My daughter is a senior in high school and is planning to attend SUNY Binghamton. Based on 2019 AGI, we would not qualify for the Excelsior Scholarship which has a cutoff of $125K AGI. However, in 2020 our AGI is below that threshold. My daughter is also planning on deferring a year before starting college to attend an organized gap year program. I plan on calling the school to find out if she would be eligible for the Excelsior Scholarship for her first year of college (starting in the Fall of 2022) given that we would qualify based on 2020 AGI. Just wanted to see if others have been in this situation and how it should work.
My daughter also got a private $2K/yr scholarship. I understand that the Excelsior Scholarship would typically be reduced by other scholarships. Given all the requirements for the Excelsior Scholarship, such as restricting where you can live and work after college, I am trying to understand if it is worth it. My gut is yes, but thought others here may have an opinion.
Thanks for any input
To followup on what I was told on the phone - If my daughter takes a gap year, she will apply for the Excelsior scholarship next summer and that will be based on 2020 AGI. That should make her eligible (hopefully that is the federal AGI because if they used the AGI on my NYS return, I am over the threshold). As for her $2K outside scholarship, they seemed to be willing to work with us on it. If the scholarship does not have to be used for tuition, then they will apply it elsewhere. As it turns out, her scholarship cannot be used for room and board, but can be used for mandatory fees. The Excelsior scholarship cannot be used for those mandatory fees. So, we may be good in using the $2K outside scholarship for mandatory fees and get the Excelsior scholarship for tuition.
The Excelsior is a last payer. Pell doesn’t have to be used for tuition either, but the state still reduces the amount of the Excelsior grant by the amount of the Pell, so the $2k scholarship may be subtracted from the Excelsior.
I think the Excelsior can be worth it, but it can be limiting. Students can only take courses that count toward their major so there’s really no such thing as an undeclared for Excelsior recipients. One of my kiddos would like to take a cs course or two but can only do that if we’re prepared to pay out-of-pocket for the rest of her degree. She could possibly make up the credits over the summer if we dug up the money to pay out-of-pocket, but Excelsior funding is limited because of Covid so we don’t want to risk it right now. I assume if/when she loses it we won’t get it back.
Excelsior recipients have to complete 30 credits per year (unless they have accommodations), which isn’t terrible unless their advisor makes a mistake. Academic advisors don’t understand financial aid, so it’s really important that the student understands which courses count. One of my kiddos was placed into a remedial course by mistake their first semester. She didn’t want to take it but her advisor (who was new) thought it was required for all freshmen and he told her she had to. It turned out that it wasn’t, and her placement test scores actually made her ineligible, so she dropped it. But since she didn’t complete all the credits she was registered for that semester we lost the grant. Our choices were to pay several hundred dollars for a summer course to make up the credits or appeal. We appealed and paid out-of-pocket for the next year while the appeal processed. We were fortunate because it was pre-covid. If we had to appeal now I think we’d lose because the state is pretty clear that they may not have the finances to give grants to everyone.
I think the Excelsior is a good program, but you have to be really clear about the rules.
Thanks for the reply. So, I know we will be eligible her first year of college (using AGI from 2020). We are close and there’s a chance we may not be eligible again. If I knew in advance that were the case (ie., it depends on my wife getting a good paying job), would we be able to get the scholarship the first year and then just not even try to meet the program eligibility? I guess I’m asking if once you are awarded the scholarship for a given year, do you keep that year no matter happens during that year?
Of course, if my wife does not get a good paying job, then I will need to worry about keeping the scholarship.
I don’t think you lose it mid-year due to income. I think aid is based on prior prior (so for 2021-2022 they use 2019 income). I’ve heard of people reporting unexpected losses of income (job loss, illness, etc), but not increases.
If your child doesn’t complete a course they have until the end of the academic year to make up the credits. I think the year is July 1st to June 30th. I don’t know what the current rules say about aid if that happens. You wouldn’t technically be in violation of the rules until the end of the summer session so I don’t think the grant should be suspended until the credits are made up, but the schools have to certify the student is eligible and ours wouldn’t. We had to pay out-of-pocket.
So here’s an update on our situation and another question. My daughter did do the gap and is planning to start a SUNY school this fall (2022). In her financial aid package, it does have a line for “estimated excelsior scholarship” of around $6K. Seems like a good sign. Hopefully I will apply this summer and get it for the 2022-23 year (that was based on 2020 AGI). I’ve done my taxes for 2021 and know we won’t qualify for her second year, the 2023-24 year (based on 2021 AGI), because of the income requirement.
Moving forward, we could qualify her third year, 2024-25 (based on 2022 AGI), if I change my 401K contributions from Roth 401K to traditional 401K. I emailed the program about not being eligible for a year because of income and then being eligible in a subsequent year. They said “she would not lose her Scholarship going forward as long as she continues to meet the eligibility requirements and your AGI is once again within the income limits.” So, now I’m trying to figure out if it is worth it to change my 401K contributions from Roth 401K to traditional 401K in order to get under the income limit to qualify for year 3. I realize I may do it and she may fail to qualify for another reason, she may become ineligible for another reason such as the credit requirement or the program may just run out of money. Anyone have any thoughts on all that?