Just got my financial aid package back. Depressed and disappointed. Need help understanding if true.

Financial aid came in today for D, OOS. Michigan came through in a huge way, the calculator was very accurate for us. D is over the moon, can’t wait to visit and has pretty much made up her mind. Ivy day is tomorrow and I don’t think she even cares. This OOS family is very, very, grateful for the generously of UMich. Don’t lose hope!!

Its graduate programs may be world class but that is NOT what were talking about…

30,000 undergrads ALL getting a world class education… 8-|

^^^youre finally catching on!

Yes UMich is #1 in Nursing-Midwifery, didn’t know that was actually a grad school, well at least the midwifery part…

I would like to say something about the provost award and recieving a scholarship. I was just notified that I received a 10k per year LSA department scholarship and when I checked my financial information, nothing changed except they took away loans and workstudy. My provost award and UMich school grant remained unchanged. Just wanted to share my experience since I read earlier that the provost award is a last resort award

Good for you. They may have changed the policy. I heard the Provost for filling the need gap in this forum. So I don’t have first hand information on it as it is for OOS only. Nevertheless, the FA package will still be revised at least one more time over the summer.

@Daisy50 that is very good news, any amount reduction in anything that labeled as loan is good thing and now you don’t have to do workstudy, means you can focus on study and future.

@Daisy50 Interesting. Assume you are OOS? Maybe the rules changed this year or maybe there are some exceptions. Or maybe they made a mistake (hopefully not) that will be corrected. In any case, GREAT for you!

My knowledge comes from a family I helped. Large Provost Award. Then the student got a $10k departmental grant. The Provost Award was reduced by that amount. Loans and work study remained. I called the FA office, and they told me Provost is a “last dollar” grant that’s put into action when nothing else is available to cover the need for an OOS student. Thus, if something else materializes, the Provost disappears. Hope it has changed!

I am not surprised if they did change the policy this year as they also change the OOS need met policy this year too. Anyway, just wait for the final financial aid notice.

I was thinking the same. The new policy could have some downstream positive effects.

Humble to acknowledge that my son also offered a Provost award, we are OOS and he applied EA.

In the email I received it says
“The goal of our scholarships is to work in combination with your financial aid package from the Office of Financial Aid to reduce or eliminate unmet need and/or need based loans to make your college career affordable. In achieving this goal you may see that the scholarship has replaced other grants or scholarships in the process of reducing or replacing loan and/or unmet need, but your total award should remain the same.”

But I will update again when my official award notices updates. They may change everything when they revise it so I’m trying not to get too excited just yet!

Keep us posted. My daughter got 5 or 6 revisions of her FA package before freshmen year started. My younger daughter already got her second edition last week. In both cases, the total gift aids increased or remained the same (mostly by external source). However, it happened once that they messed up in one of the FA award notice in senior year that the reduced the family contribution instead of loan. It got fixed in the final version though.

I’m not sure I’m understanding the “revisions”, and why they would happen over the summer after one commits. D received a full mix of grant aid, provost, work study, Pell and the federal subsidised and unsubsidised loans. We are extremely grateful for the package as it stands and our contribution is exactly as we budgeted. D is most likely turning down an almost full Ivy 4 year scholarship for UMich. If they change the financials, it would have devastating effects. Can anyone explain how or why they make changes? Are they significant? Thank you in advance.

It won’t be less than what you are receiving now, especially given that you are a Pell grant recipient. It changes because a) tuition rises at the end of June and FA is adjusted to cover it; b) you may get a departmental award that will eliminate loans and work study; c) they move money between different types of loans or different types of grants; d) sometimes money just becomes available for specific things that your D is involved in.

Thank you @brantly , I appreciate your answer and the better night’s sleep that you have given me. It’s been quite a day.

Exactly. The new tuition rate will be out in June. The will adjust the financial aid accordingly while keeping the family contribution at the same level. Nevertheless, there may be some changes due to verification outcome too if you have been requested any financial document or just submitted recently.

I was right, spoke too soon! It updated this morning and my provost award was adjusted accordingly. I’m not upset, it’s still the cheapest school for me to attend :). And I applied for a few more scholarships so I hope I get more good news later!

So the policy was not changed and you just caught it during the transition. Was it shown on the award summary or an award notice pdf? There are even more fluctuations in the award summary, so don’t pay too much attention to it. We even had an award notice that accidentally offset our family contribution instead of loan by scholarship. Withe the renewable scholarships, we typically get the final FA notice in August but even in September for one year.

@Daisy50 Thanks for the update. How much was your LSA/departmental award? Was your Provost’s award reduced by the same amount? What happened to the work-study and loans? Did they reappear?