<p>I don't think they are so fair - generally they give less aid than a student needs, but that's a separate discussion...
My D still could apply for a small private scholarship of 1K, but I do not understand how it could make any sense. A college gave her 5K aid, now they will just reduce it to 4K...</p>
<p>Institutional aid will not automatically get reduced by the amount of a private scholarship. The school will only reduce their aid if your D has received more than her official need based on your EFC and the Cost of Attendance. </p>
<p>I agree...most schools do not meet all of a student's need.</p>
<p>Every school handles private scholarship money differently. Some actually deduct the money from any merit or need-based scholarships as a matter of course. Some only deduct from merit OR need-based. Some will only deduct if the scholarships are over a certain amount. And others leave the school scholarships alone, although if the private scholarships or grants are on-going -- i.e., automatically renewed every year, the school might figure them into their calculations for subsequent aid packages. It really is worth checking with the school to see how they handle scholarships.</p>
<p>No, I'm saying they are cutting need based aid based on additional aid I report.</p>
<p>I shouldn't even have a EFC if I'm an independent.</p>
<p>It's very hard to prove that you're independent. I know where I went to undergrad, you basically needed documentation of your parents' death, or of an estrangement of more than two years prior to the start of school. That stuff's hard to prove, because even if you are estranged from your parents, who puts it in writing?</p>
<p>Another way that colleges deal with outside scholarships is to sometimes shift an equivilant amount from 'free' aid (scholarships or grants) to loans. So you end up with an increased amount of aid, but not in the ideal way.</p>
<p>I've already been determined independent based on my documentation through the schools evaluation. I'm saying it didn't help... I received if anything what looks like a worse deal. </p>
<p>I asked my finaid advisor if it's average and he said no it's way above average... of course. </p>
<p>This really is ****ing me off because being broke and independent you would expect this would give me some sort of increased aid... not take it away. They are basically saying there is no way for me to make the debt go down through outside scholarships. Art school isn't affordable unless your parents wanna' help.</p>
<p>"I'm saying they are cutting need based aid based on additional aid I rep"</p>
<p>This is because they see it as you needing a certain total amount of aid. They award you the aid they think you need. When you report that you've found additional aid from somewhere else, they see it like, "well great! That's $5,000 coming out of someone else's pocket instead of ours." and reduce the amount of aid they are giving you, because you only need so much in total.</p>
<p>so you're saying that they think it's completely acceptable for a student that has been living on his own since he was 17 to go into debt over 70k to get his BFA? even though they are 100% sure that he won't be receiving ANY income whatsoever from his parents??? there is no reason for me to even search of outside scholarships if all I'm doing is helping someone else out. I'm trying to lower the cost because I don't think it's an acceptable amount of money to be in debt with especially considering the average income of graduates coming out is like around 30k a year in New York! Why is there an EFC at all if I just proved and then agreed that I have no parents contributing anything since before I was an adult?</p>
<p>"so you're saying that they think it's completely acceptable for a student that has been living on his own since he was 17 to go into debt over 70k to get his BFA"</p>
<p>Yes, they absolutely do think that's acceptable. And I don't understand why it's less acceptable for an independent student to go into that sort of debt than a "dependent" (usually only partly) student- if the loans are in the students' name, the student pays them off. Trust me, a lot of people are in worse situations that you- factually independent, but unable to convince the school of this, they are required to report their parents' income for financial aid despite not having access to a penny of it.</p>
<p>I don't think it's acceptable for any art student to go into that much debt... at all! I didn't really get anything more than a dependent student in my package. I know this because I compared my independent package to my dependent package. I'm not saying I think it's right for a dependent student not receiving money from parents to go into that much debt simply because they cannot prove it... I think it's really messed up. I think it's even more messed up though once you prove to them you aren't receiving money they continue to screw you. A dependent student is able to get plus loans etc... and use a co-signer.. not to mention lower interest rates as opposed to a independent student that has no credit and is forced to take out private loans.</p>