NPCs and "outside scholarships" question

Regarding the question “Will/Did the student receive any outside scholarships?” There really needs to be a box to check that says something along the lines of “Not yet, but God I hope so.”

Those outside scholarships rarely affects your EFC since they reduce loans and work study first then school grants.

@itsgettingreal17 Thank you, that is really good to hear.

“ Rarely” sounds great until it does. Poster here with son who really put i. Time and effort to get some nice merit money. Came right off his financial aid.

Dd received over $10,000 in local scholarships (wrote a lot of essays). We don’t get FA, but they told us not to tell the colleges about these scholarships, because they can lower FA.

The problem with not telling a school is that usually you sign something saying you will. If caught, you lied on a firm. Never a good thing. When federal funds are involved, consequences can be far reaching and long lasting. Bad way to start adulthood.

The NPC is a guess at what your FA could be if everything remains as it is on the day you fill it out. As things change, most like the NPC results will too. More in savings? Inheritance? Buy/sell a house? Get outside scholarships? All may change the FA.

MJK- curious about the organizations funding these scholarships who instruct recipients “not to tell”.

i’ve served on the board of a foundation which funds scholarships- we no longer send a check to the student, it goes directly to the college. Somehow checks to the student had mysteriously gone to pay the electric bill, the family’s rent, a car repair. All fine and good- but that’s not what the money was for.

What reputable charitable organization would instruct a kid to lie AND encourage them to circumvent the college’s policies on outside funds? The donors to our organization directed their donations to go to college scholarships-- not for groceries. What control did the organizations which gave your son 10K have over how he spent the money- a weekend in Las Vegas? Surely that wouldn’t pass an audit…

Agree with above.
Most of the outside scholarships are paid directly to the University in the name of the student, and not just a check to be cashed.
I am not sure how you can withhold this info to the college, and it is illegal.

To the OP, yes, if your kid has not yet received any outside scholarships, then there is nothing to report yet.

Do outside scholarships affect merit aid or only need based aid? I’m shocked to hear that outside scholarships would affect anything except the bottom line that the student (parents) have to pay.

Where is the shock?

The scholarships are from 7 different organizations, the largest is a local rotary club for $1500 for 4 years, the smallest $400 from the town historical society. Two are from school related booster clubs. All are in her name, some require proof of attendance. Where I live is pretty old school, we call elementary schools grammar schools, the rotary club gives children dictionaries every year. Dd is putting all of the money into one of her checking accounts, but she will be taking out loans for college, way more than her scholarships, so she won’t be using it to buy a car. And again, not eligible for federal funds.

Almost everyone is eligible for federal loans, and those require filing the FAFSA, which requires you/she report outside funds to the college.

Those are federal funds. If she is bypassing the federal loans in favor of private loans, she may not have to report them.

Usually outside scholarships will replace need based aid but not merit. You do have to report them, though. It would be unethical to withhold that information. My daughter has a large need-based grant from her school and also won a large outside scholarship. The school and scholarship foundation work together to figure out what they can and cannot cover to help my D.

@blossom My shock is simple. I thought scholarships were gifted money to help pay for school. Not a zero sum game. If my child got some merit aid and it brought her COA down by 10,000 and she wrote essay after essay and earned an additional $5,000 in scholarships, I think it’s awful that the school would reduce it’s offer to her by the amount of the scholarships. It’s rewarding the school, not the student.

@3kids2dogs I agree with you 100%. It doesn’t seem fair. But it all depends on the college and their policies. They use a formula based on your expected family contribution. If your child is awarded a $3,000 need-based grant based on their formula, and then she wins a $3,000 outside scholarship, they may very well remove part or all of her grant. Every college is different. But always be prepared for the worst.

3kids2dogs I think that these local organizations work very hard all year with fundraisers in order to give out scholarships to ease the financial burden for these kids. I’m sure they would not be happy to learn that all of that hard work was for nothing, that it did not help the student in any way.

Receiving outside scholarships likely changes one’s need. Colleges may treat outside scholarships differently, but a large majority of colleges require that students report external scholarships to the financial aid office. Consequences for not reporting these scholarships range up to and including rescinding a student’s admission or loss of institutional aid.

For example, here is what U Delaware says:

@3kids2dogs
Google scholarship displacement. At this time I believe only Maryland has enacted law to make this practice illegal in their public universities. Hopefully it will spread to other states.