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Seems wrong to me. The student shouldn’t be making money like this. And isn’t Pell funded by taxpayers, since it’s a federal program for low-income students? That student also shouldn’t have accepted community-based scholarships, since there is no need as they live at home. I wonder if the community groups that funded those scholarships would be happy if they knew the student was pocketing the money?</p>
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<p>This is SO WRONG on SO MANY LEVELS.</p>
<p>Merit aid and need based aid are both charity. It is other people giving you money to use to pay your child’s education. How it is awarded is irrelevant. You are getting a gift plain and simple.</p>
<p>To think there are people out there that want to double dip on that gift amazes me. that is pure greed.</p>
<p>Its a real simple concept - if your college cost is $30,000 - and your EFC is $10,000 - (lets assume its a college that meets full need) - you may end up with $20,000 need based aid. But lets say the school gives you (YES - GIVES YOU - ie charity) $8,000 merit aid. Your EFC does not change (but because you now have $8,000 more to pay for college your NEED has been reduced). So YOU are still expected to pay $10,000 thus your need based aid becomes $12,000. There is no logical reason why merit aid should reduce your EFC. I hope everyone remembers that parents and their student have the PRIMARY responsonsibility for paying for the cost of educating their child. If merit aid reduced your EFC, you would be receiving more need based aid than you qualify for. In the example above, even though you can pay $10,000 - for those who want to doubledip and have merit aid reduce EFC, you would end up paying only $2,000. This is thankfully not how the system works. Why should YOU pocket the other $8,000? Your need hasn’t changed. Please do not lose sight of the definition of need based aid</p>
<p>Anyone who believes they should be able to double dip on aid is greedy and thinking illogically</p>
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<p>Cool, thanks for the posting tips above.</p>
<p>Colleges advertise the merit awards prominently on their websites precisely to attract applicants; consumer advertising can be deceptive by omission, just ask the Federal Trade Commission (well, at least in Democratic administrations).</p>
<p>There are examples of colleges being very clear on their policy: Lafayette is to be commended for explicitly providing an example detailing merit/need interplay.</p>
<p>Scripps specifically states merit and need “may be combined”. I think the natural read of that is that EFC reduces and it plays out that way at least in Rocket’s case (and I hope as general policy although that remains in question from other posts here).</p>
<p>Nightchef, I take it your view is “assume nothing” and perhaps one is “entitled to nothing”. But colleges are sophisticated managers of their scholarships/enrollment management and they know exactly what they are and are not actually providing with their merit/need scholarship mixes. Families do not undertand industry customs so cannot devine the nuances. </p>
<p>I think it is a fair read for families to believe a merit scholarship, unless expressly qualified, means they pay less out of pocket than their base aid case. I like to think I am a reasonable college consumer and it shocks the heck out of me; Rocket is to be highly commended for her college search due diligence and her posts above show it shocked her.</p>
<p>Colleges must confront surprised reactions from merit award families every year, so the colleges know their disclosure is inadequate. The fact that none of us can find clear answers on many college websites even in the heat of this thread demonstrates the disclosure failure.</p>
<p>BTW, I do believe merit combined with aid from all sources should cap at COA, seems wrong that windfalls could be generated beyond COA, but that situation should not distract from the fundamental merit + need topic of this thread.</p>
<p>Cluelessdad, colleges confront surprised reactions from lots of families every year. A neighbor of mine called a professor to complain that her daughter had two finals on the same day in December and she was shocked that the professor wouldn’t change the date. (He pointed out helpfully that since one was in the morning and the other was in the afternoon, it’s not like the college expected the D to transcend the time/space continuum and be in two places at once.) Parent is shocked, shocked.</p>
<p>The college doesn’t make policy to appease parents. There are parents who don’t understand what EFC is; there are parents who resent the suggestion that they fund college out of non-current income (either past, in the form of spending down their savings, or future, in the form of loans.) There are parents who are furious at the suggestion that money is fungible (i.e. if you weren’t leasing a BMW you’d have X income available every month to pay tuition).</p>
<p>Is this the college’s fault? If it costs 50K a year to attend college X, and based on your personal financial situation and the assistance the college is able to offer you, you determine that you can’t afford that college there’s a simple solution- don’t attend. But why is it the college’s fault that you don’t like the methodology used to spread scarce resources around to benefit the maximum number of families??? And to assist the college in meeting its strategic objectives simultaneously?</p>
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<p>With respect, it is only double-dipping if a family takes money off the table and I have been clear all programs should cap combined awards at COA.</p>
<p>Colleges buy talenteed athletes with full-ride athletic scholarships all the time. Here, IN THE CASE OF MERIT AWARDS, colleges are seeking to buy top scholars. The key tst if whether those top scholars would apply to “merit award” college if they knew upfront the merit award was illusory to their EFC out of pocket. Maybe yes maybe no, but it sure as heck is material to their upfront decision to apply!</p>
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<p>Because the college is inducing applications and families shortlisting that college (and all the heartache of later having to drop an emotionally attached connection) without allowing the family to be an informed consumer upfront. Yes, the answer is don’t attend, but the colleges should allow the families to make the DON’T APPLY call upfront without the tease.</p>
<p>I think it confuses the issue to wrap in opinions of whether EFCs are fairly determined or not (either high or low). The point is many families don’t think they can swing their EFCs and will choose a less expensive college or target a higher ranked college instead if they know they are ultimately going to pay the same EFC.</p>
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<p>I’m going nuts with my quoting skills. :)</p>
<p>Well, parents can be surprised with good cause or they can be surprised because they are morons. I would put surprise at illusory merit awards in the good cause category.</p>
<p>I think where many folks have a problem is that for a family that is full pay because their EFC is more than 50k (they might not have completed the FA forms, but if they did their efc is greater than 50k) do get their EFC cut by merit aid. They are also not receiving charity (financial aid), not receiving interest free student loans while their child is in college, and their child does not have w/s opportunities (though they could get a non-work study job if so inclined). </p>
<p>Those that do qualify for FA and might receive FA grants (charity), subsidized student loans and w/s; but their EFC is not cut by merit aid, which you could view that the person with an EFC of over 50k and a merit aid award is getting at some schools.</p>
<p>I don’t know if other posters have brought this to light, because I have not read all the posts. It is just another way of viewing merit and financial aid.</p>
<p>I can’t believe the neighbor actually called the professor. My kids would kill me!!</p>
<p>^ Yes, NEmom, there is the aspect that full-pays do get an out-of-pocket reduction, but the reduction is illusory for need-based families.</p>
<p>Most scholarships are tied to need and say so. “Merit award” scholarships that are in fact tied to need should just say so instead of advertising themselves as a different breed of cat. End of debate (on disclosure, not suggesting thread topic should end).</p>
<p>cluelessdad, my son has 10 private school acceptances in hand. On every one of the apps, son did check that we were going to apply for FA, but my son received merit aid PRIOR to our completing the FAFSA and in most cases, prior to completing the Profile. These merit awards were NOT tied to need because my EFC could be more than 50k per year (school does not know what it is yet). I see this as discounting to lure us in to fill the seat, not merit tied to need. If our EFC is 10k, I think the school feels that we already got our discount, and now they’ll fill in with charity so we can pay the bill.</p>
<p>The rich guy with an EFC over 50k is getting his discount to enroll too. He does not have need, so the school hopes the lure will be enough to fill the seat. If another college offers a bigger discount and sticker price is equal, then they might go to the cheapest bidder. If they are so wealthy that 5k per year won’t matter, then the kiddo will just go where they like it best.</p>
<p>An update:</p>
<p>I called Smith FinAid and in the case of Smith, they do take the value of STRIDE merit awards into account BEFORE determining financial need, so these awards are of limited value (replace loans/work-study value with grants) for need-based applicants. It was explained to me that STRIDES are awarded by Admissions separately from the FinAid office.</p>
<p>I will be very curious to learn if there are any “true” merit awards out there; if so, this subset of “true” merit programs should be huge magnets for the aspiring need-based top scholars.</p>
<p>It does appear that it is at least a common practice for merit award programs to operate mainly as full-pay tuition discounting. I think colleges should be much more clear about this in how they describe their merit award programs so families can plan accordingly.</p>
<p>I don’t think it is wrong for colleges to design merit awards this way (or not offer merit awards at all); just that the program limitations should be made clear to interested families.</p>
<p>This is how most schools that I am familiar with handle merit aid. </p>
<p>I will say that I have spoken with 2 FA offices who have openly told me that FA packages will vary with them based on student stats as well as need. You could look at that as more “merit aid” too (though you cannot pick apart what your student would have gotten with an EFC of 10k and ACT score of 33 vs. 23).</p>
<p>cluelessdad, there are “true” merit programs out there. They come from colleges that generally do not meet 100% of need. </p>
<p>The problem with your argument is that you assume that, without the merit aid, the school meets 100% of need, so the parents need pay only the EFC. But what if the need-based aid is only 70% of the need? Merit aid can, and often is, used in addition to “need-based” aid to close that gap. It’s only in the case of 100% need schools, of which there are very few, that the need-based aid is reduced significantly.</p>
<p>Example: $50,000 school, EFC $10,000 (just for ease of numbers). Without a merit award, the student gets $20,000 in need-based aid; the student needs $40,000. The student also gets $10,000 in merit aid. For most schools, this will not reduce the need-based aid. The family, however, must still come up with $20,000.</p>
<p>Now, if the school were 100% need-based (most of which don’t have merit awards anyway), the student would receive $40,000 in need-based aid. Now the student also gets the $10,000 in merit aid. Yes, that will reduce the need-based aid to $30,000, and the family will still have the EFC of $10,000.</p>
<p>But, what that does from a college perspective, is that it frees up the additional $10,000 in need-based aid to give to another student. While schools may be 100% need-based, the pot is still finite, and perhaps the school would calculate the other student’s “need” as smaller than it really is if it didn’t have that extra $10K to give. Remember that schools that use an IM never tell you how they calculated your EFC.</p>
<p>Some merit scholarships can be quite lenient in their requirements; my d’s required only that she stay off academic probation.</p>
<p>You also mentioned a “bait & switch” - except the schools send out the financial aid packages before the student has to commit to the school. So the family knows exactly what its bottom line would be.</p>
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Right–that’s why you go to info sessions and ask questions. (Or contact the admissions office and ask questions.) We can’t hold the colleges responsible if we make unfounded assumptions about their business practices based on our wishes and hopes.</p>
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The problem with this is that there’s no such thing as a “base aid case.” It might make more sense to think of need-based FA as an equation rather than a fixed quantity: </p>
<p>FA <= COA - EFC. </p>
<p>You can think of merit aid as either reducing COA (when it comes from the college) or increasing EFC (when it comes from outside scholarships), but either way, the quantity on the right side is reduced, and therefore the quantity on the left side will be too.</p>
<p>Chedva, very educational, thank you. A complicated topic!</p>
<p>Yes, need-aid gaps are an important variable and great added value to merit awards for those colleges.</p>
<p>On the bait and switch, I think the key point is influencing where applications are made. Many here on CC may apply to xx colleges, but financially concerned families will often sharply limit the number of applications. If these families had a better understanding of EFC (and its variability) and merit progam limits (at 100% need schools) they may pick different target schools to submit applications. These families may never find out what a college that didn’t promote merit awards would have put on the table as an EFC to compare against the merit award college’s all-in offer.</p>
<p>^^I feel like if I had read this thread a year ago, I would have applied to “merit less” schools like Amherst,Brown and Bowdoin…</p>
<p>i guess you can’t regret the life you didn’t lead</p>
<p>nightchef, you take a strict view of “buyer beware” and families’ due diligence obligations to sniff out the merit aid nuances for themselves. I think that is a tall order for a one-time extraordinary and complex purchase. I take a full disclosure view for the colleges offering merit aid since the colleges have insider knowledge of their programs’ “traps for the unwary”. Why object to encouraging colleges to better describe the parameters of their merit programs?</p>
<p>I think you are wrong about EFC always being reduced: as I undertand it, in many merit programs, the EFC will remain unchanged regardless of the equation inputs. EDIT: I stand corrected, your equation does not provide for a EFC reduction.</p>
<p>I do want to be clear that it is fantastic that colleges can and do offer scholarships of any and all types, but families do need to know what these programs do and don’t mean at the time they are making application decisions.</p>
<p>Also, on further thought there is an important intangible benefit for need-based appllicants as well: the ability to state winning a scholarship marking them as a top student is quite valuable. Imagine how cool it is for a Smith student to have STRIDE Scholar on her resume, and what that says to potential employers/grad schools.</p>
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<p>Bingo Rocket, you are the perfect case study for better college disclosure at the time of application. I am quite confident nightchef will not challenge your level of college search due diligence.</p>
<p>Chin up Rocket, you will have awesome choices, whether specific to your circumstances or broader FA policies of the schools in question!</p>
<p>The statement below from the St. Olaf College site is interesting. I don’t know how typical their policy might be. It does not appear to address the question of whether need-based aid is ever reduced by the amount of the school’s own merit scholarships (if they grant them).</p>
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<p>[St</a>. Olaf College | Admissions | Financial Aid | merit scholarships](<a href=“http://www.stolaf.edu/admissions/financialaid/faq.html]St”>http://www.stolaf.edu/admissions/financialaid/faq.html)</p>