<p>Thumper, if your EFC exceeds the COA, you have NO demonstrated need. Merit aid in such cases reduces your contributions. </p>
<p>The issue is how merit cohabits with need based aid.</p>
<p>Above post…accurate!</p>
<p>I only know my D’s case so it may or may not be very helpful.
- The school gives her 16K trustee scholarship + 9K grants from various sources from the school (the 9K is not clear to me, it could be grant, it could be need-based aids but for sure not from the government), total = 25K.</p>
<p>2) She gets 4K outside scholarship for her freshman year and they sent this directly to the school.</p>
<p>Total scholarship+grant for 1st year is $29K or 14.5K for 1st semester.
Tuition+fees+room+board is $39K/ yr or 19.5K for 1st semester</p>
<p>We were asked to pay the school ~5K for the 1st semester.
We are paying for books and other expenses ourselves.</p>
<p>Our EFC is ~20K.</p>
<p>Before semester started, we asked for work-study but were told that none was available to her since our income was not low enough. Yet when she got to school, she got a job on campus. </p>
<p>In our case, it looks like they allow us to stack everything.</p>
<p>Good for you fire123. I think my daughter has targeted schools that are too expensive. Back to the internet to find more options!</p>
<p>Though not merit aid, we were surprised to discover that the tuition benefit we get from our university employer reduces need, rather than fall on our side of the equation, in terms of a way we meet our EFC. </p>
<p>Until then, we always assumed that the tuition benefit would be how we met our EFC. Nope. Online calculators showed that we were full pay EFC because the tuition benefit counts as resources available. Makes sense, in that it is similar to college savings etc, but certainly changed the way we approached college costs.</p>
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<p>Obviously, you know your own situation better than anybody here. I do, however, believe that you are in a situation in which the school is NOT using any federal aid. In such a case, I believe that all your grants are merit aid (including that 9,000.) My understanding is that a school has the ability to offer grants that reduce the EFC … because the limitations of not exceeding the COA through Aid + EFC only applies when there is need based funding. </p>
<p>I know this is getting repetitive, but there are no reasons why merit aid cannot stack upon … more merit aid. The issue is when it is allowed to stack on top of need based aid.</p>
<p>PS Interestingly enough, some schools seem to find jobs for students that do not rely on work study funding. There seem to be quite a gray area regarding working for the school. My younger sister worked at the school, and it did NOT impact her financial aid package. The biggest surprise is that it was exempt from FICA, which I understand is only available for work study jobs. Also, the school did not count it as income on the FAFSA/CSS forms. They actually corrected the forms submitted by my sister. </p>
<p>Perhaps, there are more exceptions to the rules discussed here. :)</p>
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<p>Remember, that there is often more than one type of work study; federal work study and employment (non-work study), even though employment is often called work study.</p>
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<p>What is the difference between work-study and non-work study jobs?</p>
<p>Federal Work-study indicates that the funds going to support the student’s paycheck come from the Federal government, whereas funds for non-work study/employment jobs are supported by the college</p>
<p>There is no difference in the way that you will be paid. However, work-study wages are excluded from your income when you file the FAFSA (you must include them under the Student’s Additional Financial Information). Those earnings are not considered as funds available to help meet your educational expenses, because they were used for that purpose when they were earned.</p>
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<p>Rochester is the only one I have looked at that will actually show you what happens on their net price calculator. Run it with no merit, and then adjust the merit and update it. From what I can tell, THEIR OWN merit will somewhat, but not completely, reduce loan and work study amounts. I think it is about $.70 on the dollar.</p>
<p>I got mixed answers from RPI, but I think they are going to end up not stacking their own merit with their need awards. DS is a medalist, so it is free to find out what they do.</p>
<p>Same for Northeastern from the information I have. In the case of NEU, we are still trying to decide whether it is worth the $70 to see what they do when the school is near the bottom of DS’s list. Probably not …</p>
<p>Asking specific colleges is the best way to go!</p>
<p>My son’s college “stacks” merit aid up to full tuition–Son received $23K and $7.5K in merit aid. But, I am not sure if the school would stack merit on top of need based aid, as the need only scholarship amounts are almost identical to the need based/merit combo amounts. $39K-$39.3K at the maximum end. </p>
<p>[Need-Based</a> Financial Aid](<a href=“http://wp.stolaf.edu/financialaid/aid/how-to-apply/need-based/]Need-Based”>http://wp.stolaf.edu/financialaid/aid/how-to-apply/need-based/)
[Merit</a> Scholarships](<a href=“http://wp.stolaf.edu/financialaid/aid/how-to-apply/merit-scholarships-2/]Merit”>http://wp.stolaf.edu/financialaid/aid/how-to-apply/merit-scholarships-2/)</p>
<p>Emory did not reduce their original financial aid package after my daughter received some outside scholarships. They said only if the scholarships exceeded your family EFC would it be affected. As another post mentioned, just because you have work study funds doesn’t guarantee you a job. It took my daughter a few weeks to find a workstudy job and she said other freshmen she knew had applied for a no. of positions and were very frustrated.</p>
<p>I’m now wondering how schools like, say Temple or Alabama, who offer automatic full tuition stat-based scholarships, deal with need-based federal grants like Pell. Can those be stacked and used for room and board?</p>
<p>I just ran Bama’s NPC and indeed, Pell (and SEOG) are stacked if the student earns Pres Scholar. So that’s good to know. Leaves an $11K gap with all expenses but still.</p>
<p>Thanks for posting and responding on this thread. Very, very helpful information! The “stacking” question is a big one for us!</p>
<p>It is interesting to see how different schools handle this topic.</p>