How do you know if a school reduces grants based on outside scholarships?

[katilac]

I know that some schools will reduce their grant money if you get outside scholarships.

 

Can you usually figure this out from their web site? 

 

If you have already accepted an offer, can they change it if you get a scholarship afterwards? Or would it change for the next year? 

 

Obviously one needs to check with the specific college to make sure, but I'm wondering if you can usually tell from the web site. 

[teachermom2834]

Some will say that outside scholarships will reduce grants somewhere on their website but others it is just not in there at all.

 

My ds is at a small LAC. He won a $5000 outside scholarship very late last year. I think it was beginning of May after all the decisions had been made and FA offer accepted. DS called and asked how they would handle it and they said he could just use it to pay his balance. We were surprised and grateful! So, there are schools that allow it without reducing grant aid.

 

However, I am waiting to see the FA offer for this next year and if they reduce his aid now that they know about the scholarship. They never asked if it was for all four years (it is) but I won't be surprised to see his nice package decreased some this year. Grant aid is much fuzzier than renewable scholarships.

 

But back to your question- we never have seen any outside scholarship policy spelled out for the college ds attends.

Edited May 23, 2017 by teachermom2834

[Julie of KY]

I'd suggest you call or email the financial aid office with your specific questions.

 

As far as my son's school which gives large amounts of need based money. Outside scholarships first decrease the "student contribution" which is $2300. Next it decreases the grant exactly by the amount of the scholarship. Unless my son gets scholarships that equal more than his huge grant, it will not decrease the parent contribution for us. Therefore in reality the best outside scholarships can do for us it decrease out bottom line by $2300.

 

Editted to add that they will adjust the FA at anytime the scholarship is found out about. It adjust that years financial aid for us and not future.

Edited May 23, 2017 by Julie of KY

[Ann.without.an.e]

With dd's schools, all of them were pretty much the same.  Outside $ would reduce #1) Student Loan and then #2) Student work and then it would be applied to grants.  Our parent contribution stayed the same regardless.  I guess if your outside $ exceeded the grant/need aid then it would help.  

Edited May 23, 2017 by Attolia

[katilac]

This isn't in regards to my student, which is why I don't just call. I was just wondering if I needed to give a friend a heads-up about the possibility. 

 

If they let it go towards loan/work/student contribution, that would be just fine. If they reduce the grant, that would be a nasty surprise. 

[Sebastian (a lady)]

I called several financial aid offices about this. The treatment of outside money varies greatly and depended on part on it the grant was for financial need or merit or to defray out of state costs.

[JumpedIntoTheDeepEndFirst]

One thing to keep in mind is that while we (as parents) often focus on the total cost/amount owed, the financial aid office looks at discrete billing. In other words, while we look at the lump sum we owe, they look at tuition, room/board, and fees as three separate entities. For reasons I cannot fully fathom, they will often use some grant/scholarship moneys for only one or two of the categories but not interchangeably or against the total owed.  

 

Schools handle this money differently and it can even depend on the specific grant/scholarship you received.  Some are restricted, while others are not.  As a side note, I have found that financial aid offices are not always forthcoming with this information prior to having received an application and monies having been awarded.

[teachermom2834]

Some will say that outside scholarships will reduce grants somewhere on their website but others it is just not in there at all.

 

My ds is at a small LAC. He won a $5000 outside scholarship very late last year. I think it was beginning of May after all the decisions had been made and FA offer accepted. DS called and asked how they would handle it and they said he could just use it to pay his balance. We were surprised and grateful! So, there are schools that allow it without reducing grant aid.

 

However, I am waiting to see the FA offer for this next year and if they reduce his aid now that they know about the scholarship. They never asked if it was for all four years (it is) but I won't be surprised to see his nice package decreased some this year. Grant aid is much fuzzier than renewable scholarships.

 

But back to your question- we never have seen any outside scholarship policy spelled out for the college ds attends.

Just updating. We got our FA aid offer for next year and it is unchanged and they never asked if ds had the outside scholarship again. So this school definitely lets us stack the scholarship without decreasing our grant money. So there are schools that will do it but I think it is uncommon.