My student has received two initial college award letters so far. They both list scholarships/grants, work study and loan amounts. Each college asks us to accept or deny each type of financial aid. Neither locks us in to that college but my question is "why would I accept or deny any of the loans they list? Can I or should I accept it at both? I just don’t know if not accepting means the funds would not be there or if accepting at both causes problems. I am really confused as to what the next steps should be and what I should avoid. Would appreciate any insight you can offer.
Is there a time limit for acceptance in the award letter? If so, the student should accept scholarships, grants & FWS in the proper time-frame. At this point in time, there is no reason to accept Stafford (Federal Direct subsidized and unsubsidized) loans. Your student can do that later.
So not accepting the Federal and Parent Loan portions of the award letter will not
prevent us from applying for those very loans with that institution later?
No. Usually the federal grants (pell, seog) are automatically accepted because why would you turn them down? If you accept or turn down loans, you can always change your mind later. Even if you take the loans, you have 30 days or so to change your mind.
One reason to turn down a loan or work study is if you are reaching the top of your total COA and you’d rather have work study than the loan, or the loan than work study. If the student has soooo many grant/scholarship options, there might be a reason to take the ‘Presidential’ scholarship over the “Alum award”; one might have a gpa requirement, one might have a public service requirement, one might be restricted to tuition only, etc.
If you are under the COA of the school, there isn’t much danger in accepting them all and sorting it out later. The FA office is often helpful in pointing out the benefits of one award over another.
Unfortunately, federal grants are not an option for us. Our income is just enough to kick us out of any of those benefits but with 5 of ours in some form and level of college, we have tried to stay as close to out of pocket as possible. Scholarships and college awards is all we may benefit from. Our final college bound child has 3 college’s of interest. Two have sent award letters with 2 weeks to accept or deny. The third college doesn’t make decisions and notifications till late Feb or early March which really stinks. lol The part of the letter below that concerned me the most is the last part of the final sentence “may be subject to cancellation”. Didn’t want to reject fed loan options if it would “close them out” so to speak. I appreciate your patience in helping me to understand.
The letter reads as…
Your financial aid offer must be accepted within two weeks of the receipt of this e-mail.
· If you are still evaluating your school choices, we recommend accepting the awards. Accepting the award does
not commit you to attend; it only reserves the financial aid funds.
· Financial aid offers not accepted within the 2-week time period may be subject to cancellation.
If you decide to take the federally funded loans, you can do so any time during the academic year.
I’m curious why you need to notify them within two weeks.
College number 2 says we will receive a link soon. No clue if that one will have a similar deadline. This is our first experience with this type of situation. (all that comes with a 4 yr institution) All of our other students started at 2 year colleges and advanced from there to remain as debt free as possible. I do feel quite overwhelmed with trying to navigate it all.
Thanks everyone