<p>When colleges offer financial aid packages and merit scholarships to accepted students, and some of those students choose to go elsewhere, do they then have more "money in the pot" to possibly increase aid to students who do commit?</p>
<p>Or do they make offers for more than they really have and already factor in that many of the packages won't actually be accepted?</p>
<p>Just curious because I wonder if its more likely that you could get additional aid after May 1?</p>
<p>The amount of financial aid you receive may not exceed your total cost of attendance.</p>
<p>If you still have financial aid remaining after you pay your fees (you reduce your cost of attendance by buying books online, not traveling home often, etc.) then you get to keep the extra money for yourself.</p>
<p>Check with your school to make sure.</p>
<p>Icon,</p>
<p>The type of aid awarded determines who it is handled if the student choses not to attend the awarding school. For things like Pell, Stafford Loans, ACG and Smart, the funding does not get spread out between those who do commit to attend. </p>
<p>Institutional aid, Perkins, and FWS can be reallocated to committed students. However, some schools do overaward offers knowing that some students will not be attending.</p>
<p>So, truly, it depends on how each school decides to handle the issue and how they distributed the aid to begin with.</p>
<p>They probably won’t offer you more because someone decided not to attend. If you have your financial aid package then that is what you get. They probably use the money to do things like update buildings, start new social groups, basically they either put it back into the college or they keep it for next semester’s aid.</p>
<p>inspiring,</p>
<p>Scholarship money cannot be diverted into building repairs or social groups. And many scholarships require a certain amount of funding be used each academic year. If the school hasn’t used the required amount, they have no option to increase the aid offered to other students who meet the qualifications. We have some scholarships that have such a requirement and others that would allow us to roll the funds to the next academic year. Also, for some funding sources, we award 150% of what is allotted for the academic year knowing full well that some of the applicants will not start at our school. Anytime more than 100% of the funding is awarded to committed students, we fund it through institutional money but there have been times when less than 100% of the money was actually accepted and we’ve reallotted to students who wanted to come. Some of the funding can also be held until closer to the start of classes for those deserving students who applied late.</p>
<p>I would not count on definatively receiving an increase in your award package, though…so if you cannot afford the cost with your current award package you should make other plans. No sense getting to the campus a week before classes to find out you still don’t have enough money to cover the direct costs. You also don’t want to wait until after May 1, hoping for an increase, and miss out on a great opprotunity somewhere else.</p>
<p>There is usually some extra money left at the end of the process. However, bear in mind that when the offers are made, most colleges “overbook” just as airlines do, since they have a history of yield. So it does pay to appeal again in May and look for any leftovers, as some schools just might have something. Some schools will just give extras to upperclassemen. All of this pertains only to the school’s own money, not government funds.</p>
<p>Nikkiil</p>
<p>Of course not, but loan money (school tied) could be. That is why I said some money goes to the school for other things and some money stays in the pot for next semester. Of course part of it could go to current students, hence my “probably” comment.</p>
<p>ya they’re not going to give you anymore than it costs. What you can get back is scholarship money from unaffiliated companies because the school can’t leagally keep the money if you already have everything paid for. I’ve heard of kids getting back thousands of dollars in refund checks.</p>
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<p>Depends on the scholarship. Some scholarships are really “discounts” in disguise. Those are the scholarships where anyone with a 3.5 GPA or 33 ACT gets it.</p>
<p>There are some Endowed scholarships. If the selected student doesn’t go, they can give it to another student. When I went to Grad school, I was given a $10k/yr scholarship. When I started that fall, they told me “good news, we increased your scholarship to $20k/yr”. Apparently, the endowed scholarship was split between the two of us, and the other person didn’t show up for school.</p>