<p>Financial aid package ( $11K need based grant, lots of loans, work study) had no merit aid. Appealed for increased aid and was told could only increase it if appealed for merit aid. Did that and was given $6K Dean's scholarship. Then financial package was recalculated and they decreased the need based grant significantly so there's only a minuscule increase in total aid. The merit aid decreased loans by $250 only. Is this par for the course?</p>
<p>Getting the 6k scholarship reduced your need by 6k, so the need award was decreased. That is par for the course, since need based aid is based on need. </p>
<p>Yes, it is par for the course.</p>
<p>It does decrease you need by merit aid. However, it is up to the school policy if they will apply part of it to lower your grant, loan, or out of pocket cost. My D has a similar situation that the scholarship replaced all grant and some loan, but it was then changed to replace all loans and work study first before touching the grant.</p>
<p>billcsho how did your D get it changed to replace loans and work study first?</p>
<p>@joeapplicant There was no grant in the first estimated FA package but scholarships, loan, and workstudy. The final official one has only scholarships and grants after verification. We did not do anything. I guess they found some money from the State, or there was a mistake in the original package. The out of pocket portion did not change as the total amount of grants matched the work study and loan.</p>
<p>Joeapplicant, it depends upon the school as to how merit aid reduces financial aid. Though it will reduce the total need, how the school decides to meet the new need figure can be either by reducing self help or grants. Clearly, it’s more beneficial to reduce the loans and the workstudy, but I’ve seen schools that will apply any new grants that come rolling in, directly towards the need grant.</p>
<p>Talk to the financial aid director there and tell the person that this did not help the situation much at all, and if the loans and work study were replaced, the Direct loans could still be taken on a non subisidized basis and your student can find non work study jobs to help towards the EFC whereas what was done here was just switching out one grant for another. The director may not have seen now absurd all of this effort was for a net of $250. Point it out.</p>
<p>Definitely talk to the FA office. You never know, and it would not hurt.</p>
<p>Merit aid at private schools is mostly for wealthy people to get a tuition discount.</p>
<p>I would agree with that sentiment if the top award is only 1/4 tuition. I’ve seen too many cases in which truly worthy students received good scholarships to be so skeptical.</p>
<p>^^ um, no. Merit aid is MOSTLY for students who acheived well in HS and who the college wants to attend their school. “Wealthy” people don’t concern themselves with aid as they can afford the tuition.</p>
<p>Are there some cases where schools hand out merit aid as a discount? Perhaps. That hardly makes it mostly.</p>
<p>Merit money is to attract students that a college wants the most, and yes, some colleges do look to attract full pay and close to full pay kids, especially when they are hard to come by for them and they are hurting for them. I know a lot of families who are in the top 5-10% of the country, income/asset wise, but still feel the sting of the quarter million a private school can cost. The idea of getting a five figure discount from that appeals to many of them, along with the fact that their kid got a scholarship. </p>
<p>I think some of these schools need to look long and hard at what they are doing when they integrate their merit awards with financial aid. I noticed that Lafayette, a fine school, erodes the aid grants they give, directly with their Marquis Award, the one they give the students they want the most, a most prestigious award. Recipients who get that who are also getting financial aid, have those amount reduce their grant aid, instead of self help first. Ridiculous, IMO.</p>
<p>My daughter applied to ivy leagues and LACS some that gave merit aid and some that didn’t. She received merit aid of 17-22K at schools with merit aid but the best packages was at Carleton with no merit aid. Brown and Cornell ended up a little more expensive than Carleton but much better than 2 of the LACs with merit aid and similar to two other LACs with merit aid. Apparently the schools that gave the merit aid just gave less need based aid so it was a wash. The merit aid would only benefit if your need is less the merit aid.</p>
<p>More reasonable schools will apply merit scholarships first to unmet need (if the school does not meet need, however it defines “need”) and student contribution / self-help (loans and work study or other work earning expectations).</p>
<p>An example from Stanford (although it meets need and does not have its own merit scholarships, so it applies only to outside scholarships being applied first to self-help amounts that are expected student work earnings):
<a href=“Financial Aid : Stanford University”>Financial Aid : Stanford University;
<p>@Torveaux, unless you get a full ride somewhere, institutional merit aid isn’t very useful unless you are wealthy (> $120k family income with 1 kid in school). In a few cases, a school will reduce some loans or fill in a gap, but usually if you require more financial aid than the amount of merit aid you earned, you just get the financial aid replaced by merit just like the OP had done. In fact, for low-to-middle-income kids, merit aid makes things worse because the FA had no strings, but the student could lose the merit aid with poor grades. Show me some schools that will tack on merit aid AFTER computing financial aid, because my kids will absolutely apply to them!</p>
<p>Daddio3, not exactly tacking on merit aid after FA, but University of AL is the most generous merit award school I have ever seen. They allow stacking of scholarships without any reduction of other scholarship $$. Our ds was awarded 4 different scholarships and combined, they cover all projected expenses. UA has some great honors college program opportunities as well (UFE, CBHP, STEM MBA, and Emerging Scholars)</p>
<p>Roll Tide!!</p>
<p>OU has a very similar scholarship system to Alabama. Lots of aid available with stacking scholarships. The goal is to attract capable students and reward excellence. Don’t confuse the end result with the purpose.</p>
<p>120K is different in places like California than it is in North Dakota or even North Carolina. Cannot really pick a number and call that wealthy.</p>
<p>Even if you have 120K and 1 kid, that means you would be spending 35-50 percent of your annual income to pay for many private or OOS universities. When most of us are talking about wealthy, we are talking about people who can afford paying for college without destroying the family finances. I loan money for a living and I would not give anyone a loan for 50% of their annual income unsecured…not to mention the same person would need another loan in the same range each of the next 3-4 years. (like buying a brand new Jaguar XF every year for 4 years and giving it away free at the end of the year)</p>
<p>Unfortunately, need aid is a joke. Much of it is loans, which is not really aid at all, it is just delayed debt. It also is inconsistently applied and does not take the whole situation into account. You are punished if you take good care of your income and rewarded if you overspend your resources. The whole program has been a major contributor to the rampant inflation of tuition in the US. We need a better way, but that is a whole different thread.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/making-college-more-expensive-unintended-consequences-federal-tuition-aid”>http://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/making-college-more-expensive-unintended-consequences-federal-tuition-aid</a></p>