My employer provides a fixed amount of tuition assistance for children of employees. We are starting to receive FinAid offers and this shows up as “outside scholarship” or “employer aid” on some of the award letters - presumably reducing institutional aid. I would have thought that this benefit would be part of my EFC. One school does not mention it in the aid letter at all. How do most places treat this?
Most will treat it as an outside scholarship. It should have no effect on merit but will on need based aid (you have the money so you have less need). My own children got/have tuition exchange. The schools kept all state/fed aid so the value never exceeded the cost of full tuition.
I think the only way you’re going to see a reduction in EFC is if your student qualifies for huge merit and then can stack this on top. Even then, schools may have policies stating that some merit may have an honorary dollar amount if the student has limited need.
If you decide on the school that doesn’t mention it, please call and ask about it before accepting. That school may not know about the employer aid, and you don’t want any surprises once a check appears from your employer and the school says, “Oops, now we need to adjust.” Every year, we have to remind d’s college that she has an outside scholarship coming, and every year she gets a new aid package once that reminder is received.