Does the amount of need-based aid you receive from a college affect how much merit aid that college would give you? Could one get 30k in need aid and then another 20k in merit aid, or do colleges make sure not to stack grants?
Do you mean $20k in merit from the school or from an outside source?
The school awards merit FIRST, so any aid applied AFTER would be determined based on KNOWING that you already were given that merit.
If you were awarded $30k in FA and that met your “need”, and then an outside source gave you $20k, then the school would reduce your FA.
Depends on the college and even within colleges on the specific grant/scholarship. Afik, though, most of the time colleges consider your total package before they offer it to you. If it is a ‘meets need’ college, they will usually use a mix of types of aid (except for the colleges that don’t do merit aid, of course).
@mom2collegekids 20k from the school, like from a named scholarship.
Thanks for the info, both of you
Here is my guess…if you get a $20,000 merit award from the school, and then need based aid also, your total will not be in excess of the cost of attendance.
In most cases,merit aid awards actually reduces your financial need, and your need based award. Some schools allow stacking of awards, but only up to the cost of attendance.
The policies vary by school.
But schools will not give you need based aid (on top of your merit) that exceeds the cost of attendance.
Since the $20k would be from the school, the FA office would know about it before they awarded FA.
Admissions offices typically award merit…to target students they want. Those awards often come with admissions letters…long before FA is processed.
Of course there are times when merit comes later, but if it’s after the FA was processed and the FA “met need” then FA would be reduced.
If your goal is to reduce the amount that your family has to pay, then you have to look for schools that will give ALL merit…a large award…so large that it covers need AND it covers some of EFC.