I received the regents scholarship for UC Berkeley which covers up to financial need. My FAFSA gives me an EFC of 2000 so my Berkeley financial aid estimate ends up with a net cost of $2000 per year which can be paid as an unsubsidized loan. I’ve won around $10k in numerous outside scholarships that pay the money to my institution, I think they mail a check to the financial aid office of my school. Would those scholarships be used to cover the $2000 in loans every year? Or would it be basically wasted and reduce my university grants and regents scholarship and I would still have to pay $2000/yr? I read the FAQ for the regents scholarship on the Berkeley site here: http://financialaid.berkeley.edu/regents-and-chancellors-scholarship
It says: "1. Will there be an adjustment to my Regents’ and Chancellor’s Scholarship if I receive any outside scholarships?
If you are receiving an honorary award of $2,500, there will be no adjustment to the award. If you are receiving a need-based award, outside agency awards are applied toward your gross financial need and may require the campus to reduce the amount of the Regents’ and Chancellor’s Scholarship."
It sounds like it’s saying my outside scholarships would be wasted which kinda sucks. Is there any other way I can pay off the $2000 loans besides using my parents money?
http://financialaid.berkeley.edu/outside-scholarships says that “Generally, need-based loans and work-study awards are reduced first to “make room” for outside award. To ensure an outside scholarship helps you as much as possible, it is our policy to replace your self-help (need based loan and work-study awards) first. If the amount of outside aid exceeds the amount of need-based loans and work-study in your package, then other gift aid is reduced.”
Since it may not be all that clear, you should call the financial aid office and ask.
For what it is worth, you may want to apply to the Berkeley Student Cooperative housing as soon as possible (there is typically a huge waitlist, so it may be more realistic to think of it for sophomore year). The BSC housing costs about $3,000 less than the room and board in the off-campus student budget used for financial aid calculations.
It depends on the school. But any scholarship will likely reduce your need, and therefore financial aid. Your EFC is likely the last thing got offset by scholarships.
Scholarships only touch the EFC after all aid is replaced. You would need to bring in enough merit to replace/reduce all of your need based aid (first loans, then work study, then grants) before the EFC is lowered.
Any merit from the school should stay the same, though.
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Also you can ask the scholarship entities if you can defer the scholarships to another year or grad school.
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This is the best advice. Ask each one if they can defer. If none or not enough will defer, then you may as well ask a few of them to reaward to someone else. Might as well let someone who can use them, have them.
The Berkeley FAQ says “It’s helpful if the donor includes a letter explaining the award terms when they send the award check to campus” and “If you have a financial aid package and receive an outside scholarship/award, your financial aid offer will be adjusted based upon the conditions of the award.” (http://financialaid.berkeley.edu/outside-scholarships)
What if my scholarship donors attach a note that says they will not provide the scholarship if it will be used to reduce the university grant. Worth a try? Do you think the financial aid office will just decline the check or use it for my best interest since its there already?
Are you asking if the school is going to override a policy that they apply to everyone, just because you are special? No. Also keep in mind that any scholarship money above the cost over tuition and books is taxable income. If you want your EFC covered, then you will have to achieve outside scholarships, that cover all of the funding of the regents scholarship before covering your EFC.
I don’t want to start another thread so I will ask this here.
Once outside scholarships replace loans and work-study, can I still get the federal loans to pay for my efc, or is the EFC ‘holy ground’ that I must pay? If the fed doesn’t give loans for that, couldn’t a private loan cover the efc?
Unless I’m not understanding this, it says you can get $2500 in outside awards before they adjust any scholarships or grants. The $2000 EFC would be covered.
I’m not getting what the problem is. If you can get some of the $10,000 in scholarships spread over the 4 years, you are golden for all 4 years.
You need to check. Many universities will not allow outside scholarships to replace EFC as they don’t consider this financial aid but the amount they expect you to pay. Some however will allow outside scholarship to replace your summer earnings expectation. Most will not.
Bumping, another question. I won a scholarship where the donor sends a check to my house which is made payable to my institution. Would these scholarships be used to reduce the university grant if I brought it to the financial aid office in the middle of the semester?
@TKatana I can’t speak knowledgably about this specific situation, but I can tell you from firsthand experience that colleges can and do adjust stuff, even going back a semester, and ask for money back from you. This just happened to a young man we mentored. Six weeks after he was given a refund check, they asked for the money back AND more, as they had made a mistake. The money given to him exceeded the COA amount he can legally receive and they wanted it back or he could not register for class. It was not a fun experience.
My point is, they have accountants, they will make adjustments at any point, so this mid semester idea isn’t a loophole you can exploit. This is just my experience and opinion based on that experience. Good luck to you.
In my D’s case, UMich reduced the loan, workstudy, and then grant with each external and internal scholarships she received. Unless you got a lot of merit scholarships that exceed all you needs, your EFC is likely untouched.
Ask scholarship to divide over 4 yrs or other way. When I attend William College financial aid 101 during Williams preview, Provost Will Dudley mentioned that is another way to consider.
Well it’s certainly very valuable to get a scholarship that will partially or fully replace a loan, don’t you think? I don’t count a loan as being actual “aid”–and I don’t think anyone should.
In my case, I received $2,500 in loans from Michigan. I reported a $3750 scholarship I received and they took $2,500 out from grants and left me with $1,750 in loans. My EFC is 0.