<p>Hey people,</p>
<p>I was talking to a teacher of mine who went to U of M and he informed me of an angering policy that Michigan has about scholarships. I was told that if you receive a scholarship and report it to the university, they simply deduct that amount form the amount of institutional aid they've granted you. I am receiving a grant from U of M, as well as an additional scholarship via the university which would eliminate my cost if they just add the two together. However, if the school rescinds my grant aid and just replaces it with the scholarship, I'll still have to pay to attend U of M. Now I'm not saying that I'd be unhappy with some aid, but I'd definitely like to attend for cheaper if possible (as would anyone). So do they really deduct scholarship aid from the institutional grant? If so, why not just "fail" to report any non-university scholarships that you receive so that they don't take that amount of your grant aid away?</p>
<p>I think that may depends on the scholarships. Some has need base component. If you get something else, that may reduce your need. Some scholarships like Bell explicitly said it may be reduced if you receive other scholarships. The FA officer came to my D’s schools a couple times each year (we live in AA). He said additional scholarship should reduce the amount of loan and work study first assuming your need is not changed.</p>
<p>It depends on your EFC. I believe they apply the scholarship to your need and once the amount of your EFC remains, they begin to deduct from your work study, loan options, then grants. </p>
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<p>Um, because that’s dishonest and you risk your aid and your place at the university. </p>
<p>If your “aid” is need-based then it’s quite simple. If you receive a scholarship, your need is less and they reduce your aid to adjust for that. If the aid is merit, they generally stack scholarships.</p>
<p>Michigan will.only give you need based aid to cover your need. If your EFC is 1,000 for instance, and the total cost is 26,000, the max yiu can get in grants/loans/WS+scholarship is 25,000. You are right, for every dollar you get in scholarship, they will start cutting away from your other need based aid (starting with loans, then WS, then the grants).</p>
<p>Michigan allow stacking scholarships up to CoA, not just your need. So if you get enough scholarships, you may reduce your EFC.</p>
<p>All schools do this with need based aid.</p>
<p>^and they do it because its their money, and intended to offset need.
Also, with some federal pools of aid that they disperse there are regulations or conditions on the funding that means they have to apply it to defined need.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone, you all helped out a lot. I’m a first generation college student and my school counselor was uniformed about this, so I brought it to CC. @romanigypsyeyes I wasn’t insinuating that I would do that, but simply bringing about the idea that people are then disinclined to report their scholarship aid. That’s all.</p>
<p>@billscho, are you sure that’s a current policy. Because the Financial Aid Office just told me yesterday that even though I have more scholarship than my need, I can’t use it to cover my family contribution. My EFC is set in stone.</p>
<p>There are full ride scholarships to limited numbers of students. I am sure they are not paying EFC. If my D choose to commute, we also pay much less than our EFC (>14k) as the scholarship already covered over 50% of tuition and fee. If you have a need based aid, then it would be different as merit scholarships may change your need.</p>
<p>Just an update, Michigan corrected my FA status and they did tack on the extra scholarship. They are covering my EFC as well as the original amount they were going to pay for. I don’t know if I’m the new norm or if I just got lucky, but I’m extremely excited about a full-ride to U of M.</p>
<p>Congrats!
I think this is the way it works. I was told by the FA officer a couple times that they will stack merit scholarships up to CoA.</p>