@TomSrOfBoston Yes I did - I’m not sure what you’re meaning to say, though.
If a scholarship reduces need, there’s less need left to fill with other money or loans. Say you need 26k and get it in the form of a scholarship, that’s the math.
If you’re saying this doesn’t bring you down to roughly 30k, you’d need to look at the rest of the NPC, see if something differs in your input there from the documents submitted to FA. And whether the NPC and actual package include work study, student contribution from summer earnings, and loans.
The bottom line is that IF NEU (and I’m not sure if they do) reduce “FA” in the form of loans by an outside scholarship - that is wrong. Outside scholarships should always replace loans.
@cag60093 - outside scholarships will stack with Northeastern merit aid, but they will recalculate need based aid according to this additional outside money. In my case, that meant I lost the option for work study my freshman year but my merit scholarship was not affected.
I agree 100%. If “loans” are considered part of the financial aid package (and they always are) they should be the first item reduced by outside scholarships.