So next week I will be starting my freshman year at my local community college. I received the pell grant which covered my full tuition and left me with $1000 which I used to cover my books and school supplies cost. I also received a $1000 scholarship check from a private foundation, to my house in my name. I was hoping to use this money to pay for my computer and other expenses I have since I will have to commute to the school every day. Since the scholarship is in my name would I be able to just cash it or put it into my bank account or would I have to give it to the school even though all my costs are covered. If I did give it to the college would they take away my pell grant money? I would rather just put the money in my account and use it to pay off my computer but I don’t know if that is allowed. Thank you so much in advance for the feedback!
Your best bet would be to contact your community college’s financial aid office and take it from there. Also, you should review the terms of the outside scholarship you’ve received.
okay, I will. Thank you! The scholarship itself was just mailed to me as a check in an envelope. It doesn’t say what it can be used for or not be used for and their website doesn’t either. I believe you can use it for anything but I will call my college to find out, thank you again.
Scholarships often affect your financial aid, so I think it would be in your best interests to report it to your school. They may not make any adjustments, but at least you’ll have some peace of mind and be doing what’s right.
The Pell is an entitlement. The school cannot take it away if you are entitled to receive it.
What is your full cost of attendance? Even for commuters, there are costs associated with commuting that are included. You can likely use the scholarship check for these expenses…if the sponsoring group doesn’t say it MUST be used for tuition.
Congratulations!
As far as I know, Pell is an entitlement, so if you qualify you can get it. If the outside scholarship does not have any restrictions on how it can be used, then presumably you can use it for a computer.
But you need to add up all scholarships and grants you receive for the year and then subtract the amount of tuition, fees and books from that number. The difference will be the taxable amount. Only scholarships and grants that pay for qualified education expenses (tuition, qualified fees, and required books) are tax free. Using the scholarship for a computer would be a nonqualified expense I believe.
You would report the taxable scholarship amount on your 2016 tax return in the wages line, with SCH and the amount to the left. If you have to pay tax on it, would depend on if you have other income.
I am 17 so I have never filed for taxes and don’t believe I need to yet since I am still a minor and am doing all this college stuff on my own basically with my parents moral support but not financial or anything of that sort. I did contact my school though and they told me that since the check was written out to me I can deposit it into my bank account and spend it on what I like and I could let the school know by letter and a copy of it if I wanted to just in case I wanted to take out student loans in the future. So I will be doing that and sending it to them and paying my computer off with it. Thanks so much for everyones feedback it was very useful. Cheers.
There are lots of minors having income and needing to file a tax return. Next year when your parents get their taxes done you can get some professional advice to see if your income requires you to file or not.
Okay, thank you soo much!
You file taxes based on you income.
While some of your scholarship might be taxable income…that does NOT mean you will actually have to pay any income taxes on the amount. It all depends on your total income for the year.