Employer tuition grant and scholarship/aid question

Parents Forum
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<p>My D is still two years away from college but I am really worried about financing her education since her funds have been toasted in the stock market. No strange news, eh? Our EFC will be over 35K. There are two hopeful things for us: one is we have an employer tuition grant worth about 27K this year (probably 30K by the time D goes to college); the other is her stats are strong. Her SAT should be over 1400/2100 and ranked in the top 3% of her high school (the school is top 50, per US News rankings, if it matters). It won’t make any difference for us if the school meets the desmonstrated need, even Princeton. For example, if the total cost is 45K, we would be granted about 10K aid. But, since we have tuition grant, the amount of that package would be reduced dollar by dollar. In effect, we will not get anything from any schools that meet 100% demonstrated need. That leads me to think if she applies to schools where they are more likely to award merit scholarships, she’d be better off financially. There is one trick: if the scholarship is designate for tuition only, our employer will reduce the grant dollar by dollar. However, if the scholarship is general (non-restrict), our grant will not be effected. Well, more or less, we’ll pay for her education, but if we could get some tips to reduce the burden, it’d be great. So my questions are:</p>

<li><p>In your experience, do schools reduce merit scholarships because of outside scholarships? I make the assumption that they won’t, because it’s not need based.</p></li>
<li><p>Which schools offer merit scholarships that are not designate for tuition? I am realistic that she won’t get the grand named scholarship like the Jefferson, Johnson, Belks, Emory Scholar, Morehead etc. So the scholarship would be in the second or third tier within the school. It would be ideal if the schools located in the South up to the New England area, but the midwest should be fine. West coast… maybe. It’s just too far.</p></li>
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<p>Thanks!</p>

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<p>Congrats on the FABULOUS employer scholarship (any job openings there???), and to your D of course. As to your questions, I can't recall a single CC post that addressed this situation. You may have to (discretely) discuss this matter with a few university financial aid officers.</p>

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<p>I recall a few threads over in financial aid and scholarships last spring where some students' outside scholarships reduced the school's aid, and at some other schools this did not seem to be the case. It seemed to vary by school. My personal experience years ago was that a small outside scholarship did reduce the financial aid that I received, except for $100 (a token reward for getting the scholarship I supposed). Other people wrote of other experiences in these other threads.</p>

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<p>^^ You don't believe the yearly pay raise at this place -- snails would be the champion! But, we figure we have two kids, no amount of annual raise beats that :-)</p>

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<p>Anothermom, I believe you are right. Need based aid IS reduced by scholarships (less need, eh?). The reduction of merit aid awarded depends on the school. You need to ask each school how they treat that (DD1 is able to accept other scholarship $ and not have it affect her merit aid at school).</p>