Scholarship Gobbling

Parents Forum
101

<p>Sybbie…I don’t know where you are disagreeing with me. As you have outlined, the students who are nominatd are nominated on the basis of merit. They are qualified by what they have achieved, and are not disqualified by income. When I meant “merit based only” I meant that income was not a factor. Merit can take all forms…from leadership, athleticism to GPA depending on the scholarship’s criteria. But family income does not become a factor in a true merit scholarship.</p>

<p>Northstarmom and Owlice…Of course I have no right to tell a scholarship fund how to give out their money. I am only offering an opinion. </p>

<p>But I do see a problem shutting out high achieving students from ALL avenues of scholarships because of their parent’s income. As I stated in my previous post, just because a parent has money according to their EFC, it doesn’t mean that their children have access to it and that they get their college education paid for.</p>

<p>This parallels the situation for students who DO qualify for financial aid. Just because a student’s EFC shows they have financial need, it doesn’t mean that the school is obligated to meet their full need.</p>

<p>So my feeling is that in both cases you have kids who might have to take on additional debt or have to give up an oppportunity to go to a particular school.</p>

<p>If outside scholarships are merit based, it gives all kids the opportunity to have access to this additional funding. I don’t see the difference between a kid with wealthier parents or a kid with poorer parents going into tremendous debt for school, if ultimately the individual student is responsible for its payment. If you see it differently, it is because we are predisposed to believe that a parent will pay if they have the means. In both cases, the kids are taking on a heavy personal burden.</p>

<p>As for the narrow criteria set for different scholarships, yes, a short student may not be qualified to win the TALL Club’s scholarship (or vice versa). I was not debating that, although others might. I am just saying that if a child isn’t getting a cent of financial aid from their college and is well qualified to meet the criteria for the TALL clubs scholarship, if I were the decision maker, I would leave a parent’s income out of the mix.</p>

102

<p>"
But I do see a problem shutting out high achieving students from ALL avenues of scholarships because of their parent’s income. As I stated in my previous post, just because a parent has money according to their EFC, it doesn’t mean that their children have access to it and that they get their college education paid for.</p>

<p>This parallels the situation for students who DO qualify for financial aid. Just because a student’s EFC shows they have financial need, it doesn’t mean that the school is obligated to meet their full need.</p>

<p>So my feeling is that in both cases you have kids who might have to take on additional debt or have to give up an oppportunity to go to a particular school."</p>

<p>True. However, in the case of very low income students, outside scholarships may make the difference between their going to college or not going to college. Typically, they have to take out a lot of debt to go to college, and also have to work. The exceptions are the relatively few low income students who get into colleges like H, Y that will give them full aid, no loans.</p>

<p>S doesn’t qualify for need-based aid, and he’s taking out loans and working, and we’re cutting back a lot to send him to the LAC he chose, but I’m fine with students with demonstrated need getting aid over S, who is lucky to have had many advantages poor kids did not.</p>

<p>“But I do see a problem shutting out high achieving students from ALL avenues of scholarships because of their parent’s income. As I stated in my previous post, just because a parent has money according to their EFC, it doesn’t mean that their children have access to it and that they get their college education paid for.”</p>

<p>They aren’t shut out of all avenues of scholarships. There are many scholarships – including National Merit that are merit based only. The same is true of scholarships like Georgia’s Hope Scholarship and Florida’s Bright Futures Scholarships as well as many other scholarships.</p>

<p>I don’t think it’s right, however, for scholarships that are advertised as being merit only to use need as a criterion. We ran into this with older S, who wasn’t considered for some scholarships at U Michigan because he didn’t apply for need-based aid. If the scholarships had been advertised as need and merit based, we wouldn’t have had a problem with that, but they were advertised as being merit based only.</p>

103

<p>I think we are basically on the same page. I am really not suggesting a change to the entire financial aid structure currently available. And I would not want any student to lose out on their opportunity to attend college based on need. I’m just saying that another avenue to gain scholarship should be available that is not solely based on a parent’s income. Because there are no guarantee that the parents are supporting their children and meeting their EFC.</p>