UF Financial Aid Question 2019

[Superman1012]

Hey guys,
I have a financial aid question which I am worried about a lot. I understand that the total financial need is calculated by subtracting the EFC from the total cost. When money is calculated through grants for financial need, is Bright Futures added as well. I always thought that bright futures is merit based, and has nothing to do with the financial need package, however there are varying responses from each of the representatives.

[GatorBand]

@superman1012, my experience is that BrightFutures is completely merit based and is not tied to need at all.

[Gator88NE]

How external/private scholarships impact need-based aid is complicated. See the following link.

When a student receives a private scholarship it reduces the student’s financial need. Federal overaward regulations and the college’s outside scholarship policy require reductions in the need-based financial aid package corresponding to the amount of the outside scholarship. This is often referred to as displacement.

However, colleges have flexibility in how they reduce the need-based aid package. About four fifths of colleges will reduce the student’s unmet need, if any, and then the student’s loan and work burden before reducing the college’s grants. Such a favorable outside scholarship policy will reduce the student’s net price by ensuring that the student retains some financial benefit from winning a scholarship. Other colleges, however, will reduce grants first, yielding no net financial gain to the student.

https://www.fastweb.com/financial-aid/articles/can-a-student-receive-both-need-based-grants-and-merit-based-scholarships

[tpcraigs]

I have same que, how to check overall FinAid offered in UF, including Bright Future.

[GatorBand]

I don’t think they have all of that ready yet. You should be getting an email soon to set up your GatorLink account which will allow you to access the financial aid section of your portal (I don’t recall the actual name of it - GatorOne?). I logged into my daughter’s and it just shows BrightFutures right now.