<p>My daughter got into one of the top schools and they gave us great financial aid. However, she has also received quite a few number of scholarships including National Merit. At this point, that money would just reduce the grant from the college right? Is there any way we could actually utilize her scholarship? She has no student contribution.</p>
<p>Depends on the school’s policy - the school S will attends uses outside scholarships to reduce student need. Also, for older D, some scholarships were paid directly to the school, while others were paid to her.</p>
<p>This is completely a school-by-school decision. It might be:
- Reduce student earnings expectation. 2. Reduce parental contribution. 3. Reduce student loans. 4. Reduce school grant; or
- Reduce student loans. 2. Reduce school grant; or
- Reduce student loans. 2. Reduce student earnings expectation. 3. Reduce school grant; or
- Reduce school grant. </p>
<p>You need to ask. (And congratulations!)</p>
<p>If the scholarship is directly paid to her, do we need to report it?</p>
<p>Many aren’t paid to the student, FYI.</p>
<p>Most schools require that scholarships be reported.</p>
<p>In either case, you’ll need to report it on next year’s FAFSA at which point the school might notice it and ask questions.</p>
<p>Yes, almost all schools will require her to report it, regardless of whether it’s paid to her or the school. You should be able to find out by checking the school’s Financial Aid page; if not, a quick call to the FA Office will tell you. </p>
<p>As noted above, schools vary in how they handle outside scholarships. Many (most?) will first apply the scholarship to loans and/or work study, so that’s at least a small benefit to the student.</p>
<p>We have no student contribution or work study or loans.</p>
<p>I don’t know of any school that allows outside scholarships to reduce the parent contribution.</p>
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<p>For some reason, just the way that question is posed makes me think that the answer is probably yes.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, I don’t have much experience in the realm of merit scholarships or financial aid, so I’m sure the experts will have a more definitive answer.</p>
<p>Snipersas “I don’t know of any school that allows outside scholarships to reduce the parent contribution.”</p>
<p>Wash U. See p. 9 of this doc: [Financial</a> Assistance Award](<a href=“http://www.docstoc.com/docs/95226105/Financial-Assistance-Award]Financial”>http://www.docstoc.com/docs/95226105/Financial-Assistance-Award)</p>
<p>snipersas, one of the schools my D applied to allowed it, up to $6K. But the rest didn’t.</p>
<p>This morning’s NYT has a column on college seniors, and one of the financial aid experts has a response to the issue of outside scholarships reducing institutional aid:
“MR. CHANY: Some of these outside scholarships have poison pills, if you will. They basically tell the schools, “If you cut this student’s aid, then we’re going to rescind the award.””</p>
<p>Anyone seen an example of a poison pill like this? (Seems like a very good idea, imo.)</p>
<p>Tiger, one of my kids had an outside merit scholarship allegedly paid directly to the student. The first check came- written to both the student and the university; kid had to endorse the check and hand it over to the bursars office for their signature, so it would have been very hard for the college not to know about the money (not that we were trying to hide it. But the physical check would have been impossible to cash except with the help of the university.)</p>
<p>If a school simply decreases their FA dollar for dollar when independent scholarships are earned, why would one even bother with the scholarships? Not being snarky - really just wondering. Wouldn’t it be a whole lot easier to not have to go through all the paperwork, FAFSA reporting, adjusted accounting etc. and just accept the school’s FA? Wouldn’t the resulting bottom line be the same? In addition, those scholarships might be useable by those whose schools do not decrease the FA.</p>
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<p>That sounds like a brilliant idea.</p>
<p>^ Sometimes you are replacing a loan with a scholarship. So yes, it may be dollar for dollar and a heck of a lot of paperwork, however one has to be repaid with interest and the other doesn’t.</p>
<p>I don’t know if this is helpful or not, but DD’s NM check is paid to her university after the semester starts and after we have paid all bills. The university just deposits the check (which is by then an overpayment) in DD’s account.</p>