What if a school gives me (example) $30000 in aid based entirely off of my Economic circumstances, but I then get like $30000 from a big scholarship like coca cola or something else. Will a school want to or have the chance to decrease their aid that they specifically stated before?
Yes, usually, because your financial need is reduced by that outside award. It is not always dollar for dollar and usually the schools reduce the loans or work study first so it is still a good thing, but yes, you should be prepared for a reduction in aid from the school.
You need to study the policies of each school.
If the initial aid was based on need, like you said, then once you got the Coca Cola like aid, you would suddenly have a lot less “need”…so your aid would be reduced.
If a school thinks you have $30k in “need” and gives you $30k in various aid (grants, loans, WS), and then you get $30k from another source, then all of your aid would disappear.
It doesn’t necessarily disappear. You often can apply the scholarship to work study and to reduce the student loan.
@brownparent Please re-read what I wrote.
If the student’s need was determined to be $30k, and the school gave $30k of need consisting of need-based grants/loans/WS…and then the student received a merit award of $30k…then ALL of the FA would disappear.
If that’s the case than what’s the point in applying to scholarships once you know how much aid you get…
This is why people often try to look for BIG merit scholarship. Many schools let you stack merit but merit will almost always reduce the amount of need based aid.
You apply for more merit scholarships because some school do let you use that for your contribution but more often to reduce work study and loans, and because a whole lot of students don’t get much need based aid.
That happened to my D last year. She got 2 external scholarships after the FA offer which included 2 internal scholarships already. The school basically took out the exact amount of the external scholarship from the grant (as there was no loan or work study). At the end, she just got 2 additional lines in her resume and nothing else. Oh yes, and an article with photo on a local newspaper. 
It depends on the school.
If you get $30,000 in need based aid for a $60,000 school…and your family contribution is $0, you would still have $30,000 of unmet need. Most likely you would get to keep the additional $30,000.
If your family contribution was calculated as $30,000, then likely the need based aid would be reduced.
You would need to report your coke scholarship to your college…and the college would determine what they would do.
@baller55, to answer your second question, different deadlines for all these things. If you wait till your accepted and know your aid, you would be too late applying for most scholarships. If you get a large scholarship, it could allow you to attend an expensive school that doesn’t give enough need based for a student to attend.
Alright! thanks to all.
To further expand this thread, does anyone know what scholarships I qualify for as a Hispanic Jew (URM) in the Miami-Dade area?
Florida Resident grant for instate private schools
Bright Futures
Check your high schools or those in the area for local scholarships