<p>My financial aid award covers the cost of "books and personal expenses" as well as "travel expenses." At least, I think it does, since Yale included these costs in the "estimated expenses" before starting to subtract the student effort and self-help to determine the Yale Scholarship. How do we access the books/personal expenses/travel expenses funds? Do we pay for the books/items/plane tickets ourselves and then have Yale reimburse us?</p>
<p>Those things are not covered. Meaning, Yale won't be literally giving you money to fly or buy books. Yale only covers tuition and room and board in their gift. Those things are included in the estimated expenses, but are to be paid by you through Self-Help. Yale gives you what they think is enough to cover tuition and room and board, but expects you to use what you do earn to pay for travel espenses and books and other "consumables", if you will.
A lot of prefrosh make the mistake in thinking Yale is going to literally pay for their travel or books.</p>
<p>So if the expenses like books, travel, etc. are not paid for by Yale, but through the self-help portion, then why do we need to pay the self-help portion directly to Yale?</p>
<p>You don't. I just figured this out this past semester. Self-help is merely a suggestion of how much you will need to survive the year. The options for loans make it seem like you /must/ "pay" the self-help, but that isn't true. So basically, you'll be paying for books, travel, and the family contribution. The self-help (think of it as a yearly budget) will vary and cover varied things during the year.</p>
<p>So how does the self-help component work out?
Can we borrow money from an alternative source with lower/no interest rates (i.e. not the loans recommended by Yale) to meet our personal expenses? e.g. relatives, friends.</p>
<p>Unless they're an actual company, you probably won't be able to say it's an actual "loan." What you could do instead is take the full amount of the self-help as work-study, and then use an outside loan from your relatives to cover it.</p>
<p>I have to fill out the Family Information Supplement, and there's a section regarding student income distribution. The form states that I can "request an increase to my self-help" if I am unable to meet the student income, but how does that work out if I don't actually have to pay the self-help portion directly to Yale as edmYale09 stated above?</p>
<p>So if a student has outside scholarships to apply toward self-help and student income portion of financial aid, how does that work? The scholarships will be paid directly to Yale and according to the FA website will be applied toward the self help and student income.</p>
<p>Same, I have about $5000 in scholarships to cover the $4400 self help. Does that money get put in an account that I can access? I thought i remembered my bulldog days host saying something like that.</p>
<p>Yep, your account will have that extra money in it, unless Yale decides to take it for themselves. You can charge stuff at the Bookstore and Durfee's on that account. You can also direct deposit out of it into a bank account. It's the account your parents get a bill for every month.</p>
<p>So, by extra, you mean $5000?</p>
<p>it would end up being the $600 left over after the $4400 is covered.
Yale could also decide that that $600 is theirs and take it for themselves to replace part of your Yale Scholarship</p>