<p>"Your financial aid eligibility may change if you receive additional awards. You must submit a copy of the award letter to the Financial Aid Office if you receive additional awards from any USC or other source, e.g., grants, scholarships, fellowships, assistantships, tuition assistance benefits, or agency awards."</p>
<p>I just want to confirm that this means if you get enough outside scholarships to cover the cost of attendance, then USC obviously would take away your grants/loans/etc. because you wouldn't need them. This doesn't mean that USC would rescind or reduce the amount of financial aid offered if you receive a few outside scholarships that would partially cover the tuition, right?</p>
<p>It’s my understanding that USC will “recalculate” your need if you receive outside scholarships that apply to tuition. So yes, if you get a few outside scholarships that partially cover tuition, the Financial Aid folks will recalculate your “need” and could possibly reduce your grant money or take away the offer of subsidized student loans. Kind of unfair, don’t you think, since outside merit money is so hard to qualify for and win!</p>
<p>Outside scholarships are GOOD! Don’t stop looking for them! Yes, they change the composition of your need-based financial aid, but generally it is changed in your favor.</p>
<p>First, these aren’t just USC policies, they are federal regulations governing federal need-based financial aid. Check on the Financial Aid and Scholarships forum to see many similar questions from many different universities if you have any doubts.</p>
<p>Usually your EFC stays the same even if you earn outside scholarships. USC will generally apply outside scholarships to Federal work/study and/or Federally subsidized loans first. That means you would need to work less (and spend more time on your studies) and you would graduate will less debt. Those are good things and certainly worth looking for outside scholarships to achieve.</p>
<p>when I asked the financial aid advisors, they said the outside scholarships first go towards your work-study, then your loans, and then your EFC.</p>
<p>That may be default way, but you can ask for a different allocation and they will adjust it. Loans first, or half and half, or whatever you want.</p>
<p>ruskie, I am assuming you did not receive a need-based grant from USC. For students who do have a need-based grant, outside scholarships would reduce work/study, subsidized loans, university grant, and only then EFC. As dt123 says, you can request to reduce subsidized loans first.</p>
<p>so only after the the loans, the work-study, and then the university grant, can we reduce the EFC? my university grant is like, ~$30k, so more likely than not my family will still have to pay the EFC even though I’ve received alot of scholarships… :(</p>
<p>Right. The dirty little secret about outside scholarships is that they do not help you at all after your work study and loans have been replaced. They help the university, but not you. They are nice to get in a pat on the back way, but not in a money in your pocket way. You might want to spend the hours it takes to apply for one going to a movie or helping your family out with yard work. Let someone else who can really use it win that one.</p>
<p>Layla, congratulations on the outside scholarships! I am sure you put a lot of work into those applications. If you have enough to cover your subsidized loans and work study for this year, you might try contacting the grantors of any additional scholarships and asking if they will defer them until your 2nd, 3rd or 4th year - many outside scholarships are one-year only, so you will have work-study and loans to be covered in future years as well. If you are still applying for scholarships, it would only make sense to apply if they are 4-year scholarships or if they exceed the amount of your university grant.</p>
<p>If you have already covered your W/S and loans and the scholarship cannot be deferred, I agree with dt123 that it might be best to decline it so another student could get some benefit.</p>
<p>Congrats again, layla - you have a LOT to be proud of!</p>
<p>Try contacting USC to ask if you can have a one-time increase in your cost of attendance for the purchase of a computer. In some cases they will increase the COA by as much as $2,000 for a one-time computer purchase. The result is a “gap” in your aid which CAN be covered by your outside scholarships that exceed your loans and work/study. Your EFC still will not be reduced, but you would have a shiny new laptop for all your hard work!</p>
<p>I just found out that I will be receiving an alumni scholarship yesterday. However, if I end up losing any aid beyond my subsidized loans and work study I probably won’t be able to attend USC. I’m already going to be taking on some debt and I’ve contacted Marshall and the Financial Aid Office to let them know. For this reason, I really don’t think they would take away my grants, knowing that I would need to transfer out because they took away my money.</p>
<p>Thanks you guys! I’ve already stopped applying to scholarships a good two months ago… I got all scholarshipped out. And one of the scholarships I won, the Dell, supplies me with a Dell laptop! The only thing I’m worried about is that because our EFC that USC calculated is a little over 4grand, and thats a little over 4grand more than our FAFSA EFC, I have absolutely no idea how my family can pay for it, so I was planning on calling a financial aid advisor to see what I can do about that.</p>
<p>Bringing this post up… I have a question about this one scholarship I received. It was a scholarship from my high school, so they basically just gave me a check in my name… are scholarships usually like that? Or are they usually directly “wired” to the college? In this case, would I have to report to USC that I received an outside scholarship? Or should I just slip it into my bank account and buy… school supplies or something…</p>
<p>Some local scholarships are given directly to the student. You are still supposed to report the scholarship. For many of them, I don’t think there would be any way for USC to know about it. My D received one of those last year, and she **did **report it. Besides the self-knowledge about how honest one is, it just isn’t worth it when you compare the amount of USC financial aid compared to the amount of a local scholarship - if she was going to lose one, we really, really, really preferred that she lose the local scholarship. As it turned out, USC made no reduction in her aid for that scholarship - she got to keep all of it for books and supplies PLUS the knowledge that she did the right thing.</p>
<p>When I got my one outside scholarship, USC reduced my university grant by that exact amount.</p>
<p>Yes, you are supposed to report the scholarships that just send you a check. Those scholarships are few and far between though, most of them send the check to your school.</p>
<p>i got an outside scholarship, and they reduced my need-based grant for the same amount my scholarship was worth. so will i be able to ask them to reduce the subsidized loan, or would the need-based grant have to be eliminated completely before they would reduce the loan?</p>