Got a couple Great Awards from local schools

So I am someone who wanted to stay close to home, so I am very happy with my offers that I received.
My intended major is engineering, most likely mechanical.

Case Western Reserve University-Full tuition 8 semesters
I applied EA and was able to get accepted with this. I calculated that will full tuition fafsa and a couple other grants I’ll need about 10k a year for fees, room and board and personal expenses.
I honestly applied here as a reach since my test scores aren’t so great so I am really happy I got this offer.
My one issue other than cost of this university is that I have been taking CC courses in HS, will graduate with 49 credits and not all will be taken. I sent them my transcripts from the CC and their websites indicate about 30 will be taken. They were mostly gen eds and intro stuff.
3 English courses, 2 history, 2 psychology, 1 sociology, gym, 2 IT, 2 Spanish couple others.
I know engineering has a lot of required coursework, but I’m thinking these could at least take care of gen eds and possibly graduate early? Doubt it though.

Cleveland State University- Also full tuition for four years
So this would basically be free. Between the fasfa and some other scholarships along with my parents allowing me to stay home to lower costs. All of my CC credits would be accepted, but like I said with engineering’s coursework some of it may not matter. Some of those were to satisfy high school reqs at least.
I also applied to Baldwin Wallace University and got accepted. I may have just missed the award letter in the mail or something. I’ll email there financial aid office. Not sure if they get sent yet.
So do you think the extra cost of CWRU is worth it? My parents EFC is 0, so I would need to take out loans that scholarships/work won’t cover.

You can only borrow ~$5500/year. That leaves a ~$5k gap plus travel expenses, books, and health insurance if you’re not already covered. If you work summers you can probably raise $3k. How will you cover the rest?

I have health insurance and will be getting some outside scholarships through some after school and outside school programs I’m in. Not sure how much though.
Travel is not an issue since I live about a half hour from Case and parent could pick me up if needed.

So these with grants and their tuitiin scholarship add up to full cost of attendance including books, transportation and $1350 in personal expenses.

Fed Work-Study Program $2,500
Federal Direct Subsidized Loan $3,500
Federal Direct Unsubsidized Loan $1,916

So apparently my parent read it wrong and Cleveland State is offering 5k/year in scholarships and wants $3500 subsidized loans $2000 unsubsidized loans and about $970 work study. So I think with this info the choice is much clearer toward cwru I just need to find out what transfers at each of them.

Make sure you look at net cost after the grants. If your parent misread the Cleveland info make sure you relook at CWRU’s info.

30 credits is a year’s worth of college classes. If you are doing engineering, you might not be able to shave an entire year off, but a semester reduction seems quite possible.

I don’t remember the residency requirement at Case but as an upperclassman you should be able to move into an apartment and get off the meal plan and that will save quite a bit of money. You also might be able to earn 3-4K (or more) over the summer.

Full tuition is a fantastic deal and Case is a fantastic school. I hope that you can figure out how to make it work!

Loans can’t be included with your grants because that’s part of the money you have to pay. Work study is only paid as you earn it, so you can’t count that money toward your first semester’s bill. The FAFSA is an application for aid. The grant you receive is called a Pell grant. Because your parents’ EFC is 0, you were likely awarded the full ~$5k grant. If your tuition award increases each year to keep up with tuition increases, that’s good. If it’s a set amount, you’ll have to make up the difference. [url=http://financialaid.case.edu/faq/]Case[/url] is one of the colleges that will reduce their award by the amount of outside scholarships you get because the outside scholarships reduce your need.

I’m not clear what your net costs are. CW’s cost of attendance is ~$64k/year. The tuition grant ($46k/year) brings the net cost down to $18k. The Pell grant would bring it down to ~$13k/year. You can borrow ~$5500/year. How will you cover the other ~$8k?

Scholarship Award $47,070
Federal Pell Grant $5,920
Federal SEOG (Grant) $1,800
Ohio College Opp Grant $2,832
Fed Work-Study Program $2,500
Federal Direct Subsidized Loan $3,500
Federal Direct Unsubsidized Loan $1,916

This is the award from Case. I emailed their financial aid office and was told this:
“Yes outside scholarships can reduce the loan/work portion of a financial aid award.” and this “Any excess aid credits will be refunded to you.”
So I understand this as I can reduce the loans and work study through outside scholarships. And anything extra goes back to me. So they shouldn’t reduce my tuition award with outside scholarships. Net cost is 65k.

Thanks for the replies, I appreciate trying to help me figure this out, parents and me don’t fully understand all of this.

Great package. You have ~$57.5K in grants leaving less than $8K to cover. You can borrow $5500 as a freshman so that leaves $2.5K which your work study covers. You’re done. If you’d rather not do work study you can earn that during the summer before college. I recommend work study. Students tend to be more mindful of their study schedules when they are working.

@“Erin’s Dad” Yeah I am very happy to get something like this because I was surprised since my ACT was in the mid 20s so this was surprising. Your comment on work study makes sense. Currently not working in HS, but plan to over the summer so I can save for freshman year. I’ve noticed that the more things I do throughout the week like clubs and volunteer work I seem to manage time well. I just don’t want to take on work study if I really don’t have time.

Thank you for the replies everyone looks like I’m going to CWRU!

Congrats – a great scholarship to a great school – make the most of your wonderful opportunity!

So, I am currently at an admitted students visit and have spoke to the admissions office and undergraduate studies and was told that specifically anything used for high school graduation would not be counted. I knew this already but after having them review my classes(well I still have paperwork and transcripts to send in,but the conversations went well) So after looking at it I’m looking at around.

Also for some reason Cleveland State University has a room and board fee if you are commuting from parents, but my parents allowed me to live at home for free if I go to CSU, so I shouldn’t need loans for CSU, which is weird. Why would they charge you for living at home?

About 20 credits should transfer to Case and I’m still wondering if like 30 credits is worth the loans.

Ok so more info that makes sense finally! So basically engineers do not have many gen eds and only need 4-5 humanities/social science electives which my classes fulfill according to someone I spoke to. So basically I’d just need to retake a couple writing classes. So this seems much better than before.