<p>The overall ousdie scholarship money my son received is a little more than the self help portion of the financial aid. I heard that if we can make an appeal to the financial office, that they can raise the self help portion, so the overage outside scholarship won't reduce the college grant. Can anyone help me to understand if there is any Con besides the Pro that I just mentioned above? My son will need a labtop compupter for the school year. is this a good appeal? Thanks.</p>
<p>I think you mean increase the COA. I believe some school’s may consider increasing the COA on a one off basis for a computer purchase. Certainly worth asking.</p>
<p>(The reason I say I think you mean increasing the COA is that when I first read “increase the self help portion”, my reaction was “why would you want to do that? Increasing the self help portion without increasing the COA would mean they would have to decrease the non self help aid. You want the COA to increase, which would automatically increase the self help”. That is the way my mind reacted ).</p>
<p>it all depend,some college allow your son use the outside scholarship to purchase computer. you need to call FA office to find out.</p>
<p>Yes, I just talked to the FA officer, they would increase the self-help portion, which would increase the COA, so the overage of the outside scholarship wont’ reduce the college aid. Let say, if the original self help is $6000, if the lab top costs $1800, they would probably increase the the self help amount to about $8000 to make the overage scholarship be useful. But is there any con other than this benefit if the COA increased? I am still a little confused with the COA, becuase they put the books, travel fee and personal expenses into the coa calculations. Let say if my son received $7000 outside scholarship, then he needs to borrow or work to get that $1k gap? will the school bill us the difference? Please advise. thank you.</p>
<p>No, things like personal expenses and travel etc won’t be billed to you. The direct expenses like tuition and fees, room and board will be charged to the bursar account and the aid money will be credited to it. If the aid money exceeds the direct expenses then they should refund the excess to him to use for personal expenses.</p>
<p>The only con is that any scholarship/grant money used to pay for non qualified expenses (which are basically tuition, fees, and required books) will be taxable income to your son. But that is not too much if a con in my opinion. Better than not having the scholarships/grants.</p>
<p>^ Thank you so much for your help! I understand the tax part. So the total billed amount would be less than the COA right? If that is the case, that would make sense. So for text books and other school related expenses, my son has to pay out of packet first, if any money left from the scholarship/college aid after tuition and R&B appllication, would be refunded to my son to cover the costs that he paid out of packet? Thanks.</p>
<p>Yes, the difference between the billed expenses for the semester and the FA for the semester should be refunded to him. He can then use it for other expenses. Books are usually much cheaper online, so he can probably save a fair bit not buying them at the school.</p>