Hello,
I recently received a full ride from the university I plan to attend this fall, this covers tuition, room and board, and other expenses. The university has a cap on all scholarships that come back to me and only a portion can be given back to me after the cost of attendance is met. Because of the full ride the cost of attendance is already met and I only have about a $2000 window to be reimbursed. The problem is that I’ve accumulated about $20,000 in outside scholarships and will loose a majority of these funds because of the cap off, what exactly should I do to get as much money, from my outside scholarships, back as I can?
Thank you
You have a full ride. You are required to report these scholarships…and yes, you will likely lose some of them.
You can ask your college if they will do a couple of things this year.
- Will they increase the cost of attendance to include a computer....but you will need to,buy a computet if they do!
- If you live farther away, and transportation is more than the cost of attendance indicates, maybe they will increase the cost of attendance to reflect your actual probable costs.
This would increase your cost of attendance…and therefore you would get some of that scholarship money to cover these additional expenses.
OR…you can ask the scholarship folks if any of them would be willing to defer your award until future years…most won’t but some might.
Can any of the outside scholarships be delayed to another year or even to grad school? Can any be used for a summer or semester abroad?
You can also ask you college to adjust your COA up, if you have some specific needs that others at your school many not have. Travel? A computer? Need an instrument or art supplies? My kids needed computers, calculators, lab aprons and goggles, a yoga mat, a yoga pillow, art supplies for a class, etc.
Maybe you can attend two colleges part time at once? That way you can use the scholarships for one college and use the full ride for the other.
@thomas4881 please…where are you getting your information?
You can only be a matriculated student at ONE college at a time. My bet is that these scholarships are for the school at which the student is matriculated.
If the student goes to the either college part time…the student is probably going to LOSE that full ride to that school.
And no question…the student cannot receive need based aid at TWO colleges at the same time.
That’s what’s been recommended I do, live in the most expensive dorm and request my funds be used for things such as Educational opportunities abroad, or school supplies. It doesn’t matter to me what I use the money for, just that it’s being used, considering I won’t be getting a majority back in pocket.
Additional school like summer sessions or post-graduate/professional school would be bigger things, if you can get the outside scholarships deferred to be usable for those things.
I’d recommend you not do things like more expensive dorms or buying supplies just to use up the money. If you don’t need (or want) to live in the more expensive dorm, don’t do it. You will be paying taxes on that ‘free’ money so only do things you really want to do.
Kids forfeit scholarship money all the time. If you’d gotten into two colleges, both offering a full ride, you’d have to turn one down. $60k right out the window, but people don’t think about that. Football players can only take one scholarship even though they might get 5 offers. If they get outside scholarships, they can’t take them.
See what can be deferred to another year, see what can be used for study abroad or grad school, and don’t worry about the rest. If you’d rather have the outside scholarship than your school’s offer, I’m sure the school would like that. Your school might even be willing to offer you a 5th year, or study abroad in exchange.
@nora1409 have you figured out your taxes on your scholarships? Not really sure why you think you should get more than your COA.
If it can’t all be used, maybe the scholarship awarding entity can give some of it to another deserving student.
Bottom line, you can attend college for free.
But yes, there might be taxes due on some of the taxable part of the scholarships (anything above tuition, fees and book (required course supplies).
Since the school will only bill for tuition, fees, room and board, you should get a refund for the books, personal expenses and travel part of the COA.
What they’re telling you is that they will reduce your “full ride” to cover any expenses not covered by the outside scholarships. Review the other scholarships, to see how they are intended to be used, and whether they are awarded specifically for your freshman year, or if they are less restrictive. Your school has no intention of “paying you” to attend the school, their intent is to help you attend.
Others here are right - you will have to pay tax on any scholarships above the cost of tuition and fees, plus books (qualified expenses). With the full ride alone, that includes room & Board, probably enough to put you in the 25% tax bracket (as a dependent, unearned income is taxes using estate/trust rates). If you take the route of finding ways to make school more expensive for the same of keeping excess scholarships, you will add more cost for yourself in the form of those taxes. Not a good idea.
@CourtneyThurston may have some ideas for handling outside scholarships. I think she was able to save some of hers for grad school. You’ll also have travel expenses and will need books and a computer. If the scholarships will help fund study abroad or school related conferences (for STEM degrees), that would be a good use of funds too. Try to figure out a way to use them. It’s much easier to raise the money to pay taxes on $20k than it is to raise $20k.
Defer as many as you can to grad school (probably 0 – most organizations granting scholarships don’t allow this). Otherwise, just have to follow the rules. It’s, iirc, based on laws preventing schools from remitting more than the cost of attendance. Nothing you can do, and not really a problem 
Congrats