<p>Hi! I received about 2 or 3 scholarships, and on all the letters, it says to forward them to the University. I also received financial aid though. They are about $6000 in grants, but are not from the University and from the state. So if I do forward these letters to them, will my financial aid be reduced? I am not taking any loans that was offered, so will my grants be reduced?</p>
<p>This is how it looks like for me</p>
<h2>$20,000 (COA)</h2>
<p>~$7600 Tuition (Covered by Leadership Award offered by University)
$5600 State Grants</p>
<h2>$0 Loans (Rejected the loans)</h2>
<p>$13,200 Covered, meaning I need to pay $6,800</p>
<p>But I won $5,000 in private scholarships. Will this reduce my grants at all?</p>
<p>It depends on the school. Some schools may reduce institutionally based grants while others will reduce loans or out of pocket costs above institutional, state and federal grants.</p>
<p>What was your EFC? If it was 0, hopefully they’ll reduce self-help (loans they offered and you refused) first.</p>
<p>My EFC was not 0. It came out to like, $6600 or something like that. But I’d rather not have my parents pay, and we are somewhat in debt and my mother has lost her job in this tough economy. The school offered me around $7000 in loans, but I have already rejected it. So do you think they will take my grants away? It’s a CT grant and not an institution grant, so I couldn’t see why they would though. </p>
<p>Since I was offered loans and have rejected them already, wouldn’t they just let me have the scholarship money in lieu of loans? Wouldn’t it be the same as if I accepted the $7000 in loans, and then got the $5000 in scholarship, so then they would just reduce my loans to $2000? But I don’t know how it works since I already flat out rejected the loans. I’m hoping they will consider the scholarships as they would loans and just let me keep them without reducing the grants.</p>
<p>As your EFC is $6600 and your need of $13400 (COA of $20k less $6600EFC)is almost met it sounds like the loans were mostly to cover your EFC rather than need based. It is possible that the scholarships could reduce your need and therefor your need based grants. Really the school is the only one who can tell you for sure what their policy is.</p>
<p>Ah, that would be terrible. That’s an awful system! I mean, scholarships are meant to help us pay for college, and we deserve them. But why should they reduce things like grants if they are need based as well? It’s like, what’s the point of looking for scholarships if they do that? It basically stays the same then. I feel like scholarships should be allowed no matter what type of aid you are getting, as long as you do not go over the COA. But sigh, I unfortunately do not control the system.</p>