I really canât figure out how to start a thread!
So this is what I was thinking although itâs a nice story, I guess
Harvard is completely need based, a scholarship isnât going to change what she is going to pay unless she is a full pay atudent.
What does Harvard FA think of a student turning down a $40,000 scholarship that will come out of their endowment instead.
Itâs a nice thought to help community college bound students.
Most writers and most people donât understand the complexity of need based aid 
Iâm a hard hearted person 
I wondered the exact same thing when I saw the piece on the evening news! We know too much, I guess. 
I am sure Harvard isnât thrilled, but it would be extremely bad publicity to object ⊠and they do have an enormous endowment.
My D receives an excellent package from a meets full need school with no loans. She got some small scholarships that totaled around $2K. We called the school to ask what they wanted us to do. They said congratulations and she can use it for books or things she needed for her room. Granted, itâs a far cry from $2K to $40K but if it wasnât on the news, they would never know she turned it down.
Schools like Harvard let you keep a certain amount for computer, books etc. if you are getting financial aid. However almost all of this large scholarship would have been deducted from her aid, yes. I have written this comment in several places and am surprised the media bought into this.
Harvard meets need and wants leaders. She proved that they chose well (10K a year for them is peanuts) : the positives far outweigh the negatives for them.
However it will make a real difference for community college students in her deindustrialized town and help pull up and lift others who can now escape poverty through education without debt.
(âlift as you climbâ)
*$4,000 tuition&fees per semester for Fitchburg campus of the local CC (limited offerings) or the regional branch CC (more offerings but further away so transportation costs). So, it covers 1 studentâs tuition&fees+ books/transportation fully, or 2 studentsâ 75% tuition&fees or 75% tuition not fees for 3 students. Or can be used for Pell grant students graduating from the CC to go to a 4-year.
Do community colleges also deduct outside scholarships?
Harvardâs outside scholarship policy is described at Types of Aid . Basically, if the student receives need-based grants from Harvard (âHarvard scholarshipâ), outside scholarships first replace the student work expectation ($3,500 at Harvard), then replace the need-based grants.
A student who receives a $40,000 outside scholarship and a need-based grant from Harvard that is $36,500 or more will benefit from only $3,500 of the $40,000 scholarship. A student who receives a need-based grant from Harvard that is under $36,500 will effectively lose the need-based grant, offsetting part of the benefit from the $40,000 scholarship.
Student in question is in Massachusetts, where community college financial aid is described at https://masscc.org/financial-aid-resources/ . There does not appear to be any mention of whether or how outside scholarships can affect community college financial aid in Massachusetts.
Here is a list of some collegesâ policies on how outside scholarships interact with need-based financial aid:
The media buys into this kind of stuff ALL THE TIME. Witness the breathless articles every year about students who received OVER A MILLION DOLLARS IN SCHOLARSHIPS (when the total of all scholarship offers is an utterly meaningless number and said student may or may not have the one GOOD offer that they actually need). Also the equally-breathless articles about low-income students who were accepted to Ivy League Schools âwith a full scholarship!!!â, because these schools meet need and that studentâs documented need qualifies them for that much aid⊠but every single journalist will parrot this as if the scholarship were an extra and miraculous thing.
I always feel like a scrooge, but my point isnât to diminish these studentsâ achievements; itâs just irritation at the uninformed parroting of misinformation. And this story did indeed set off my âhere we go againâ alarms. However, a lot of students wouldâve just kept the scholarship and let Harvard pocket the money. It was smart and thoughtful of this student to do this, even if it doesnât cost her personally.
It wasnât in the article I referenced but I remember in another article they stated that the student had received other scholarships. So Iâm going to guess that she had already received any money that would have exempted her from work study.
I get that Harvard likes kids that are go getters and leaders, but giving away money that would give you personally no benefit? Itâs nice publicity. But helping other students is a very nice gesture. Hopefully in the future, she will be able to donate to her alma maters endowments
Yes to the breathless accounts of a âfull rideâ attributed to merit when it is need-based financial aid.
Perhaps more recipients should give their aid to community colleges students if the money does indeed benefit them.
Or maybe the various organizations that give scholarships at graduation that are then deducted from aid, could find better uses for the money.
Another article yesterday about 2 students in California who received âfull ride, 4 year scholarshipsâ to Yale and Columbia (columbia was Questbridge).
One of the students who won one of the first week Covid $50k scholarships in Colorado (5 given out every week for vaccinated 12-17 year olds) turned it down because he already has his costs covered for Clarkson by scholarships and his grandparents. He probably reacted quickly when they called him (and heâs only 17) because the $50k is actually put into a 529 plan and he could have used the money for grad school or just withdrawn it in the future. Alas, they gave it to someone else already.
I knew I could come on here to get back to sanity. These articles just bug me to death. My old HS just this year had a student accepted to Yale. Probably one of maybe two or three in the last 40 years going to an ivy. The article of course says on full scholarship.
I have been in plenty of situations where someone was telling me about a scholarship to an Ivy or scholarship for athletics to DIII school that I have just started smiling politely.
I once had a pretty strong argument with a friend about full-ride to AL. I kept saying you need a 36 OOS and he said no. We decided our definition of full-ride was different.
Perhaps such an organization can specify the scholarship amount as the lesser of:
- $X, or
- the maximum amount that the student can receive from this scholarship before other grants or scholarships are reduced.
I donât really understand what yâall are talking about. The way I read the article the scholarship came from her high school (I guess must be a pretty flush high school) and she refused it and said, give it to the kids going to community college instead, Iâve already got my finances worked out for Harvard. Whatâs wrong with that?
All these stories play the public for fools.
This is my favorite from the past cycle, URM from Las Vegas applied to 59 schools (!), and received a whopping $2.5 million in âscholarship offers.â Going to USC.
$2.5 million in scholarship offers go to one Las Vegas graduate (ktnv.com)
I think Iâve got about 15 similar stories just from this past year alone (the Google feed algorithm noticed my interest in college admissions).
There is nothing wrong with that, and I think it is exactly what happened. She received notice of this AT hs grad and knew that she didnât need it.
I think our beef is with the news reporting that she gave $40k of her own money away (and it is $10k/yr). In the end, it probably made no difference to her cost to go to Harvard. If sheâd accepted this scholarship, it is likely other aid would have been reduced.
There are a lot of scholarships that pay âlast dollar.â There is one in my state that does, the Daniels, and many years ago it was awarded to a guy headed to Yale. I have no idea how they compute what is the âlastâ dollar, but figure the scholarship actually paid less than it would have at a public school that didnât meet full need.
Didnât the scholarship come from her school? The article I read was pretty clear that it wasnât $$ from Harvard.
The award was $10K/year for 4 years, unrestricted, so she could have used it for anything (or so said the article).