^financial need shouldn’t be added on to a merit scholarship. I’ll make the numbers easy to explain it.
You can pay $30,000
School costs $60,000
Merit aid of $20,000
New cost of $40,000
Should the school still give you $30,000 ($60,000-$30,000)? No, now you only need $10,000 ($40,000-$30,000). There is two ways of the school expressing this. They could give you $10,000 in need based aid, above the merit based, or cancel the merit aid, and give you $30,000 of need based aid. It’s the same idea. You’re paying $30,000 either way.
There is really nothing to explain here. Exactly my point, merit based scholarship is useless, it’s a game and it has zero financial value for those who qualify for need based scholarship.
Maybe to you, however some people (myself included) do not quality for need based aid, and without merit scholarships are not able to attend a high price school like UR
Not really. Merit aid is guaranteed to remain at the same level for all 4 years. Need-based aid is reassessed each year and award amount will go down each year even if the family’s financial situation remains essentially the same.
Why? Each year the amount of federal student loans included in the student’s package will increase since the fed loan limit increases with year-in-school. Also the amount of the expected student’s self-help will increase each year because there is the expectation that the student will be able to get better paying summer job/internships and thus be able to contribute more to his/her own education.
tl;dr: merit give the family a firm base level of aid the student can expect each year that will not be affected by other family income fluctuations or aid calculations.
I just received the Rush Rhees Scholarship “$25,000” per year. I am just missing the need base aid and hopefully I win the Renaissance and Global Scholarship.
@jamesjunkers , hmm, you can’t finish reading the sentence? Yes, for me, as I said: “for those who qualify for need based scholarship”. I can see how it’s helpful for those who don’t qualify for need based help in the eyes of URochester. It’s just kinda unfair - if a family in reality can’t pay more than $50K but URock wants them to pay full price of $65K, MBS of $20K helps a lot as it makes the tuition manageable ($65K-$20K=$45K<$50K). However, If a family could pay no more than $20K but was required to pay $35K after NBS, the fact that the student got $20K in MBS doesn’t change a thing, the family is still required to pay $35K and is still priced out. That’s all I’m trying to say.
@WayOutWestMom , I can see how this applies when no or really little NBS is offered, but not when NBS is more than MBS. It boils down to a guarantee that whatever the tuition is in each of the lolloing years, we pay no more than the tuition (I mean the all inclusive amount) less the MBS. But it’s way too much for our family. And if what you say is correct (and it sounds very likely), it would only get worse each year. Too bad, URock, my son really likes this school
I agree, @VMT. D was awarded more than twice as much at Case Western than she was at URochester, plus Case awarded her another $10k for an audition-based Creative Arts Scholarship. A few other schools have also come in much higher with merit aid. URochester has definitely slipped way down the list due to affordability. Sad about that, as it’s a great school and a very good fit for D.
@simom2two “However, If a family could pay no more than $20K but was required to pay $35K after NBS, the fact that the student got $20K in MBS doesn’t change a thing,”
Could not agree more. Add to that the fact that Rochester come to the conclusion that we can pay 2.5 times our FAFSA EFC in their in house EFC calculation
@WayOutWestMom “Each year the amount of federal student loans included in the student’s package will increase since the fed loan limit increases with year-in-school”
That’s why calling the loans “an aid” / including them in the “aid package” is pretty scammy tactic whenever used by any school .
- can you give a brief overview of your stats?