Scholarships considered when recieving financial aid?

Paying for College
1

<p>If a student is awarded a lot of scholarship money, will it affect how much money the student will receive from need-based financial aid?</p>

2

<p>Yes it will.</p>

<p>The scholarships first get applied to “need”.</p>

<p>example:</p>

<p>$25,000 COA</p>

<h2>$10,000 EFC</h2>

<p>$15,000 “need”</p>

<p>So, if you were to get $10,000 in various scholarships…</p>

<p>$15,000 need

  • $10,000 scholarships
  • $5,000 student loans</p>

<p>need is now met. You still have to pay the $10,000 EFC</p>

3

<p>Thanks for clearing that up for me!</p>

4

<p>It is usually in your best interest to apply for outside scholarships that you think you are likely to “win”. Many ‘full need meet’ schools apply outside scholarships to the student loan portion of the package and/or the student contribution and work study.</p>

<p>For example
The EFC of $10,000 may actually consist of $1500 summer student earnings $1500 work study and $7000 parent contribution. </p>

<p>COA 25,000
Parent 7,000
Student 3,000 (summer & WS)
Loans 5,000
Need $10,000</p>

<p>If the school meets need ($10k) and you bring in up to $8k it may all be applied (Loans + student contributions) and then your “Net Price” is reduced to $7k with no loans.In that situation you could still take loans to reduce the parent portion.</p>

5

<p>for many families, the goal of merit scholarships is to reduce “family contribution.” They are often disappointed to find out that their child’s $5k in private scholarships won’t do that unless they are full/near-full pay.</p>

<p>To reduce family contribution the merit scholarship must be so large that they not only cover all of need they also “cut into” EFC.</p>

<p>$50k = COA</p>

<h2>$30k = EFC</h2>

<p>$20k = “need”</p>

<p>So, if the student gets a $35k full tuition scholarship…</p>

<p>$50k = COA</p>

<h2>$35 = merit scholarship</h2>

<p>$15k = balance parents have to pay.</p>

<p>Because the merit was big enough, it covered all of need and cut into EFC. The family now only has to pay HALF of its EFC.</p>

<p>:)</p>

6

<p>very helpful! I was about to post a thread asking the same question.</p>