If you earn more scholarship money than the COA, will a college give you the extra money as a stipend? For example, if you get 3 scholarships to a college worth 70k in total, and the COA is 60k, will they give you the extra 10k?
Thanks
Are these scholarships from the college or from outside sources? Be aware that scholarships in excess of tuition are taxable income.
It depends. Does any of the scholarship has a need component or restriction on certain expenses?
Sometimes. If the scholarships are limited to tuition you might end up with less than you need to cover the COA. You have to read the terms of the scholarships.
Who is awarding these scholarships…and what are the terms of the scholarships? You may find that the scholarships themselves cannot be awarded if they exceed the cost of attendance. You may find that they can be used for tuition only…so if that’s covered…a-second scholarship covering tuition won’t be able to be used at all by you.
My S got scholarships exceeding COA at his school. But, they only let him use the scholarship money up to the cost of tuition. You need to check with your college.
ok thanks for the response everybody
At my kids school they started chopping off scholarships at COA. And then some schools don’t allow you to stack scholarships anyway. Very school dependent.
However, if you do have scholarships up to COA number and you don’t have that much cost, at D’s school you got that as an overage - money to you. Happened every semester - mostly because COA includes some amount for books and travel/personal expenses and these fluctuate. Plus D’s school was based on most expensive room and board. After freshman year, D didn’t get meal plan (on-campus apt) and so got that amount as overage. Of course she still had to use it to buy food. She usually didn’t spend as much on books as was estimated by COA.