I have run some NPC’s for various schools and the total COA tends to come out around 40K for all schools. They estimate some grant/financial help from the school to arrive at that number because often these schools were 60-75K total. If my D were to receive scholarship/merit aid for grades, scores etc., would that be deducted from the 40K bottom line? Or would they take away the financial aid they originally included, use the merit there and I would still end up with a 40K COA? Thanks
Any outside merit would replace some of the need based aid you would have received. Because with the scholarship your need goes down.
There are probably some schools where this may not apply but this holds true for most.
Thank you. What if it was not outside merit but the schools “Presidential Scholarship” or such? Or a small grant for playing an instument?
When a school sends out that financial aid package, usually the school merit awards are taken into account already so that you don’t see money being taken away which leaves people with bad feelings. It’s often done internally.
At schools where Work study and Subsidized loans are part of the package, usually those are replaced by awards that come in later and are reported to Fin Aid.
Many schools will lay out exactly how they replace aid when a student receives any outside or internal award after Fin aid packages are released. It can vary from school to school
I think it’s usually true whether it’s an outside award or a school awarded merit scholarship, but there are exceptions.
Some colleges will stack your kid’s need based and merit awards. Some won’t. This varies by school.
Ok thanks for your responses. It looks like it may be difficult to predict what a particular school may cost until after they make their offer and whether a higher cost state flagship (with little or no merit) would be better or worse than a private school with merit.
Even if it’s a school merit (as you mentioned: Presidential scholarship), that will get applied FIRST to your need. Then if you still have need, then a school may add some need based aid to cover the rest of your need.
RARELY, if ever, will a school apply need based aid to cover “need” and then apply their own merit in addition to cover some of your EFC.
If you want to reduce your EFC, you need to target schools where the merit is so huge, that your net cost is what you want.
COA doesn’t change…it’s the listed cost of the college. It’s not your net cost.
Most typical scenario is that parental expected contribution remains the same (if award is less than the institutional grant meeting need) and MAYBE the student contribution (inlcuding the student $5000 loan/work study) might be eliminated by the scholarship.