I will be attending an in-state land grant university next year, and before May 1st, I was being offered $2000 from departments within the university in addition to full tuition. However, on May 2nd, I went online to accept the scholarship I would be receiving for being a National Merit Finalist, which I expected to be full tuition (replacing the full tuition scholarship I was receiving before) plus $2000 additional dollars. However, although I was essentially being offered this amount, my previous $2000 no longer showed up on my list of accepted scholarships (I accepted them in April). I called the office of financial aid, and they said the new scholarship replaces the old ones, because there is a federal limit on the amount of scholarship money the university can offer me. Regrettably, I did not press them for details, and I’m a little confused because other schools were offering me more. Can anyone clarify this for me?
To be clear, all of this money is merit-based scholarships, and even with everything I was expecting, the full cost (including room and board) would still not be covered.
What is your EFC…your family contribution? If you add that to the scholarships you are currently receiving…does that equal the cost of attendance?
Yes, my EFC is almost enough to cover the full cost of attendance without scholarships, but do they really consider financial need when considering merit-based aid?
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before May 1st, I was being offered $2000 from departments within the university in addition to full tuition. However, on May 2nd, I went online to accept the scholarship I would be receiving for being a National Merit Finalist, which I expected to be full tuition (replacing the full tuition scholarship I was receiving before) plus $2000 additional dollars. However, although I was essentially being offered this amount, my previous $2000 no longer showed up on my list of accepted scholarships (I accepted them in April). I called the office of financial aid, and they said the new scholarship replaces the old ones, because there is a federal limit on the amount of scholarship money the university can offer me. R
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I wonder if you’re using the wrong words to describe your awards.
What school is this?
What exactly was the aid you got?
Are you saying that the SCHOOL first awarded you a full tuition award, but then you were given a full tuition NMF award? Who is the NMF award from?
there isn’t a federal limit on how much you can offered in merit scholarships which is why I think some of your awards was fed aid or state aid.
Please name exactly what you were first given and later given…and which school is this?
We ran into a situation once where D1 was awarded a departmental scholarship applicable towards tuition. Since she already had a full-tuition scholarship due to NMF status, the departmental scholarship was in name only (could not be applied to anything other than tuition).
Total financial aid cannot exceed the cost of attendance of the school.
Is the department scholarship limited to tuition? If so, like Hoosiermom said, it can’t then be used for anything but tuition, and since tuition is covered, you can’t receive two scholarships for the same cost.
It’s worth asking the department about. It’s worth asking the FA office again and maybe a different person will have a different answer.
My daughter has a ‘missing’ scholarship this semester. I think it is because she took a semester off and according the rules (the rule in the computer), the scholarship has to be used in consecutive semesters. She had permission to take the semester off, so I think they just have to manually add the scholarship back on.
But scholarships most definitely can exceed tuition. They can pay for room, board, books, transportation, etc.
If a university is not letting award exceed tuition, that in an institutional policy, not a federal one.
^^if the terms of the scholarship allow it. I don’t think it is unusual for a school to limit merit aid to tuition, or at least to billed costs, and same with a department award. The schools don’t want to write checks, so if it’s just moving money around from the ‘tuition’ bucket to the ‘meal’ bucket, schools might be okay. Some scholarships are very specific in what the money can be used for. My daughter’s merit money is tuition only. Other grants can be used for housing, meals, books, etc., but the big merit award is tuition only.
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Total financial aid cannot exceed the cost of attendance of the school
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If all the aid is merit, then it is possible to exceed COA. Some schools don’t care.
Every school has its own policies regarding scholarships. It is not true that there are federal rules regarding scholarship limits, but federal rules limiting aid to Cost of Attendance do apply if any federal aid is included in the financial aid package. If there is no federal aid, though, there is no FEDERAL rule that applies. It’s possible the person in the aid office was mistaken - it may have been a worker who is not as well-versed in the rules (sometimes people in one-stop enrollment centers are jack-of-all-trades but not master-of-all-trades).
Ask them to increase your COA/add in expenses that are not included. At some schools that helps shield gift aid from being reduced.
The student would have to have a legitimate reason that falls within the guidelines allowed by the federal government in order for the school to increase the COA.
^ which shouldn’t be too hard to find. Usually a bunch of class-specific fees are not included, or housing is higher than the estimate on the package. You won’t get a huge increase, but $1000-2000 is doable.
From my experience, schools are creative in increasing COA. Not illegal at all and fairly easy to do.