<p>ok so fafsa said my efc was gonna be 13k</p>
<p>so i got accepted, and i got offered the trustee scholarship for 20k/yr</p>
<p>rice says my family needs to give 14k. . . so does that mean that if i hadn't gotten the trustee scholarship i would pay 14k anyway? doesn't that kinda defeat the purpose of merit aid and make it useful only for the rich?</p>
<p>did i miss something here?</p>
<p>Yeah kind of… but it would get rid of loans for you. Also, when they evaluate the merit scholarships, I’m pretty sure they don’t look at your needs. So, sometimes it’s a “great deal” while other times it’s like, “you would have paid me that much in grants anyway.”</p>
<p>wow so much for that. . .</p>
<p>well that kinda eliminates my possibility of going unless i want to take out like 40k in loans</p>
<p>atbxintel, we are like in the exact same situation!!! there is no way i can afford it either. i got that same scholarship but still its like an expected contr. of like 13K a yr - uh not happening!</p>
<p>Yep. Since Rice meets all your “need”, merit scholarships won’t help you unless they are huge or if you don’t have much “need” in the first place.</p>
<p>If a person gets both merit scholarships and have an EFC that is low enough where the merit scholarships become useless, Rice should give out those scholarships to other deserving students.</p>
<p>Just my two cents…</p>
<p>Merit scholarship is base on merit only without regard for financial need. Financial aid base on need, on the other hand, is base on your family’s financial situation and not on your merit. They are different. Rice is trying to attract top students with merit scholarships and also help admitted students to attend with financial aid. In my opinion, they are doing the right thing.</p>
<p>this way middle-class families now have a chance to get a scholarship</p>
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Merit scholarships don’t attract top students who expect to be covered that amount anyways because of their financial need.</p>
<p>pFNMCp, you might be surprised to find that there are many middle class, not wealthy, families who have saved for their children’s education all their life will end up have to pay full fare or close to it whereever their children end up. Some of them might be deciding between HYP no aid vs Rice with decent merit scholarship. In fact many of those students end up at State U’s honors program with close to full ride instead of HYP with no aid or Rice with merit scholarship.</p>
<p>What is the point of saving for your child’s education if you’re poor? You’d just get FA anyway… FAFSA looks at how much you have saved up and they go “Oh man this kid is LOADED”, so you get fking screwed in the end.</p>
<p>Christian2, I know that. Why was that directed at me?</p>
<p>pFNMCp, your statement: “Merit scholarships don’t attract top students who expect to be covered that amount anyways because of their financial need.” is what prompted my response. I just wanted to point out that there are many top students out there that do not qualify for financial aid base on need. Many of those students will end up choosing Rice if offered a good merit scholarship rather than HYPM, etc.</p>
<p>Christian2 is right, my EFC puts me about $15,000 away from getting any aid, but with this economy I don’t want to put any more stress on my parents. Rice at 22k a year is looking pretty attractive.</p>
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<p>You didn’t save for your education, your parents did. If you have irresponsible parents who want to start saving for college a few months before you go (as in, my father) and who want to get a divorce the year before I go to college, the “FA for the poor” is certainly justified. Conditions like that can change rapidly, so the merit scholarships should be given to the students who deserve them. For example, if your delinquent parent suddenly ‘got a job,’ your FA would go down the next year, but you would still have the merit scholarship to help. It’s ensured money for your accomplishments, not money to help pay for college. You get it all four years no matter how your conditions change, and if you live in a dysfunctional family, this helps a lot.</p>
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…right, and those would be the top students who do not “expect to be covered because of their financial need”</p>