<p>In addition to juillet’s excellent post, nationality is most certainly a factor in FA, ask any Intl. applicant.</p>
<p>What was that JFK quote, “ask not your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country”. The problem is transfer students don’t do anything for the school (as far as boosting their stats, which is a prime driver for choosing how to award merit money).</p>
<p>Any federal aid, other than campus based programs, will be the same whether you are a transfer or not. Any money that comes from the schools own coffers, they have the right to allocate it as they see fit. They have limited funds so come up with a system that works best for their own goals. Their goal is to attract the very best freshman class they can. The freshman classes are simply much more important to them than transfers, so that is where the bulk of their FA is directed. That is just one of the things a student planning to transfer needs to be aware of and take into account when making their decisions. My daughter had (using past tense because she graduates tomorrow :D) a great scholarship she got as and incoming freshman. We told her the time to make sure she was choosing the school she wanted to stay with because she would lose out a lot financially if she ever transferred.</p>
<p>Agree with Julliet that you should not try and look at it as discrimination. You can’t compare being a transfer student to being a minority. It is more like the difference between being a priority customer or not. For instance if you are a frequent flier and attain one of the higher levels in the program, you get all sorts of benefits because you are worth a lot to the airline and they airline doesn’t want you choosing a different carrier. People who have not attained that level don’t get the same benefits. It is not discrimination, they are just not quite as valuable a customer so the airline doesn’t work as hard to woo them.</p>