<p>Student received a four year full ride art merit scholarship to Washburn University three years ago. She also is entitled to Pell Grant money. Her merit scholarship includes tuition, books, supplies and room and board IF she lived on campus. Like many other students, after living in the dorm her first year- she choose to live off campus. Last year her tuition was paid by the merit scholarship and the financial aid office sent her pell grant money for her living expenses off campus. </p>
<p>This year the school has a new Director of Enrollment. Two weeks before school started the student received her financial aid notification from the school and the scholarship wasn't listed. The school used the pell grant money to pay the tuition and since she lived off campus, the scholarship money paid nothing. The director refers to the mandate that ANY federal money MUST be used for tuition before any other money is applied. Other state schools, do not do this- they use scholarships first then apply financial aid grants after. Even if it is in the director's ability to make the changes, there was NO notification prior to the letters being sent. If known, the student would have applied for on campus housing - and then the merit scholarship would have paid everything and no pell grant would have been needed. I am going to a meeting with the director tomorrow and I need to understand the student's rights.</p>
<p>Yep, non-need-based merit scholarships are independent of federal need-based aid.</p>
<p>And I doubt that there’s any federal mandate requiring that federal money be applied before institutional aid is awarded. How would that make any sense? If a school wants to cover a student’s expenses entirely out of institutional funds, good for the school . . . that saves the taxpayers some money!</p>
<p>There may be a school policy requiring that federal funds be applied before any institutional need-based aid is awarded, but that would have nothing to do with merit awards.</p>
<p>And if the new Dir. of Enrollment is saying that there’s now a new school policy that requires federal funds to be applied before merit scholarships . . . well, that’s all well and good. Just so he’s clear that your daughter’s contract is based on those policies that were in place when she accepted her offer of admission, so any such change in policy would have no impact whatsoever.</p>
<p>Last year, her sophomore year- the merit scholarship paid tuition and the school sent her the pell grant money to cover her living expenses. Seemed no problem. This year, new director who decided he didn’t like the school sending “refund checks”, so he used the pell money to pay tuition and now student has no money to live on. If she had been notified in a timely manner she surely would have requested to live back on campus to have her living costs covered. What makes no sense to me is- with her living off campus the merit scholarship fund SAVES the expense of covering her room and board- the government would be paying for her living expenses. Secondly, there is another student with the same merit scholarship, lives off campus and received NO Pell grant money. Because of this, the merit scholarship continues to pay his tuition. I feel that this is discriminating against student with financial need- and is at best punitive. Do you not agree?</p>
<p>a condition of the scholarship is that the student must live on campus in order to receive room and board. Has student considered moving back on campus?</p>
<p>First, thank you all for replying. Your information is invaluable.</p>
<p>“Ashley” understood that if she lived off campus the room and board would not be paid for by the merit scholarship. The scholarship information state this, but does not continue with “and if you live off campus, you will not get your tuition covered by the merit scholarship”. She lived off campus during her sophomore year and there was no problem. Everything stems from them NOT notifying her of the consequences of her being off campus this year- they informed her two weeks before school started that the pell grant money was used for tuition- and since she wasn’t on campus- the scholarship did not have to pay for room and board- leaving Ashley without funds to live this year. </p>
<p>The art chairman at Washburn didn’t help matters be emailing her such things as …“There are numerous individuals who receive no scholarship money, despite being good students with much potential for success. While its nice that a few folks get enough scholarship money to pay for their entire tuition, many more struggle to get enough too just pay for one class a semester. By (us) limiting the total amount available through scholarships to tuition and other university charges to your account, more scholarship money is available to help other deserving students. Look around you in any class. There are many students who get nothing and pay their entire way through schools on loans and part time jobs. The current dean of enrollment strongly holds the philosophy that students shouldn’t get paid for just attending school by receiving large refunds. He is working to revise awarding policies to ensure that scholarship money provided are used to meet student Washburn
accounts- not for large refunds”. </p>
<p>This is the person we are meeting with tomorrow morning. They make Ashley out to be a spoiled entitled student which is ridiculous. Washburn offers this full ride scholarship- Ashley was awarded it- and now they want to change the rules. I’m at my wits end with it.</p>
<p>The school can’t change its scholarship policies (for the worse) mid-way thru a student’s enrollment. they can change rules for the better, or change rules for future students.</p>
<p>it’s irrelevant that the school has some students who pay their own way. The fact remains that they recruited your D based on THAT offer. Your D could have chosen another school. </p>
<p>It looks like the new director has some ax to grind, but he/she’s wrong.</p>
<p>If the scholarship covers everything including room and board, then the student had no need left,and should just not receive the PELL money. The school must have a bed still available; the student should move back on campus and handle everything that way. I agree with Mom2CollegeKids; the student should have just stayed on campus, instead of needing tax payer support to live off campus!</p>
<p>The terms of the scholarship are very clear … full scholarship for tuition/fees, living expenses only if on-campus. The fuzzy part is this: Is Pell, which is an entitlement, considered as part of the SCHOLARSHIP? If it is not explicitly considered part of the SCHOLARSHIP, the school needs to be paying Pell over & able the scholarship amount. Perhaps in the small print somewhere in the aid office, or somewhere in the documents you received prior to matriculating, this was stated. If so, the student got a lucky break last year … one the new guy, who has reviewed the terms of the scholarship & determined that it was not being properly stewarded, is not willing (or required) to give. This is the key piece: Does it state anywhere that Pell is part of the full scholarship? I can tell you that I recall that being explicitly stated at the scholarship day for a full-ride scholarship my D competed for (as well as in written info given to scholarship recipients).</p>
<p>P.S. The school WILL get the Pell money either way, folks … it will just reduce the institutional portion of the full ride scholarship. Remember, Pell is an entitlement.</p>
<p>Pell is an entitlement, so even if a full ride is given, the student still gets Pell. That said, there would still be need, since Personal expenses, travel, etc, would still not be covered by the scholarship.</p>
<p>Personally, I think the new director just HATES having non-loan money refunded to students…and is making up rules.</p>
<p>Kelsmom…is there a federal rule that Pell must go to tuition FIRST?</p>
<p>No, but a school can determine that Pell will be part of the tuition scholarship. Giving free room & board is just a shell game played with revenue accounts, so that is why they will allow free r & b on campus.</p>
<p>When I say that Pell does not have to pay tuition first, I mean that if a school has a full tuition scholarship that allows Pell to be paid ON TOP OF the scholarship, they have every right to do that. However, many schools will roll the Pell into the scholarship.</p>
<p>And OP needs to consider this: If Pell was not paid over & above room & board when living on campus, it is most likely considered part of the full scholarship amount. In fact, I am betting on it. There would still have been at least estimated personal expenses in the COA that wouldn’t have been covered … so Pell would have been paid out and the scholarship would have been reduced to keep aid in line with EFC. In other words, a partial refund would have been given to offset the amount of the personal expenses. For this reason, I think Pell is part of the scholarship for this school.</p>
<p>Remember, a full scholarship would have to be reduced if the total of the full scholarship + the Pell exceeded the school’s COA. If the portion of the COA other than tuition/fees/room/board was less than the Pell amount, the scholarship would have to be reduced accordingly. Schools definitely consider Pell when packaging, because they have to. (Only if a scholarship covering full COA came from someone other than the school would the student be able to keep both the full amount of the scholarship AND the Pell).</p>
<p>Since the school did “pay out” for prior year(s), and this is a “new policy” then that suggests that the school is trying to change an existing scholarship (negatively) and that’s a no no.</p>
<p>It’s ok for them to do that for future awards, but since they didn’t do that last year, then it wasn’t a policy last year…and likely wasn’t in the scholarship offer.</p>
<p>Of course, there’s always the chance the reason there’s a new Enrollment Manager is due to the previous one not enforcing an existing policy. This could explain why money was granted last year after moving off campus, but not this one.</p>
<p>Could be, but I still think the family needs to look over the “fine print” of the original scholarship offer. </p>
<p>From the tone of that email, there just seems to be this “annoyance” that some kids got big scholarships…and this was the new director’s way of lessening their awards…which may not be legit. </p>
<p>Either way, if the FA pkg that the school provided before the student accepted the school shows that she got everything PLUS the Pell Grant…and that’s what she did get the first year, that would be a sound argument that is what the school intended her to get.</p>
<p>Furthermore…the new director is claiming something that isn’t true…that fed aid must get applied to tuition first. There isn’t a regulation that states that.</p>