, then not only will all of your aid be covered, but you’ve reduced your EFC to $10k. :)</p>
<p>Yes, it could. It depends on the amounts. It is not permitted to get federal aid other than PELL if you don’t have the need, so any scholarships will reduce federal subsidized loans and grants. Most schools have provisions that the financial aid that the school gives and the PELL will be reduced if you get enough outside scholarships to reduce them. Most schools do not just give pure grant money for financial aid, and outside awards ususally are put towards the self help part of the package. Some college will allow you to keep your outside awards or a certain percentage of them. Those schools that do not meet your need entirely almost always will let you keep outside awards in additon to their package up to your defined need.</p>
<p>Pell is an entitlement grant. It will never be reduced due to other aid. If any aid were to be reduced, it would be the school’s own institutional aid. Some schools will allow you the one time purchase of a computer with your outside scholarships (which will be considered taxable income)</p>
<p>I heard that for computers or other necessities (depending on the major of course or the individual) that school’s would allow scholarships to be used for anything school related.</p>
<p>There is another issue that comes up with some schools. I’ve noticed that a few schools have a “max merit” rule, so they will reduce their OWN merit, if merit (including outside merit) exceeds a stated amount. For instance, a couple of schools have a policy that merit can’t exceed tuition. So, if tuition is $30k, and a student gets $35k in merit (combo of institutional and outside merit), then the school will reduce its institutional merit. </p>
<p>I guess the schools that do this want to spread around their merit to more students.</p>