Hey guys!
Im currently a high school senior and I’m trying to understand the concept of financial aid for college. I really tried to do research but everything seems so confusing.
For state grants and scholarships that I might get later on when i apply this year, will they get sent to my high school or my intended university? Also, do state grants get applied to tuition FIRST, or the scholarships? Because I heard if i have excess pell grant money, the university will refund me the cash? Do i keep that and spend it on whatever?
Please help clear my confusion. Thanks!
Where do you reside? Each state and university has different requirements and rules.
In order to get a PELL grant, you will be filling out a FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid- https://fafsa.ed.gov). That application will indicate whether you qualify for a federal grant (PELL) or any loans. You need your parents tax forms to fill that out.
Information from the FAFSA will be sent to the colleges and universities where you have applied and have been accepted. They work out your financial aid package to present to you in the Spring. You need to fill everything out that they request.
Applications are completed for the upcoming year. Does your HS have a financial aid night? Go to that, with your parents! It is really important that you attend. Your guidance counselor will also have a lot of information for you. Use it.
The usual answer - it depends. The order of scholarship/grant application is determined by the school and state law. Any state grants will go directly to your college. If your college scholarship is need based then the grant will reduce that need so your scholarship goes down. If the scholarship is merit based then probably not, but you need to check with the school. Pell Grant is a different animal. Pell is an Entitlement - if you are authorized it you get it no matter what. Any excess will be paid to you . It would go do other college costs like board (food) or textbooks.
Thanks so much for your answer guys. It truly helps me out. And @“aunt bea” I reside in Washington State, but whenever i try to look up which applies first or how it works, nothing really states it.
Can you guys help me with this scenario please? Its been driving me insane.
Lets say for Pell grant, i get roughly $5,000 for the first year. And then all my renewable scholarships is roughly about 5,000 each year for 4 years. And i get all these " one time " scholarships for freshman year totaling about $10,000.
My tuition at UWS is only roughly $13,000. Clearly there is excess. So would i get all the one time excess scholarships refunded and turned into cash to me? Or i can only have them in my bank account as a seperate debit card to buy food laptop and school related supplies?
Will you have room and board costs too?
If you are receiving $10K per year and your costs are $13K per year, you owe $3k per year.
Or, are you saying that your total costs for four years is $13K? Do you have room and board included in those costs?
Don’t assume that your financial aid amounts from your college will remain the same each year (unless, the university guarantees it). It can change.
Some colleges don’t stack aid. They reduce the amount of their grants by the amount of each outside scholarship. So if you get an outside grant of $1500, the amount of the scholarships you get from the school could be reduced by $1500.
What’s your FAFSA EFC? It would have to be near $0 for you to get a $5k Pell grant. If you don’t know your EFC, run the FAFSA4caster to get an estimate. You’ll be able to borrow ~$5500/year if you file the FAFSA, but the chances of accumulating $10k in outside grants is very small.
Can your parents contribute? If so, find out how much. Run the Net Price Calculator (on the school website) with them to get an estimate of what it would cost and find out if it’s affordable.
Hypothetical situations will just confuse everyone. Just to clarify: you haven’t applied to this school yet, and right now you have no outside scholarships, no grants from the school, and you don’t know for sure that you’re Pell eligible either, right? Is this a college you can commute to from home? If you were to get $10k in outside scholarships, the [WSU website](www.washington.edu/huskypromise) says your grants could be reduced. They won’t give you grants that exceed your need (as calculated by them).
I think most schools will apply the scholarships in the order most helpful way to the student. If a scholarship can ONLY be used for tuition, the school will apply that first, then will apply their own funds (awarded scholarships), then will start applying others, leaving whatever can be refunded to the student to the end (pell grants,state grants or scholarships that can be used for anything, loans).
DD’s school makes one big mess out of the entire bill. Instead of just adding up tuition, fees, r&B (if applicable), it takes pieces of this grant and apply it to meals, and then take another piece and apply it to tuition. The school does not give any overages of its own money but want the overage to be Pell grants and Bright Futures and state grants and loans. Those funds are actual dollars coming into the school, so sending them back out is easier than the school coming up with its own money.
OP, you do need to know the order if you have several outside scholarships. If they are going to apply those first and then apply their own money but not rebate anything to you, you might be able to spread those outside freshman scholarships over several years. Some schools apply them as they are received (all in the fall), some split fall and spring (and your Pell grants and federal loans will be split), but the organization that awarded you the $1000 or $500 might be willing to issue the check in sophomore year.
@Applepie24 did you mean WSU? There is no UWS here that I know of though there is certainly UW, UW Bothell and UW Tacoma.
At any rate it is hypothetical at this point. If you are basing your award on what a net price calculator shows you, it will be assuming you are living on campus unless you selected otherwise. Colleges will not give you more than the total amount due, as they calculate that amount which includes Tuition, Fees, Room & Board. Those are direct costs. Books, travel, etc are discretionary and may be treated differently as they are indirect. UW tuition and fees for 2016 are 10,753 and I think slated to either go down or be flat for 2017 after the state wide tuition and GET freeze/adjustments that go through then. $825 for books/supplies and the rest is discretionary, so yes, your 13K is about right. WSU is a bit less so I am thinking you meant UW.
It sounds like you are thinking you will get the following
5K a year in Pell
5K a year in Grants
10K year one only in one time scholarships for your freshman year only.
So 20K in theory year 1, 10k each year there after.
If that were the case (and say it is UW that you meant) and you are living at home, and accepted to the UW, then I believe that your Pell and Grants would be removed for anything that was in excess of the tuition and book amounts needed. So basically you’d get 3k of those amounts and I suspect it would be all scholarship before Pell but you’d need to consult with the UW or whatever school you are looking at after acceptance and financial award. Year one would be covered in full. Years 2-4 though, you will fall a bit short, however you will be allowed loans to make the difference if that first 10k is really pell and other grants/scholarships and not loans.
I agree that if you are able to spread out those 1 time scholarships (do you have them already or just anticipate them?) over the course of the 4 years somehow, versus all year one, it will work out better for you.
The Pell Grant is an entitlement grant. If the student is eligible for it…they receive it. PERIOD. The school cannot take,the Pell away. The school CAN reduce its own grant aid.
If a student gets a full ride scholarship…total cost filled…but is entitled to the $5800 Pell…they also get that Pell.
It’s the on,y time aid can exceed the cost of attendance.
In some states the state merit awards (Hope, Bright Futures) are also ‘rebatable’ to the student if the student has enough aid to cover billed costs.
What we don’t know is what the $5000 ‘grant’ the student is thinking of, if it is a school merit scholarship or a need based grant. Merit he might get to keep (applied first) but if it is need based, that will probably be adjusted for the outside scholarships.
@twoinanddone Washington does not have state scholarships like Hope, etc. Nothing rebatable that I’ve ever heard of. We have school specific ones, sometimes major or college specific ones, some for the honors colleges and of course high stats merit ones but in general quite limited at best. UW in particular does not give much in state scholarship wise if anything, only 900 merit awards. There is a merit award based on need for 4K that the OP may be assuming they will qualify for but it is limited in numbers.
Total scholarships given including FA is only 3000 for all undergraduates…or 10%
Based on Pell eligibility I would assume the additional 5k is grant or FA based scholarship funds, not merit. As for whether it’s rebatable OP would need to discuss that directly with the UW FA office.
Unless that 5k is not from the school and is a different source it’s a very risky assumption in my opinion.
@applepie143, here is a link to some information that might help:
https://www.washington.edu/huskypromise/
I commend the student for realizing there are different ways to apply the various forms of aid and that it can make a difference. I never thought about it until I saw them moving it around on my daughter’s account, and when I started looking into the tax credits.
@twoinanddone I completely agree! And @thumper1 that is great info for the OP on Pell. However, if the school grant/scholarship is really 5k annually and there is 10k in outside scholarships for year one only, it still seems likely that the school would reduce that 5k, if granted at all, to zero for year one as outside scholarships will usually reduce other aid offered. OP would still be over by about 2k and based on your Pell info, revive that 2k back year one.
That would make me nervous about the renewability of that 5k if it doesn’t happen year 1 though and then years 2-4 would be more problematic as it may only be Pell that renews which would mean potential loans.
To the OP. Your state grants and scholarships for COLLEGE will not get sent to your HS.
Your state grant and the Pell (if you are eligible) will be sent directly to your college. These will be used to cover billable costs from the college (tuition, fees, room, board). If you commute…the grant and Pell,would be used to fund tuition and fees.
If you receive additional outside scholarships, these will be sent to either the college or you. You are required to let the college know about ALL outside scholarships you receive. These outside scholarships can reduce your college awarded need based aid. Schools cannot offer you need based aid in excess of the cost of attendance.
In another thread OP says she’s interested in the Univ. of Wash-Seattle. She has a 3.72 UW GPA and 1080 (new) SAT score. I think her initial post was a hypothetical situation. She needs to run their net price calculator to get an estimate of what the school might cost her family. I don’t know how accurate it will be, though, because they own a business.
@eandesmom might the OP be referring to University of Washington-Seattle?