The NYS STEM Incentive Program provides provides tuition awards to students who are** New York State residents attending a public or private degree-granting college or university located in New York State. **
Recipients must be in the top 10 percent of students of their high school graduating class, pursue an approved, two or four-year STEM degree program and agree to live in NYS and work in a STEM field in NYS for five years after graduation.
A recipient receives an annual award for full-time study up to the annual tuition charged to NYS resident students attending an undergraduate program at the State University of New York (SUNY), or actual tuition charged, whichever is less. For the 2017-2018 academic year, the standard SUNY tuition rate is a maximum of $6,670 per year.
The STEM Incentive Program award will be reduced by the amount of any other tuition-only assistance award, such as the NYS Tuition Assistance Program (TAP), received.
The number of awards to be made under this Program to students attending private degree-granting institutions is subject to available funding.
https://www.hesc.ny.gov/pay-for-college/financial-aid/types-of-financial-aid/nys-grants-scholarships-awards/nys-science-technology-engineering-and-mathematics-stem-incentive-program.html
I wonder if schools like Columbia. NYU, or Cornell will automatically notify their accepted NYS students that are pursuing STEM majors that they may be eligible for this.
If STEM applicant recives the need based scholarships at Columbia, Cornell or other private school, would they lower their own need based contributions and give them this award or this will be on top of the need based grant that they offered. If they lower their own grants, it is a bad deal for the applicant as they were already getting the grant money without conditions. @sybbie719 any thoughts. In our case they are brining net price calculation better than Penn, Brown, Dartmouth if these awards are on top of the need based grants.
If they offer these awards, kids may decide to take it as long as it is on top of the grants money they offer.
If you are a stem applicant, this is how it will play out:
IF you receive TAP, your tap award pays first ,then STEM award will pay the balance of your tuition up to the SUNY amount of $6k.
Since Columbia/Cornell meets 100% of demonstrated need, your stem award will be deducted from your need based package. Even though NYU does not meet 100% demonstrated need, they will just deduct the STEM scholarship from their financial aid package.
If you have been accepted to Columbia/ Cornell, you may want to think about if you want to pursue the STEM Scholarship. It will add no additional aid to your package and you still maintain the freedom to work wherever you want after graduation.
Remember, if you take the STEM scholarship, you must commit to working in a STEM Job in NYS for 5 years after graduation. If you don’t fulfill this part, then your scholarship turns into an unsubsidized loan.
@sybbie719
There are a few policy wonk questions:
- Will they have enough for the Private colleges?
- Will the non-full needs schools cut their needs grants by $6,670 like the examples above.
- Is the grant pecking order TAP->Excelsior->STEM?
- Is there extra money for the privates because Excelsior replaces STEM?
- Did the “Commission on Independent Colleges and Universities” get this into the budget?
- What happens in the future if the budget is cut and they eliminate the privates?
- Are kids still obligated to the 5 years commitment if the state cuts them off after year 1,2 or 3?
I’ve got a kid at SUNY taking the STEM. It is a tricky balancing act to meet the 12 credit minimum (he takes 16-20 anyway) because he has so many AP and CC credits. What I mean by that is his STEM minor doesn’t count against the 12 credits and he has no free electives left. It looks like he will declare a second STEM major as his primary major just to keep the scholarship. His adviser says a lot of high performing students run into this problem. HESC could easily fix that with some guidance that says as long as you are on track for a 4 year STEM degree, all is good. Sometimes it feels like this program is a giant “gotcha”, now pay us back at the un-subsidized rate.
Any idea how much was appropriated for this program? It looks like 3.5 million from DOB’s website, but that sounds way too low for all Grant programs.
https://www.budget.ny.gov/pubs/archive/fy19/exec/agencies/appropData/HigherEducationServicesCorporationNewYorkState.html
From the HESC website:
“The number of awards to be made under this Program to students attending private degree-granting institutions is
subject to available funding.”
But at least at Cornell, doesn’t the needs based aid package include loans and work-study? So don’t they reduce the loans and work-study requirement first. So these may actually be adding something to the overall aid package in exchange for giving up the freedom of working outside NYS for 5 years.
At schools with generous financial aid policies, IMHO, you would be better off not taking the scholarship, because you are getting more in financial aid than the scholarship offers.
The pecking order is TAP, then STEM (which can only be used for tuition). You will not get Excelsior (which is tuition only because TAP and STEM would cover the 6k.
Probably not. This is the reason that schools are not buying into Excelsior because it does not benefit them. For Excelsior is 3k and the school matches the other 3k (and you are probably already getting more than 3/6k in aid) and they have to freeze tuition.
You are committed with Excelsior or STEM. They both come with strings that you must stay and work in NYS. You as a family must decide if it is worth it. For some families, yes, they know that they are staying in state after college.
There is a thread here where a student has the same problem and they limit what will be paid for.
Coming full circle, I don’t see a lot of real buy in from the privates because most of them are already giving more than the cost of SUNY tuition in financial aid, even when they don’t meet full need. I don’t think that it will add to the student’s financial aid package as the money will just get swapped out from one funding stream to another.
A truly low income student is going to get tap where the max is $5165 leaving the school to toss in 1k to meet SUNY tuition without the strings.
@sybbie719 thank you very much for explaing it. Really appreciate it and I mean it.
@sybbie719
Have you heard anything yet? We were at orientation last week and the finaid person said we were only the 2nd family to ask about it and she is the NY state specialist. No information from HESC yet.
I’m guessing there are not going to be too many students in the lottery. We are still not sure whether or not to take it because of the 5 year commitment. My sons are now talking about going to the SF Bay area after college. They want to work with the googles of the world.
I’m going to answer my own question:
Fact:
The deadline for submitting the NYS Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Incentive Program Application is August 15, 2018.
Educated Guess* :
HESC has a set pool of dollars for the STEM. Once they figure out how much will go to SUNY/CUNY/SUNY@Ithaca students they will have a better idea of how much can go to the privates. If they have enough for everyone, which is very possible, no lottery.
- This is how we do it at work with non-education federal funding of infrastructure projects
If there are any NY policy wonks that can point me to the appropriation for the STEM program, I can make a good guess. I don’t see it broken down in the budget. Is there an Assembly bill # with the breakdown?
HESC will pay up to the cost of SUNY tuition ~6670. All of Cornell schools meet 100% demonstrated need
If you are eligible for need based aid, the 6800 from the stem scholarship is not going to change your overall financial aid package. Your source of funding will just be Rebucketed.
It is the same scenario if your child is attending any other private school in NYS. For private schools you will be offered the scholarship by lottery ( not guaranteed like ke iu is for SUNY and the land grant schools). Like excelsior- it is a last payer which means any TAP will be deducted from the scholarship amount.
My original answer still stands. The STEM scholarship will not be used for room and board or th lower your EFC. Unless you are full pay, if your child attends a school that meets 100% demonstrated need it does not make sense to take the STEM scholarship. This way your child has no strings as far as an approved major or having to live and work in NYS post grad. Even if your school does not meet 100% demonstrated need, it does not mean that 6600 will be added to your package.
I agree if it was any of the 100% needs met schools, turn it down.
The private school in question gaped us about $5K off our FASFA EFC based on their calculations from the CSS. They also included $5500 in federal loans for my S. They don’t meet 100% need so the question is what will they do with the gap.
My thought is to take it this year and see what the college offers next year. If they use it for the gap, great. If not, I will pay it off and he can tell financial aid the scholarship is gone.
In years 3&4 my EFC will double (S20 will graduate) so it might be worth keeping.
I wish they didn’t put in the 5 year residency requirement. Who knows if he will get a good job in NY in 4 years and keep it for another 5. My best friend’s son had to go to Boston for a mechanical engineering job. He couldn’t find an entry level job in or around NYC. Everyone wanted 3-5 years experience. If you want to give the top students a scholarship, just do it.
Your challenge is if this is an profile school, unless you are eligible for TAP/PELL (which are entitlements if you are eligible) or SEOG/FWS (depending on how much funding the school gets for this), your FAFSA EFC is meaningless. The only thing that the FAFSA does. Is determine your eligibility for federal aid.
There is no “gap” between your financial aid package and your FAFSA EFC. The reason that schools use the profile is to determine your eligibility for institutional aid. The college takes a deeper look at your financials and may use home equity (which the fafsa does not) to determine how much they feel you can pay…
Even though there is a $5.5k loan in the financial aid package it llooks a like the school in question has met 100% of your demonstrated need. Your getting. STEM scholarship is not going to change. What will most likely happen is either the school will take back 6600 of their money, but you won’t het an increase in aid.
Yes, your EFC will increase when you have one less child in school. The expectation is that you will use the money that you were paying for S1 on S2. Again, it is very unlikely that if you put in for a STEM scholarship, that it will decrease your EFC at a school that meets 100% demonstrated need.
I don’t understand this at all. At Cornell, the work study and loans are used in addition to a Cornell grant to come to the EFC (which then includes the parent and student contributions). I don’t understand why the STEM award wouldn’t be applied first to those before they eat into the Cornell grant? They aren’t one of those colleges that meet full need without loans. I can see for those types of college why this kind of award wouldn’t be worth pursuing.