<p>What kind of bulls@@t is this? So what they are saying is... if they gave me $10,000 in aid this year... and I got a $10,000 scholarship from outside, then my aid will DECREASE to $0, effectively cancelling any reward that I could get from my scholarship?</p>
<p>Or is there a certain % that Berkeley will suck up, like they will still give me like $5,000 in aid? </p>
<p>And what about for kids that did not receive any aid to start with?</p>
<p>Can someone here please answer these questions... thank you.</p>
<p>I’m assuming that they give you aid to begin with because you NEED it, but when your need is fulfilled by outside scholarships, then they take your financial aid to give to someone else who needs it. Unless you’re talking about a merit based scholarship, which is different than just regular aid because you need to apply and prove you’re worthy of it in order to receive it. If you’re talking about Berkeley-given merit based aid, then that seems silly of them to take it away just because you have another merit based scholarship. But…if Cal is giving you need-based aid and you come in with a bunch of scholarship money…then technically you don’t NEED the aid anymore. (Even though expected contribution is way more than I think most people can afford…)</p>
<p>This is true for need-based aid at almost every university…if you no longer need the aid, then you will not get it. Someone else needs it more than you.</p>
<p>My older son went to UCLA and they told us they take the scholarship money first away from loans, then work study and finally “free money”. But whatever your EFC is, they expect you to pay that.</p>