Struggling to Find Scholarships

Paying for College
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http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/admissions-hindsight-lessons-learned/1724087-my-college-admissions-journey-p1.html

Here is one of your first threads. Your college application list is on there. If you happen to get accepted at USC or Northwestern, it is possible that your parents will only have to pay their EFC of $35,000 plus your student contribution. Those are the only two schools on your list that meet full need.

At all of the others, the minimum you will be paying is that $35,000 EFC…except for the schools on the list that don’t cost that much to begin with. The SUNY schools will most definitely be much less costly…and it’s possible you will get merit aid at more than one which will also soften the financial blow.

And you have already been accepted and received some aid at a couple of OOS public universities. Are any of them affordable?

How much will your parents pay? If their EFC per FAFSA is $35,000, it is very unlikely you will find outside scholarships to cover even half of that EFC…and anyway…if you did, your EFC would go up, because your need would go down.

It does look like you have affordable options on your application list. That is a good thing.

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Even my affordable options are several thousand dollars per year. Which is why I am trying to bring them down. I’ll do some more research

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@CaliCash, how much do you need to bridge the gap between the COA and what your parents can pay?

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You can look at Fastweb and also talk to your GC about what’s available locally. You can also look on the websites of your college, but most of such scholarships you are automatically considered for when you apply, or they have separate apps that may have already been due. But run through what’s available.

My one son had near perfect SATs and we applied for a ton of awards. He only got one small outside scholarship for all of that time and trouble. Not to turn my nose up at it, but it came down to less than minimum wage for the time we put in for the awards. I am fairly aware of what’s out there and really shook the bushes. It was just an award for one year too. My son right now is an excellent student with high test scores, and has only gotten one small outside award and though up for another, he will likely get only one of the smaller awards from that source too, given who I’ve seen get the award from earlier years. I am grateful and proud of him for getting consideration for these scholarship, and happy he has the one in hand, but we are talking about a one time application of about $2500, not enough to make a difference between school A and school B.

Be aware that any financial aid that you get will be adjusted each year for the circumstances. I believe you have a sibling in college with you for the next year anyways. If he is no longer a full time student, then your FAFSA EFC attributable to your parents will double. Parental expected contribution from PROFILE schools will also increase. Also, be aware that your financial aid awards can be reduced by outside and in house awards. As a general rule, you have to pay your EFC before getting penny one of most aid including subsidized loans and workstudy. However, most schools will replace the Direct Loans and workstudy awards first with scholarships, so you can take out the loans on an unsub basis and find a non Federal WS job to replace if that happens.

Finding a job is a good idea. If you have weekends and some afternoon and early evenings free, starting now is not a bad idea and working throughout the summer. All of my kids worked summers and had a nice nest egg of savings for college. It gave them more options, provided an emergency cache of funds for them, and gave them their own money that they could spend as they pleased. After first semester of freshman year, they all found some work on campus to take care of discretionary costs as well.

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@austinmshauri I’m gonna try to get a job. So that will hopefully help me bring in about $2,000 in the summer. So I’m trying to find a way to bring down the cost of tuition at each school my $3,000 total per year. So I guess a $5000 reduction yearly. In addition to loans that I wanna take out.

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@@calicash

Can you clarify? ^^This isn’t too clear.

How much will your parents PAY each year?

You can borrow $5500.

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Be aware that some schools will include the Direct Loans as well as possibly other loans IN your financial aid package so that you can’t borrow to go towards your expected contribution. They may also put work study in there so that you have less time to find a job to put money towards your expected contribution with work study proceeds used towards your need, not what you are expected to pay.

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@mom2collegekids Sorry for the confusion.

I wanna try to reduce the tuition my parents pay for my cheapest school by about $5,000. And as the cost of the college goes up, the amount of scholarship money (or work money) I need with go up.

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@CaliCash, are any of your schools comparable? I’ve read that sometimes families can get an extra thousand or two by telling School A that School B gave them $x, but you’d happily attend School B if they could give you $y. But the schools have to be on the same tier (it won’t work with a pricey private and a state school) and you probably can’t get more than a couple thousand. But it sounds like even that would help.

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On another thread, you said your parent EFC is $35,000 for,the upcoming school year. Can your parents pay the cost of attendance minus any merit aid you receive? If that is $35,000 or less, they will be expected to pay it all.

How much in loans do you hope to take out per year? If you need lots of loans for,these forst two years, you will need even more loans for,the last two years when your sibling is no longer in college.

Your best bet is those schools where the merit aid brings your net cost in range that it’s affordable for your family.

ETA…at this point it’s all conjecture. You haven’t received all of your admission decisions and financial aid awards. Once all of the offers are in, you will,have a better picture of affordability…or not.

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[QUOTE=""]
@mom2collegekids Sorry for the confusion.

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I wanna try to reduce the tuition my parents pay for my cheapest school by about $5,000. And as the cost of the college goes up, the amount of scholarship money (or work money) I need with go up.
<<

How much is your cheapest school? $20k? Will your parents pay $15k per year?

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If your EFC is $35K, you won’t get any financial aid, until that is paid unless the COA of that school is less (in which case that COA would be the new minimum you have to pay) or if you get enough scholarships to cover your and need go into your EFC. That’ s the way it usually works.

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Been there, done that. We were so excited when my D won several outside scholarships besides the big one from college. The nice thing was the college replaced all loan/workstudy with a grant before the external scholarship notices. The bad thing is the college reduced the grant by the exact amount of all external scholarships combined. So basically we gain nothing with all those applications.

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@CaliCash‌ Try to Shortlist your Schools to 2-3 then ask those 2-3 Schools if they can add more $$ to the offered scholarships, even send them offers from other schools which you have in hand, tell them you will definitely attend them if they add more to the existing Scholarship. even if you get $1K/yr more then its good for 4 yrs.
I dont think any School can offer you anything for Need Based since your EFC of $35k is your Parents Responsibility and they normally stick to those numbers after giving you Merit $$ + Stafford + Work Study…

Bama is a Great School and the Faculty, Students and people in the Town are even Greater… Just go and Visit and you will Fall in Love with the Campus and Southern Hospitality…

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@cptofthehouse, @billcsho, and others- so what I am hearing is that it may not even be worth looking for outside $$? I am thinking that (a year from now, in our case) a package of {Need-based grant + Merit Scholarship + Work-study + Loan} may have loans + work-study supplanted by outside money, which amounts to $8-9K ($5,500 + $2,500 or $3,500) the first year, and up from there.

What I am hearing you say is that it may not be worth the effort. If it is worth the effort, what process would you suggest? Where is the low-hanging fruit? Are there a handful of $250 - $1000 per year places that are worth the effort? Are Coca-Cola, Google, Microsoft worth chasing?

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It MAY not be worth while. It MAY be worth while. It all depends upon what schools accept you, what they offer, and what else is on the table. There are a matrix of possibilities. It’s ALWAYS better to have more options than less, because, it gives you flexibility, and the chances are better with more options that you get a better deal.

My college, for example, did at one time allow stacking of scholarships with college aid for the first year only. I believe University of Alabama allows stacking as well. There is no stacking of scholarships allowed with federal aid and some state aid and some school aid because they are set up to not allow it Some school will out and out say that for every dollar of outside grants a student gets it comes right off of any financial aid grant they have awarded. Some schools are so short of financial aid money, cannot meet need, so anytime, anyone gets any extra money from any place the need is reduced and it comes right off the NEED based grant so that the money could go to someone else with need, possibly not getting it met.

In most schools you get financial aid just because you have NEED, not because you are desired any more than any other student or are better than any one else. It’s purely needs, so when you get some funds to decrease that need, there is no reason for you to get that financial aid. You have to understand the difference between NEED and merit.

Now if you get a huge scholarship, say one of the top gun ones that are full ride for four years, it’s very simple to see that they are very much worth getting even if it means that you lose your financial aid. You truly don’t expect to keep financial aid when you get an out side award that pays for its. That aid that the school was offering you was on the condition that you did NEED the money. Need gone, money gone.

So USUALLY, the EFC is the amount you have to pay. There is leeway in that most all of the time, the school is NOT going to give you a package where all you have to pay is the EFC. Oh, no. And some schools MIGHT apply the awards to left over need, then to subsidized loans, then work study, so that you can take out the same loans on an unsub basis, find your own job and really lose little or nothing.

But it really, really depends upon the school and what you get. It’s a game of Chance in some respects.

The best thing you can do is to make sure you have some options that you KNOW you will be able to afford that will accept you and then hope some of your lottery tickets work out. Sometimes they do. You just don’t know. It’s nice to have a scholarship i hand and shop around as to which college will let you make the best use of it, and find out what the bottom line price is at each school when all of your chips are in.

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@mom2collegekids My mom will just send me to the cheapest option. She haven’t given me a number. But my dad allowed me to rank my schools in order of preference. And he will negotiate on my behalf

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Cali…who will yoir dad negotiate with? Your mom? Who?

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<<<
@cptofthehouse, @billcsho, and others- so what I am hearing is that it may not even be worth looking for outside $$? I am thinking that (a year from now, in our case) a package of {Need-based grant + Merit Scholarship + Work-study + Loan} may have loans + work-study supplanted by outside money, which amounts to $8-9K ($5,500 + $2,500 or $3,500) the first year, and up from there.


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@ItsJustSchool‌

Can you tell us what schools you’re considering?

Many schools that give merit scholarships don’t give “need based grants” unless the student qualifies for Pell. Yes, there are schools that might give both, but in many cases, even when there is still “unmet need” the student is left with gaps.

For instance…

$45k = COA of an OOS public or lower cost private

$15k = EFC

$30k = need

$15k = annual merit scholarship
$5,500 = student loan

$1,500 = work study

$21k = aid of a mix of merit and self-help

$30k = need

$21k = aid

$9k = gap (unmet need) …So, in this case, you’ll pay a lot more than EFC.

^^^ So in the above case, because there is a gap, it would “pay” to get add’l merit.

However, be aware that there are some schools that will reduce their own merit scholarships if the total merit exceeds a certain amount. I’ve seen some privates do this…they’ll say that merit cannot exceed tuition. They will reduce their own merit (and give to another student), if one student comes in with “too much”

$60k = COA of a private that promises to meet need and gives some very competitive merit.

$20k = EFC

$40k = need

$20k = annual merit scholarship
$13k = grant
$5,500 = student loan

$1,500 = work study

$21k = aid of a mix of merit and self-help…need met.
You owe your EFC.

If you win outside merit, the school will either reduce loans/WS or reduce grants (depending on policy)

If you’re trying to reduce your EFC then…

$45k = COA of an OOS public or lower cost private

$25k = EFC

$20k = need

$27k = annual merit scholarship
$5,500 = student loan

$1,500 = work study

$34k = aid of a mix of merit and self-help

$45k = COA

$34k = aid

$11k is what you pay. If you can further reduce with outside merit, and the school won’t reduce merit, then you could end up with a really low net cost.

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@thumper1 He will negotiate with mama dukes lol