Realizing after lots of searching our son may not be able to afford going to some of the schools on his list. We his parents cannot contribute much towards his education so he will rely on financial aid, merit and loans. Is Umass Amherst generous with merit for kids with great stats? Not sure what to expect. We live in state and I know he won the John and Abigail Adams scholarship but that is only $1,700. He would like to live on campus. What can we realistically expect to have to contribute to an education there at minimum? Thanks
In the last four years of monitoring this forum, I’ve not seen in-state merit aid exceed $2000 /year. I have no insight into need-based or other financial aid.
@Skippy00 UMass Amherst is awful with aid. Won’t be less than 20k a year. You need to go to Lowell.
UMass usually saves their Merit-aid scholarships for OOS students to balance out the higher cost of attending. In-states rarely ever get merit scholarships, and even if they manage to get one, like @Lerxst said, it’s usually not much.
@Skippy00 I’d reach out to the UMass financial aid office for a better answer. Perhaps after May 1st too when all the deposits have to be made and they won’t be as busy fielding phone calls:) Another way to save money with college is to encourage your child to take some AP classes as a senior in subjects that he/she enjoys. If they get a passing AP score (a passing grade is based upon major/and college the credit is to be transferred) the credits can add up. Not only can a student graduate early, but for many colleges students get class registration dates according to how many credits they have. So coming in with a couple of credits can increase the likely hood that they will be able to enroll in the class or section with a particular (better) teacher.
Alternatively, your child could take a summer class at a community college and transfer the credit the same way. This may cost money and you should definitely make sure beforehand that the credit will transfer. My college age son took 2 classes at a community college. One when he was in high school and it is called dual enrollment. It was inexpensive, perhaps $200-300. The second class was last summer and was an online.
Both my kids received merit aid from Umass at $2000/year. I think this a fairly common amount.
@Skippy00 I just noticed that your child is taking a ton of AP’s. That will lower your cost for college by at least a semester if he does well on the AP tests.
@skippy00 please wait for his package, my son received a very nice package from UMass, and he had also received the John and Abigail Adams $1,700. Also was accepted at Commonwealth Honor’s College. Just have some faith, you have a wonderful young man who has worked hard.
@MomNama …thank you 
@MomNama, are you able to share the details on the package that your son received? Was it need or merit based?
@ccgamer, it was both…
We are out of state residents and received merrit. Scholarship… friends of ours last year tried to increase the merit scholarship or asked if if they can increase the merit scholarship and we’re told know that it was never done. Can anyone confirm contacting UMass and upping the merrit scholarship
Not that I’ve heard of or seen posted on this forum.
We tried, with the assistance of kid’s intended department, which is a very highly ranked department at UMass Amherst. Tried to play a better offer (at a lesser school) for more merit aid (which was already at 14K, the max they offer). They would NOT up the offer.