I have a question about how Syracuse handles both merit and grant money. If based on the FAFSA, they would determine that they would give you, let’s say, $20,000 in grant money each year (based on EFC) but then they decide to give you $10,000/year in merit scholarships, are those added together so you get a total of $30,000/year or do they modify the grant money so that you only now get $10,000 a year in grant and the $10,000 in merit? If the grant money is lowered, then the scholarship becomes a lot less meaningful.
It would be $30,000. They will combine both.
Thank you for the reply. I used the net price calculator link from the Syracuse website to try to figure out our cost. Is that pretty reliable? That did not take into account any merit scholarship so I’m thinking that would be about the maximum we would pay and any additional merit scholarships would be subtracted from that amount shown in the net price calculator. Is that a valid assumption?
@dixie200 They will not combine both, they will reduce the grant aid that was indicated in the NPC by the amount of the scholarship. I’m a current sophomore and was in the same situation, my total cost was exactly what the NPC said it would be, despite receiving a 20k/year scholarship.
That’s disappointing. So, it sounds like in reality there won’t be any true reward for getting a merit scholarship at all unless the merit scholarship is more than what they financially think you should be paying. We would be better off being more financially needy than having our son work extra hard to get incredible grades in high school which he has done for the past 4 years since it seems like they are more generous with grant money than scholarship money.