<p>My D has a outside scholarship that I asked be held until next year, because her scholarships are now over her COA. Her college has already eliminated her loans and work study. They have also began to reduce her school grant by a thousand dollars. The outside scholarships response was the reason that they send their scholarships in November is so that the financial aid will already be allotted, so the money will be refunded to my daughter. Common sense tells me that the school will continue to reduce their grant. It will be a shame because next year she will be short, and could use these funds. What do you think?</p>
<p>You would need to check with your daughter’s school. Typically financial aid is disbursed for each semester. If your daughter receives an outside scholarship and her overall awards will exceed the cost of attendance in that second term, my guess is her award will be reduced again.</p>
<p>I’m not sure what your concern is. Your daughter will not be paying more for college, but her money source will be from the scholarship instead of need based aid. Her scholarship reduces her NEED and therefore her need based aid is also reduced.</p>
<p>Colleges will not allow students to have aid which exceeds the cost of attendance.</p>
<p>Thanks Thumper</p>
<p>My concern is that some of the outside scholarships she is receiving that have taken her over the COA this year, are one time scholarships. The school’s grant has already commited to cover a certain amount. Rather than give money to the school that will reduce their grant and have to take out loans next year, it makes more sense to just hold the scholarship until next year. So I guess my concern is taking out loans for next year.</p>
<p>I think I understand your concern here. You’re saying that you’re fine for this year but you’re concerned about being short next year so you want them to let you hold onto the scholarships so that you can use them next year to meet your need then, right?</p>
<p>If so, I don’t know if you can do that. You’re usually obligated to tell the school about the scholarship, and you can talk to them (and to the awarding organization) to see if you can work something out in which they’ll let you hold the money back until next year. I’m not sure if that ever happens, but it might be worth a shot.</p>
<p>I can see that it is, Legitamate. Our son got a one time outside scholarship freshman year that was not renewed, and, yep, we did have to make up the amount which hurt since college costs went up about 4% and he got a single that second year which meant another bump up in cost. We were not on financial aid so that was not in the picture. The award let my son off from taking subsidized Staffords that first year.</p>
<p>The problem with your reasoning is that the scholarship is set up for the 2010-2011 school year. For accounting reasons, they may not be able to hold the funds until the following academic year. It’s not going to help you to have the money just held over till the end of the calendar year, since college costs are by the semester, and if there is an overage next term, it will reduce the scholarship even more drastically since the reduction won’t be over two semesters. The bottom line is that your daughter got financial aid because she needed the money. Now that she got an outside awards, she no longer NEEDS that money. So after the loans and self help parts of her aid package are eliminated by the scholarship, it will start replacing the grants. This way the school will have a little bit more buffer money for things that arise among students during the year. Things always happen and colleges like to have some funds to deal with those things. </p>
<p>It’s understandable that you want to get as much out of the scholarship money that your D has earned, but if she is on financial aid, most schools do not allow, double dipping. Unfair since a non need kid would get the outside money as pure gravy, reducing the family contributuion, but that is the way it works. The need money is for the need. If the college had known your D was getting that scholarship, the need would have been reduced up front. There just isn’t enough need money to go around to let kids double dip.</p>
<p>Your child’s financial aid will be recomputed for next year. Need based aid is computed annually by the schools. If your daughter’s award next year exceeds the cost of attendance, her school based funds will be reduced again by the amount of the outside scholarships. I guess what I’m saying…if it doesn’t happen this year, it will happen next year.</p>
<p>I’m confused…money awarded in NOVEMBER of 2010 and sent to your daughter’s school will be used to pay for the 2010-2011 school year. And if they receive it in November, my gut feeling is they will reduce her school award for THIS school year. They will not hold that outside scholarship for NEXT year.</p>
<p>I’m a bit confused by your info. Are you asking the scholarship folks to hold this for the next school year, or just until November of this year (which Is THIS school year)?</p>
<p>I am asking them to hold it until next year. They said that holding it until November will cause the college to refund it to my daughter. (I don’t think so) Thumper I believe as you do that they will still reduce the grant.</p>
<p>There are scholarships organizations that will do this. I know this because one of her scholarships will hold until Senior year if requested. I guess it just depends on the organization.</p>
<p>Yes Gardna you are correct</p>
<p>If they hold the scholarship until next year, your daughter’s need based aid will be reduced NEXT year. Just keep that in mind. You also don’t know the grant/loan mix your kiddo will be getting next year either.</p>
<p>She has been fortunate to receive the same grant four all four years.(As long as she is not failing). Having to add loans is my concern. She also has two scholarships that are renewable, but nothing like she’s receiving for freshman year.</p>
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<p>This is VERY common with outside scholarships. The vast majority are one year awards only. </p>
<p>Deferring the payment to November will not help you, I don’t think. If the scholarship organization will defer the award until NEXT SUMMER…for the 2011-2012 school year, you can use it then…it will reduce your daughter’s need based award for that school year.</p>
<p>I do believe if the scholarship is awarded any time THIS academic year, your need based aid for this academic year from the school will be reduced because your NEED will be that much less this academic year.</p>
<p>We had this situation… </p>
<p>What colleges will do is recompute their award in November and your daughter would either have to refund the $ (if she’s received $ in excess of COA) or they would lower their college grant/ scholarship for 2nd semester by the entire amount of the outside scholarship.</p>
<p>I would go back to the outside scholarship and explain that. We were successfully able to have some outside scholarships to defer to the next year but not others.</p>
<p>Heck, if the outside scholarship organization will defer the award to the next academic year, go on a head. Who knows what the award will be next year? If it is commensurate with the freshman year, you can feel more confident that the school will continue with the trend. Some colleges really reduce the aid, pushing more onto the loan and self help venues after freshman year. If this schools should do this, the student would have a buffer with that scholarship. If they don’t. well, it’s time to integrate the award with the college’s.</p>