<p>Is there a limit of scholarship money that you can receive? Like if I go to a place that costs $20,000/year to go to(Tuition, Room, Board) and I apply for three scholarships that are full-ride, can I receive all three of the scholarships?</p>
<p>No, the scholarships may not exceed the COA of your attending school.</p>
<p>^^
Not true.</p>
<p>Need based aid may not exceed COA. There is no such rule for merit, unless a school has some odd rule and will take back THEIR award.</p>
<p>Students frequently get over-awards for merit. At my kids’ undergrad, kids will get the NMF big award, but also come in with some other private tuition award. Bama refunds them the amount that is over the costs…even if it is more than COA.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that you have to pay taxes on all these awards…and it is highly unlikely that you’re going to get an outside full-ride award, but less 2-3 of them. </p>
<p>There are always news stories about a student getting $500k or more. Often they are kids who win big science or math awards, or pageant winners.</p>
<p>Apply for everything. It would be a good problem to have to have to select from different full ride scholarships.</p>
<p>I hate to say this…but scholarships are to fund college educations. If you got one full ride that covered all of your costs, it is very possible that another awarding scholarship body would not award you additional money.</p>
<p>And if they did…and you already had a firm full ride…why wouldn’t you let the next full ride go to another needy and worthy student?</p>
<p>When news stories say students get 500k awards I always though they were just adding up the value of awards from the schools they got into, but amazingly it is possible
<a href=“How I Earned $500,000 in Scholarships”>http://finance.yahoo.com/news/how-i-earned--500-000-in-scholarships-212534881.html</a></p>
<p>Personally, I know of kids who have gotten near free rides from their schools. Then, maybe their parents’ employers give an automatic award to employees children, and maybe they win a local award or two, and so forth. The cobbling doesn’t really involve multiple “free rides”, but when added together, the total exceeds the COA. The student is typically refunded all the money that isn’t going towards direct school costs. </p>
<p>There are also students attending college on their parents’ VA benefits. If they also receive an automatic award from their college for their stats, then the two sources could easily be more than the COA. </p>
<p>It is up to the scholarship and school policy. If they are internal scholarships, it is not likely to give you more (at least not much more) than the CoA. If they are all external, they you need to check what kinds of costs are eligible. It would be hard to win more than one full ride scholarships, not to mention winning 2 scholarships with no restriction. Remember, any surplus would be taxable income in case that happens.</p>