Should D2 Apply for Competitive Scholarships?

I was reading the FAQs for competitive scholarships on the UA site, and found this response regarding stackable scholarships:

Whether or not scholarships are “stackable” is typically determined by the value of the scholarships. A good rule of thumb to remember is that a student would not be awarded two or more scholarships that are both valued at the rate of tuition or greater.

D2 was awarded the Presidential. If I understand this correctly, she could still be awarded competitive scholarships that are lower than full tuition, presumably as long as the total doesn’t exceed her costs. Is this correct? Or am I mis-reading and no scholarships beyond full-tuition will stack?

All I can say is that my son started freshman year with full tuition, the $2500 engineering stipend, and about $7500 in outside awards and all stacked with no issues and we used them to pay the dorm and meal plan expenses freshman year, so you can stack additional awards with the full tuition presidential.

You might want to contact the scholarship office to see if there are official limits to additional awards.

Many kids have stacked scholarships on top of full tuition.

My son has multiple stacking scholarships including a dept scholarship equivalent to tuition. They all stack on the presidential. I think only admissions scholarships don’t stack.

For clarification purposes, can someone please advise as to the tax reporting requirements for scholarships. My understanding is that full tuition scholarships are not considered taxable income, but anything above and beyond (i.e. additional scholarships to include the $2500 College of Engineering scholarship) will be considered taxable income.

Yes. Everything above tuition and QEE is taxable at the parents’ unearned income rate.

I’d rather pay the tax on freight than the cost of the freight itself!

^ I’m not sure I agree with post #5, above. Scholarships are usually classified as the student’s income (and taxed as such), not the parent’s.

@aeromom They are the student’s income but they are taxed at the kiddie tax rate which is the parents’ unearned income rate. We’ve paid it for the last 2 yrs, so I do know what I am talking about. https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i8615.pdf (the kiddie tax form)

Unearned Income
For Form 8615, “unearned income” includes all taxable income other than earned income as defined later. Unearned income includes taxable interest, ordinary dividends, capital gains (including capital gain distributions), rents, royalties, etc. It also includes taxable social security benefits, pension and annuity income, **taxable scholarship and fellowship grants not reported on Form W-2,/b

…c. Was a full-time student at least age 19 and under age 24 at the end of 2016 and did not have earned income that was more than half of the child’s support. (my note: 18 yr olds are included in anothernportion, I just didn’t copy it here.)

^ my student did not meet the definitions/criteria on that form 8615, so I guess we have a different situation to you, sorry.