<p>My first financial aid packet from my college indicated that I would have around 8k in WA state need grant and 7k in Federal grants. At the time my scholarships totaled as $18,000 per year, putting me around 33k when combined with the grants.</p>
<p>However, recently, I got chosen for a school scholarship, increasing it to $28,000. But, almost all my grants seem to have gone away, leaving me with only 5k in federal grants. Basically putting me exactly at the same amount I was originally, making the scholarship pretty much pointless. </p>
<p>What could have caused this and is there a way to fix it?</p>
<p>When you won the second scholarship, that covered some of the “need” you were originally found to have which was at first covered by grants. Now the government can keep some of their money, since you found another way to cover some of that need. Good for you. Tax payers everywhere appreciate your hard work and talent!</p>
<p>If the grants were need based, your need was reduced when you got the scholarship. That is probably why the grants were reduced. The only people who can tell you for sure are your school.</p>
<p>Okay, thanks. I was planning to check with my school in a bit. It just seemed ridiculous that it would go away since I still needed it to attend. If I had known about it sooner, I would have chosen to go to a school that didn’t require me to get as many loans.</p>
<p>The school requires that you take out loans?</p>
<p>Well, it doesn’t require me to (sorry, bad wording on my part), but I have to take out loans in order to meet the school costs.</p>
<p>I don’t know if there is a way to fix it, but can you list the COA and all the grants and loans, and then the lost grants?</p>
<p>COA: $44,102
Scholarships: $18,000 before —> $28,000 now
Federal grants: $6,645 —> reduced to $5,645 after scholarship
WA State Need Grant: $8,517 —> non-existant after scholarship</p>
<p>Loan options:
Federal Direct Subsidized Loan: $3,500
Federal Direct Unsubsidized Loan: $2,000</p>
<p>Total (excluding loans): $33,162 before —> $33,645 now</p>
<p>That actually looks about right. Most schools don’t ‘stack’ merit and financial monies-- for schools’ FA, money is money. </p>
<p>Your need is calculated as the COA-EFC. Some schools will meet that need number and others won’t, but need based aid won’t typically exceed the need.</p>
<p>Merit money is typically applied first. After that, they will attempt to meet whatever is left over with need-based grants. Because you earned some merit money, the total amount you ‘need’ to attend school is less, so the need-based grants will be less. Unless the merit money exceeds your need completely, schools will expect pay you to pay that EFC amount (they will only increase your need-based grants until the EFC). You are not entitled to that need-based money as you are the merit-based. They will spread the need-based around to allow more students to attend.</p>
<p>is your $10000 scholarship for one year or renewable? Check with school’s FA office how they will treat next year if it is a one year only scholarship. Most schools consider the fed loans FA, so it looks like the school is expecting you to contribute about $5000. Summer work can make a real dent in that, and depending on the school their official COA is inflated, you can save a lot of money with used books, lower personal expenses. It strikes me as a fair package even if you are a 0 EFC. Did they offer you work study?</p>
<p>If his federal grant is 5645, it looks like he may have full pell. If you don’t mind, could you name your federal grants and the amounts?</p>
<p>If he has full Pell and a 0 EFC, I don’t understand why he would no longer be eligible for state aid in spite of the increased school scholarship. </p>
<p>The student still has a 10k gap between the COA and the financial aid package. Even if they gave him the 8k in state aid, he would still have a 2k gap, which he could fill by working.</p>
<p>But the earlier federal grant was 6465… is it possible that some of that money is the SEOG or some other type of grant money? I mean, his real gap is only about 5k after loans, which is doable with summer and term-time work combined.</p>
<p>If you look again at his package, Even if he takes the loans there is still a 5k gap.</p>
<p>If he meets the criteria for the state grant, his state grant would be an entitlement that would and should be part of the financial aid package, even if the school subsequently reduced their own grant monies.</p>
<p>Op needs to contact the FA office and get some clarification on how they are going to handle the state grant. If they applied the state grant to his package he would only have a short fall of 2k, which he could then take out a sub stafford loan to cover.</p>
<p>Our small State Grants are completely EFC driven so don’t go away if scholarships go up. It does seem strange, especially as there are loans and a gap, so I had a quick look at the web site for the WA need based grants. The original grant was the max amount for a student going to a private 4 year school. The site said that the maximums may vary depending on individual schools’ awarding policies. Looking at the FAQs, it sounds like it is a bit like SEOG, the schools are given a set amount of funds and they award them but there are more eligible students than funds available. The OP needs to ask the school about this.</p>
<p>Ask the school what is going on. If they had stacked the scholarship on top of their original package with loans, the award would have been $48,600, $4500 over COA. Something had to go. I just checked the website of the Washington State board that administers need grants, the amounts are based on family income, # in college, and funds availability, they clearly state you should apply early because funds are limited and not sufficient to cover all qualified students. It seems unfair they took it away after you applied early. They might consider removing the sub stafford and letting you keep the need grant. Good luck, and contact them soon.</p>
<p>My brother lost his grants when he won scholarships, even though his need was not met yet. But he went out and found more scholarships outside of the college.</p>
<p>^Which, depending on the school, would reduce the amount of FA awarded, as again, need would be reduced. Of course that is depending on if he reported the scholarships to the school.</p>
<p>I have a related question… D has won about $16k in scholarships from a service club (with potential for more). If she were to attend a private university that pledges to meet full need without loans (Princeton or Tufts for example), will they subtract her scholarship money in calculating FA? Or can she use the scholarship money to meet the family contribution? If the former, it seems like she is doing a lot of work for nothing. In other words, if the college would have given her the $ anyway if she hadn’t competed and earned the scholarship, why bother? (other than for the prestige and the thrill of victory)</p>
<p>^ This varies from school to school. The school my S attends would simply subtract the scholarship amount from how much comes out of school funds… so your bottom line is the same either way. It would be safe to “assume” this will be the situation with most private schools, but it is a question that needs to be answered (either via website or through the school financial aid counselor directly - although I would clarify more than once just to confirm the answer).</p>
<p>Most schools who meet full-need will take that money out of any type of self-help (work-study, summer contribution, loans if not one of those schools) first, but if it exceeds that amount, they’ll take it out of their grant money. The rationale is that your D will “need” less, and most of those schools are pretty adamant on you paying whatever the family ‘contribution’ is calculated to be.</p>
<p>You might want to start your own thread. Additionally, I believe while Tufts meets full need, they do it with loans and work-study, so the scholarship is to your D’s benefit.</p>