<p>S received news of merit aid from most of the schools he applied to. That's good. We also qualify for Financial Aid. When the final aid/scholarship packages arrived, ie., letters with the final bottom line, some of his merit awards were reduced based on how much financial aid he received. Has anyone else encountered this?
Merit award is a merit award. Why would they disappear or be reduced because you qualify for more financial aid? Is this standard at most colleges?
Just wondering.</p>
<p>The way I understand it, it comes back to your EFC – estimated family contribution (that figure from FAFSA). Schools will often not offer more aid than this number. There’s sort of a “pecking order” to awards, and only the FA office knows which gets reduced based on what. Basically, awards combined cannot exceed cost of attendance, as determined by the school (or, if it’s tuition-based award only, cannot be more than that). Some schools do not allow “stacking” of scholarships. Best thing I would recommend would be to contact the FA office at his school(s) and find out what their policy is.</p>
<p>Need based FA = toatl COA - EFC. All merit scholarships go directly to the reduction of need based FA first. </p>
<p>Only after the merit scholarship is greater than your need based FA, you will see a reduction in your part of the cost.</p>
<p>I.E. COA is $60,000, and your EFC is $25,000. At a school that meets 100% of your need, you will be expected to get 60,000 - $25,000 = $35,000 need based Aid. If you receive $34,999 merit scholarship from the school or any where else, your contribution is still $25,000. Only the need based aid goes from $35,000 to $1.</p>
<p>Now, if your receive $40,000 merit scholarship from the school or any where else, your contribution is still $20,000.</p>
<p>Of course, this is for most of the cases and there are exceptions.</p>
<p>Most institutions do not guarantee to meet need (whether determined by the FAFSA, the Profile, or by the institution’s own financial aid formula). Of those that do meet need (or in the case that they do for a particularly desirable student), most will only pony up a total amount of money that meets need. Very, very few will stack merit-money on top of need-based money. Very, very few will allow students to stack outside scholarships on top of the college/university’s need and/or merit aid. In almost every case, no matter where the money comes from, scholarships and need-based aid will be tweaked so that the family is left responsible for the EFC.</p>
<p>Federal aid (Pell, etc.) is determined by the FAFSA formula, and the student gets it. Period. Money from the institution in almost every case, is adjusted to account for the federal aid.</p>
<p>However, there are occasional cases where the institution does stack merit on top of federal need-based aid, and/or stacks outside scholarships on top of institutional and federal aid in such a way that all or part of the EFC is covered as well. In very rare instances, students even have money left over after all expenses are covered.</p>
<p>For specific advice on what to do in your own family’s case, you may want to re-post your question in the financial aid forum. Since your son has multiple offers on the table, he may be in the position to ask for a “re-consideration” of those packages. This is definitely worth trying if the packages include student loans. Converting all or part of a Stafford loan into grant money based on what a full merit-based scholarship might be, could reduce the overall debt load for your son and/or allow your family to use a Stafford loan to cover some of your EFC.</p>
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<p>Maybe they want to use the merit money to lure some students who are not eligible for financial aid. As long as your son’s total costs are covered, they probably assume that he does not care where the money is coming from. But if they want to attract a student whose EFC is too high for the student to qualify for financial aid, they can only use merit money.</p>
<p>Some schools have a policy that any free money aid can’t exceed some pre-determined amount…maybe tuition? Look at the school’s merit website to see if there is some “fine print.”</p>
<p>And, some schools will reduce institutional grants instead of reducing merit.</p>
<p>But…if your child received Pell, that can’t be reduced.</p>
<p>Look to see if you can determine the policy.</p>
<p>could you post an example so we might be able to figure this out.</p>
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While I understand what you’re saying it seems kind of unfortunate that merit aid would not reduce a family’s EFC if they get need aid as well, while the family (like us) who is not getting any need aid can have their EFC reduced by the merit aid.</p>
<p>I don’t understand the rational behind reducing financial aid first with merit aid either. I agree, it makes zero sense, especially for a family that needs both to pay for college. Not all schools do this but many do. I can understand not meeting 100% of need because not all schools have the ability to do that. I have zero problems with part of that total aid package being federal loans though.</p>
<p>One of S’ schools offered him both merit and financial aid. He subsequently won an additional $2K merit (for music). As his FA package did meet full need with merit, FA grants, work study and loans, I hoped the loan or work-study amounts would be reduced with the additional award.</p>
<p>They were not, the FA grant was reduced by $2K.</p>
<p>If he’s actually going to attend this school, I may ask them about that. Seems dumb to have gone to a scholarship day to audition for additional funds, earn that award, and then not actually have any additional funds.</p>
<p>It was definitely a shock for us with the first kid when she got an outside scholarship that reduced the amount of “free money” in her financial aid package. With S2 I expected it. At S2’s school they explained that we were responsible for our “EFC” no matter what. Luckily though, when S2 got an outside scholarship they deducted from the loans and work study first and left the “free money” in tact.</p>
<p>Well, this was new to me, although S2 is my third child heading to college. The first two applied RD and received no merit aid, but school-based grants and govt. aid in one letter.
The last child applied mostly EA, and those acceptance letters came with merit awards. So, I guess it was a matter of counting the chickens because I thought the merit awards plus govt grants and school grants would be forthcoming, and that would have put us in great shape. Our bottom line would still be a few thousand more than FAFSA’s EFC, but definitely something we could work with. So it was sort of a surprise when the merit aids started to disappear or dissipate.
I guess the other problem is that part of the acceptance letter goes, “…in recognition of your outstanding academic achievment we have awarded you the _____ Scholarship…” You’d think they couldn’t take away the merit award, right?
On the upside, the outright institutional grants are not tied to achieving a certain GPA. So I guess we’re very grateful for that.</p>
<p>*I guess the other problem is that part of the acceptance letter goes, “…in recognition of your outstanding academic achievment we have awarded you the _____ Scholarship…” You’d think they couldn’t take away the merit award, right? *</p>
<p>did you call and ask? Maybe the reduction was a mistake?</p>
<p>Sort of related–so it is a general rule of thumb to apply ED to get the best merit money or is it very school dependent?</p>
<p>The total of scholarships, grants, work study, and subsidized loans CANNOT exceed your COA minus your EFC (COA-EFC=Need). Period. Therefore, something must be adjusted if total need based aid exceeds Need (exception: If JUST merit & Pell, the total can exceed Need because Pell is an entitlement). Most times, merit is not reduced to keep within “Need”… grants are. However, every school has its own packaging policies that are meant to assist the most students possible with the available funds. For example, where I worked we used the equity packaging model - the combination of scholarships & grants (federal and institutional only) + EFC would equal the average tuition cost. We didn’t post ACG or SMART grants until partway through the term. Students thought they would receive the grants in addition to their aid … but for most, it actually reduced their institutional grants by the amount of the ACG or SMART. It was just the way the powers that be thought was best (I disagreed, but I was not in charge).</p>
<p>Merit can’t offset EFC because of the concept of need. If you get money, your need is reduced. Financial aid is intended to assist those who need it most. The more merit, the less need … it’s logical.</p>
<p>I get it kelsmom, but if it were applied to loans or work study (which were used to meet need) it would feel more like something was gained by applying for (or in S’ case, auditioning for) and winning the scholarship.</p>
<p>I’m not sure we’d have traveled up for the day if we knew winning would be a wash. My bad for not asking them how it would be applied first, I guess. Still, it was the first visit and needed to be done,and he did get to meet the music profs.</p>
<p>mom0809 - Are you saying that they actually reduced the merit aid? After need-based aid, your required contribution actually increased?</p>
<p>People are assuming that this is the standard situation, where need-based aid is reduced by merit, but I think I’m reading something a bit different.</p>
<p>kelsmom–I don’t think it is logical at all. Your need is your need and if you come up with that need out of hardwork and earn scholarships, why should you be penalized for that? Also, then, explain why it is ok to get full-ride scholarships, either merit or athletic, if your aid package can’t exceed your need or how sometimes schools do find more money to help out, etc. It isn’t a hard and fast rule and that is what is hard to to understand. I don’t think that merit money should be assist the college’s bottom line more than a student’s bottom line, especially if they are outside/private scholarships that have no relation to the school what so ever. I don’t make the rules so my thought really doesn’t count but, it is not logical at all. If my EFC is $20,000 and I bring in $20,000 in outside scholarships my need should not be an additional $20,000 because the outside scholarships have not eliminated all of my financial aid—but I still need to come up with $20,000??</p>
<p>I am curious as to why I keep reading about students who have gotten scholarships that cover tuition, room & board, & even books here on CC? How is this possible? For some, it didn’t even sound like finances were an issue.</p>
<p>Kelsmom- you stated it so well… The last paragraph sums it up perfectly. Thank you!!</p>
<p>SteveMA, that is a good question. I am curious whether anyone has a concrete/known answer to this. If I were the colleges, I would give LESS merit aid to my ED applicants. They are on the hook to go there if they applied ED… why would I need to sweeten the pot to attract them over other schools? </p>
<p>Although I think people have become more cavalier in the past 5 years (that is how long I have been on CC) about abandoning their ED schools when they don’t like the FA package. Applicants should have a good idea of their EFC going in, and shouldn’t apply ED if they can’t pay that amount. If the school are reducing the need based anyway (as described in this thread), then I can’t see why a school would give the need based aid to the ED students at all.</p>
<p>Familyof3boys, if students do get that kind of scholarship and do not have financial need, it is likely that the student are going to a school that is academically far below where they could have been admitted. It bring up the average test scores/statistics for the college, which is desirable for the college.</p>