Presidential Scholarship and Private Scholarship Question

<p>Son is recipient of Presidential Scholarship. There are a few private scholarships he’s also looking at applying for, some of which only state they will cover tuition (which will be covered under the PS). Does anyone have experience with a child who received PS and also private that covered tuition? We are not sure if he should just concentrate on the private scholarships that he could apply towards room/board or those that are a best match for his background.</p>

<p>I’m not positive, but I know this is how it works for those with the pre-paid tuition deals…</p>

<p>Bama just credits the pre-paid tuition amount and then credits the Presidential amount and the two amounts just get used towards the total balance.</p>

<p>Are you sure that these outside scholarships can ONLY be used towards tuition? I’ve never heard of that. Usually private scholarships are for a set amount. </p>

<p>Contact <a href=“mailto:Scholarships@ua.edu”>Scholarships@ua.edu</a> for exact details as to how they would handle this. I’m guessing that if you get a private scholarship that covers tuition, then Bama would just apply the Presidential amount to your account and it would get used however it’s needed. </p>

<p>However, if you’re OOS, that would be a lot of money total ($22k for the outside one and $22k for the Presidential) which is more than COA…so perhaps the Presidential would get reduced to meet COA??? Not sure…contact Scholarships and ask.</p>

<p>Yes, the wording is “$1500 to be used for tuition only at accredited…Check is made directly payable to the school”. It’s not nearly as much as the cost of tuition would help towards room/board if that’s allowed. I’ll call during the week. I was just wondering if this had come up before for anyone else.</p>

<p>This happened to us with our older D. She won a full tuition scholarship from her university. She then won a privately funded scholarship for 1500.00 from an alumni which was also “tuition only”. What happened was that they used the private scholarship and just reduced the university tuition portion amount that they paid. We did not find any “tuition only” scholarships that would let us use them for room and board. She did receive another scholarship from her High School and the check was made out directly to her so we were able to use that for whatever we pleased. In essence, I don’t know if I would have my child take the time to fill out any scholarships that specified “tuition only” if they already had a full tuition scholarship in hand.</p>

<p>There is a possibility that the private scholarship could be used to cover mandatory fees. While not “tuition,” they are a tax deductible expense and are often used by colleges (not so much at UA) to raise the effective price of tuition when the state sets “too low” of a tuition rate.</p>

<p>UA is generally happy to apply any private scholarships to a student’s bill. UA’s official billing does not specify what a scholarship is paying for, but rather a dollar amount, so there is a good chance that both scholarships will be applied to the student’s account and the excess $1500 (technically from the Presidential Scholarship) will cover some of the additional charges ie course fees, housing, or meal plan charges.</p>

<p>Another oddity of the billing process is that all students are charged in-state rates and a non-resident tuition supplement is added to the bill for non-resident students.</p>

<p>A thought…might you be able to use any additional “tuition scholarships” for international travel courses/tuition, or towards cost of summer college classes? However I would check if they specify the student has to be full-time at whatever institution it is being used at which could negate it being applied to a CC near home in the summer etc.</p>

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<p>I believe that by using the phrase “Value of out-of-state tuition”, it allows for the actual award to be credited towards anything, not just tuition. But it is a really good question to verify!</p>

<p>Spring162…Was your situation at a school other than Bama? I don’t think Bama would do that.</p>

<p>As Vlines points out, Bama’s scholarship is for the value of tuition…not specifically tuition.</p>

<p>I would make sure, but also ask what would be done if the student got the Presidential and a full tuition private scholarship. That would total more than the COA for an OOS student.</p>

<p>*UA is generally happy to apply any private scholarships to a student’s bill. UA’s official billing does not specify what a scholarship is paying for, but rather a dollar amount, so there is a good chance that both scholarships will be applied to the student’s account and the excess $1500 (technically from the Presidential Scholarship) will cover some of the additional charges ie course fees, housing, or meal plan charges.
*</p>

<p>I agree ^^^</p>

<p>And, yes, if there is a problem, see if the money can go towards “fees”.</p>

<p>I’m curious as to which private scholarships are covering all of tuition. Would these also pay for the entire tuition at pricey privates?</p>

<p>M2CK, son is not applying for any scholarships that would offer him full tuition, at least not that I remember. There are a bunch of smaller ones he was looking at. We were trying to prioritize based on qualifications - but when I saw the “tuition only” it gave me pause. We are just going to do those last if he gets to them all. There’s only so much time in the day and can only get so many papers done with everything else that’s going on.</p>

<p>^^^</p>

<p>Ahh…thanks for the clarification.</p>

<p>I would ask Bama what they would do if your son would received an award that was to be used for tuition only. (I really don’t think Bama would care at all. lol…they’d likely just apply it to his bill…and the Presidential amount would get applied as well and you’d have more than tuition covered. )</p>

<p>I find it odd that a scholarship would be worded that way since schools often just accept the awards and apply them to a bill. </p>

<p>Your college bill is like a credit card bill…a bunch of line items listing all your charges. So, if you were to have a business trip charge on your bill and your company reimbursed you by giving you a check to send to your credit card company, then that partial payment isn’t really going towards any one particular “line item”, it would just go towards your general balance.</p>

<p>So say that my parent’s employer automatically pays 3/4 of employee’s children’s college tuition and I also received the Presidential Scholarship; could I then use the excess Presidential money to cover housing and then any other extra money for my own expenses and use? If so, I could be looking at some serious extra money during college! Thanks for a response!</p>

<p>I think so. Contact Bama to be sure. I don’t know what they’d do with money that exceeds COA.</p>

<p>Does your work scholarship say that the money HAS to be used for tuition only or do they just give a scholarship that is worth 3/4 tuition? Do you know if it’s 3/4 of any tuition amount - even 3/4 of a pricey private?? or is it 3/4 of instate Texas tuition?</p>

<p>not sure if ua would be the same as UAB but as same system then maybe?.. UAB refunds directly to the student any money that is more than total costs…ie S2 has full tuition and housing scholarship, had Byrd (discontinued this year ) and also has prepaid al tuition plan…by the time these are all applied he has a significant credit that they deposit to his personal checking account…</p>

<p>and also has prepaid al tuition plan…</p>

<p>Yes, with a pre-paid tuition plan, monies are definitely refunded. I know that because of the NMFs that also have pre-paids. What I don’t know for sure is when all monies are from scholarships. I think Bama may still refund, but not totally sure since that question hasn’t come up here before.</p>

<p>@Tonk907 - in the case where I was in school recently and had employer tuition reimbursement, my employer specifically that any monies received from scholarships would not reimbursed (no double dipping). I can’t imagine your parent’s employer would be different but please check into it and let us know.</p>

<p>^^</p>

<p>That can happen when a company is reimbursing an employee for tuition because the employee doesn’t have room and board expenses. When it’s a scholarship for a child, the rules may be different.</p>

<p>My H’s company gave each of my kids’ a scholarship and the company never paid any attention to the fact that my kids rec’d scholarships from their universities as well.</p>

<p>I think that the employer tuition reimbursement will be dependant on the specifics of the employer policy. I am actually happy to hear of so many employers offering dependent tuition reimbursement! I know employers that are part of the university systems here in MD have that (University of MD and Hopkins). But it is sounding like there may be a number of private companies, or at least companies that are not affiliated with university systems, that are putting up money for kids tuition also. Good for them!</p>

<p>I’m definitely going to look further into this; I’ll let y’all know. My father’s employer is a university, and they pay 3/4 of tuition no matter where the student goes. It’s a really great benefit.</p>