It depends on the school
I thought it might but the categories all seem to be that up to 75 K it’s one average, from 75-110 K another average and then over 110 a third but must be totally on specific income and tied into the specific amount. Obviously how many other kids you have and how many other kids in college will affect it. Financial award letters will come out soon and we will see how it comes out in the wash!!
But some people reported that even at schools that meet need their FA varied by a lot.
You’re complaining that you are getting need based aid, that the school is overcharging the full pay students so that they can just hand you free money? Sigh.
“But some people reported that even at schools that meet need their FA varied by a lot.”
Each college and university gets to set its own financial aid policy. This means that what A considers to be meeting full need does not bear any relationship whatsoever to what B considers to be meeting full need.
Who is complaining? Not me. I was just trying to point out to @Baylorpoly that financial aid formulas and need met can vary a lot from school to school. So even if all schools would meet all need, the numbers would still be different because they calculate your need differently.
“I mean that when you have a school that meets “need” (their definition of need), or comes close to it, the merit award does not affect the net price.” Why should it? Whether you got a raise or an inheritance or a merit scholarship, your need is now less. Why should others have to pay more to subsidize need you no longer have?
Now I understand. I hadn’t thought of it as need you no longer have.
Exactly. If a student got a full ride or near full ride merit from an outside source, would the family still claim that it has need, and therefore should still get the need-based aid that EFC suggests?
If a family has an UNAFFORDABLE EFC, then there are only a few option to consider:
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a cheaper school…one that you can pay for out-right…local state school or CC.
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a school that gives you HUGE merit; so huge that once subtracted from costs, you can afford the balance.
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a school where a combo of: merit, summer job, part-time school year job, and a small student loan can cover the school’s cost.
@Baylorpoly
Re: Michigan State & Indian University
We are in Indiana and my d wanted to go out of state for undergrad, but states she might want to come home to go to IU for med school (or something else in mid-west).
After she got a 33 on her ACT in middle school, I stared looking around to see what that would do for her for scholarships. At that time, IU had automatic full tuition scholarships for students with a certain ACT/ SAT score and a high UNWEIGHTED GPA. I think the required ACT score was somewhere around a 32 and the GPA was somewhere around 3.8. When they did away with the automatic scholarships (I think this was when d was in 9th or 10th grade) I called and spoke with someone in the scholarship office to see if they might implement this again in the future. I was told that they were keeping the same scholarship program- they are just not advertising it on their website now. Although it is less obvious now, they do offer some good tuition scholarships for minimal baseline test scores and grades. However, the amount of the scholarship has remained relatively flat, while tuition has increased- so what used to be full tuition for in-state students, now cover about 90% of their tuition. For out of state students, this program covered the difference between IS and OOS tuition.
They offer few full-ride scholarships to IU and most are dependent on school politics (nomination of only two candidates by school principal at each high school). Since d is a high stat student and wanted to go OOS, we looked elsewhere for competitive and NMF automatic scholarships. She was offered one of the 20 competitive, full-ride scholarships at MSU. She intends to accept their offer. I have read other posters believe that students with good stats who don’t get the full-ride still get a good award package at MSU.
Of note is that IU and MSU are tied in rank by US News at 75. However, MSU has a higher “Global University” ranking.
Great job. Congratulations!! GO SPARTY!!
To the list of state schools, with the OP’s child having a 35, LSU would be full tuition for Out of State and competitive for a full ride.
Not correct. At LSU, a 33 ACT and above earns a guaranteed $20,500 for OOS, but OOS tuition for 2015/16 is $26,820, so still about $6300 short.
With a 33 min ACT, you are also invited to apply for the ultra-competitive Stamps & Presidential scholarships, which award 10 each full-ride scholarships.
What is scaring us off from LSU is their budget problems and the concern about substantial OOS tuition increases like they had a couple of years ago, making the $20,500 worth even less.
@Baylorpoly
Thanks 
Hope you find the info I provided on scholarships for IU and MSU helpful. Go Green! D is super excited about her school choice. In fact, I think she would rather skip the end of this year and head straight to college.
Boohoo - agree with you, no way a bribe. Yes, perhaps it may change a decision because it makes the school more affordable with the MERIT scholarship than without any merit money, or it just takes away some of the pain. For us, with our son across the country, his modest merit scholarship takes away some of the pain, though we still pay most of his costs (no need-based financial aid received). My daughter has applied to some, but not all, of the same schools, and based on her higher grades and somewhat higher testing, she is getting more merit than he did. Hopefully that will continue to give her more options. Merit is earned–so yes, that work OP’s child did is making a difference. It is for my daughter who is an unweighted 4.1, while my son was about a 3.7 unweighted. And, please people, be grateful. I realize these schools are insanely expensive (due to many reasons, including government loan amounts increasing and hence most colleges keep raising their tuition based on college loan availability). And Ivies do not give merit at all (as well as Pomona–part of the Claremont consortium in California) and some other East Coast schools who are trying to copy Ivies. My kids are excluded from those schools as we can’t get financial aid, they don’t give merit, yet can’t afford Ivies or the next level down. So, in my opinion, they have made themselves for the truly rich, athletes, musicians, and lower middle class and under. They have excluded the upper middle class.
Basically, your EFC is what the school feels is your fair share. Scholarships reduce the school’s share and then the student’s share (i.e. loans and work-study). You are right- it is hard to eat into the EFC until you have floated above the “need” portion. Since there is no need portion for them, full-pay get to eat into EFC from the first dollar.
Institutional scholarships can come with other perks- access to research, etc.
Hang in there! Everyone’s perception of what is fair is a little bit different. And as you say, it will work out for you. It is hard to hear about all the “free money” and then be met by this seeming bucket of cold water. From our perspective as parents, I too initially thought that merit aid first and foremost reduced EFC, and was on top of the already-allocated need-based aid. Right?
I mean, financial aid is determined, the basic package is in place; then the kid has to compete over-and-above with essays, projects (think Tulane!), and/or interviews for the extra brass ring. Shouldn’t that be piled on top of the already in-place awards? When one thinks about it more deeply, it does make sense to displace institutional aid and loans first; but ** going into it,** it’s easy to think, “isn’t it supposed to displace EFC?” I definitely know where your “venting” is coming from.
Can you haggle at all with colleges pitting one offer against another to negotiate down the price or is that a myth?
Are the financial award letters in concrete like take it or leave it?
You can politely ask (in writing is best) if a college will match a similar but not-preferred-by-you college’s offer, or you can explain to a college that you’d definitely attend but the package is not affordable and is there anything they might be able to do to help.
This worked for my S’12, and he attended the school that added a bit to help.
But I wouldn’t haggle or pit one against another, I think that backfires.