The total amount of useful money I can get in scholarships is about $5500. Brown’s policy does let you use extra money to purchase a computer, but for scholarships that cover tuition and billable costs are you allowed to transfer the money to a subsequent year? Or does the university just take it? I’ve only gotten $1000 in outside scholarships so far, so this is purely hypothetical at this point.
You need to contact Brown and ask them what their specific policy is.
I am assuming that you mean that Brown is giving you loan-free money (grants) in the amount of cost of attendance so these scholarships would simply put you over the cost of attending. If so, then they simply reduce the amount of your grant, because these scholarships would be assets you would have declared on FAFSA if you had them at the time. I do not believe you can bank them for the future, but as was said you can check with Brown. But these kinds of need based arrangements are always reviewed annually, and the assets are counted in the year in which they are available.
Consider saving any allowed excess to ho toward any income taxes due on the room and board paid for with grants/scholarships.
You didn’t give enough specific detail so we have to guess what you mean. Brown doesn’t give scholarships so are you getting full need based aid from them, or is it coming from outside? I believe Brown will let you replace a work study requirement (or loan if you have to take one.) After that Brown will reduce their grant because you ‘need’ less. The university just doesn’t ‘take it’. It is applied toward your tuition etc. After they apply money that you have, then they assess how much more they have to give you in order to allow you to attend. If only your billable costs are covered then likely you get to keep it because there is more to COA than just billable costs.
fyi, Brown has some really great w/s and non w/s jobs.
If the school gave you grants, they may lower that amount. That’s what UMich did to my financial aid package.
D has a full ride (tuition, fees, room, board and book voucher). She had a small outside scholarship year one, paid to the school. So she chose a more expensive dorm than the scholarship covered and that scholarship covered the difference. The small excess after that was refunded to her. We were told they would do this up to the full cost of attendance (which factors in things like transportation). Outside scholarships going above that amount would lessen the internal one.
However, if she does not use all the money she school gives with their internal scholarship for designated purposes, they keep it. Meaning, if she does not spend all of her book voucher (part of her scholarship) they keep the money, she does not get it back. If she gets a meal plan that cost less than what they agree to pay for, they keep the difference.
On the other hand, a friend’s son had his grants lowered dollar for dollar for every outside scholarship he received. Another told me that they lower the scholarship 1/2 of the amounts received in outside scholarship at a school were considering.
So, it depends on the school.
We should probably stop calling it “scholarships” at Brown. They don’t give them. It is FA. If you consider it that way, your outside actual scholarship money is used first, then the FA. Otherwise they would be wasting FA that could be used by someone else.
They don’t “keep the difference”. The amount of FA is not a scholarship awarded to you. It is financial assistance paying only up to you actual cost. So if not needed, it is never disbursed.
But don’t discount the fact that it might eliminate your need for loans or work study first, as those are not free. You work for or repay them. So that is great if you can replace just those with your outside scholarships.
(Why do I get the feeling some folks want full FA and then some? Very frustrating since many kids don’t get nearly enough!)
Also, some outside scholarship will let you defer to a later year or even grad school. You have to find out from them if it is allowed or not, depends on the scholarship/organization.
I guess it depends on the school and their institutional practices. I have seen need-based financial aid awards labeled as “scholarships” on award letters. Yes, I know that a more correct term for this kind of award is a grant and that a scholarship is more generally understood to be an award based on merit as opposed to need. I’m just saying that there are schools that use the word scholarship to denote need-based aid.
Brown absorbs it. You may not roll it over to another year.
@BelknapPoint I understand. It’s just easier to grasp why there is no “refund of excess” if you think in terms of FA.
$5500 would seem to be the Stafford loan. So that loan could be eliminated and replaced with outside scholarships