Too Much Money from Scholarships

Paying for College
21

<p>Suburbian, </p>

<p>It is not my intention to make you out as someone who is trying to steal undeserved monies, please accept my apology. </p>

<p>Apparently, you were not sure how to handle the situation which is why you raised the question. All anyone on these boards are trying to do is provide information. what you do with the information is enitely up to you. </p>

<p>As you know your own moral compass, remember that you are not the only person who may have this type of situation. It is easier to give out all of the information (tax implications, consequences for falsifying information etc) and let the reader(s) take what they need. </p>

<p>Many people do not realize that the scholarship monies are taxable (so there really is no such thing as a free lunch). My daughter got a very generous scholarship which is how I learned about the tax implications, and the fact that when we renewed our financial aid, that we had to send all of the information to the school. Just sharing hte experience because we have been there done that.</p>

<p>Yes, there are some people that look for ways to straight out cheat the system but it always seem to be the ones who make the innocent mistakes because they did not know who end up suffering. I am of the mind set of if you think the cost of education is expensive, try the cost of ignorance. In the end it is always better to cover your situation from every angle. Do people make mistakes? All of the time. Some mistakes get a wink, while others get whacked. </p>

<p>Smart people learn from their mistakes, wise people learn from the mistakes of others. Just want you to be a wise person.</p>

22

<p>Local scholarship donors can be asked to award funds in future years instead of the freshman year. S attends Harvard on combo Outside Awards, Harvard scholarship, and family contributions. His Outside Awards (some local, some national) were more than first year "self help" amount ( which is $3500 or so). Local scholarship donors were happy to send the money in a later year (or years). In this way, S's self help amount was reduced for all 4 years, instead of the money being applied only to first year (and thus reducing self help and then Harvard awards).
"Extra" scholarship dollars never would have reduced family contribution in his case (b/c excess scholarship funds apply first to work study, then to Harvard awards, then to family contribution), so by asking scholarship donors to send money in future years, S gets more non-family dollars actually applied to overall 4 year education costs.</p>