<p>Very often colleges that offer merit aid will use it to replace loans or work-study. For example, my d. was admitted to UC Santa Cruz and given a specific need based award that included $4400 in loans and $2200 in work study, and a $9200 grant. Soon after receiving her initial award, she received notice that she had been awarded a Dean’s scholarship of $2000, and that her work study amount was reduced by a corresponding amount. Since work study money isn’t paid out until earned, that was essentially cash in hand as opposed to a job offer. Since I consider work study and loans to be money the student pays (one way or another) as opposed to a gift from the school, that extra $2K a year would have meant a lot – though my d. chose to attend a different school.</p>
<p>So it is far more likely that in the example you gave, the bottom line for the merit aid situation would be:</p>
<p>FinAid = $15000 (Stafford ave. 0, grants ave. $15000)</p>
<p>Also, many private schools use the CSS Profile define meeting “full need” under their own methodology-- but with merit aid they might be willing to go up to the level of the EFC. That’s what happened with my son’s first college – he had been accepted with a need-based award, and then later learned that he had a $2000 National Merit Scholarship. The financial aid office told me that would not change his aid in any way because even with the $2K the FAFSA still showed need, even though the college would not have given us any more via a need-based grant. So in his case, it really was $2K more than we had before.</p>