<p>My parents make around $40K (combined) a year… I pretty sure that makes me a low-income student… do I need to look for scholarships or am I basically guaranteed to get full scholarship to a college?</p>
<p>You are never guaranteed full scholarship to any college. You will generally receive a combination of subsidized loans, work study and grants. In addition to income, the CSS profile asks about assets…monies saved, home equity, etc.
Not all schools meet 100 percent of need.<br>
Yes you need to look for scholarships. First step is to check with your guidance counselor about local opportunities.</p>
<p>you should try local first…better chance.</p>
<p>you should surely look for scholarships</p>
<p>I’d spend my time focusing on getting the need-based aid. Understand the forumlas and get your finances (and your family finances) in order so that on the day you file FAFSA, your EFC is as close to 0 as possible. (Lots of threads here on how to do that).</p>
<p>Then use College Board to focus on colleges that meet a high % of need, and that have a high % of grants to loans. All that info is avail in each schools financial aid profile. Some of the top schools meet 100% of need, and some of those have recently replaced loans with grants.</p>
<p>The problem with merit scholarships, for a family making 40K a year, is this. Your parents’ income is low enough that you’re very likely going to get some need-based financial aid from whatever college you go to. You’ll probably be eligible for a Pell grant, state grant money, and perhaps college grants as well. You have a good chance of getting some aid packages that meet nearly all of your need. Now, if you bust your butt and get, for example, two outside scholarships, the college you select will reduce your need-based aid by the amount of the outside scholarships. True, they generally start by reducing self-help portion (loans and perhaps work study). But once they’ve eaten through that portion, they reduce the other grants to offset your outside scholarship.</p>
<p>So- make sure you understand how to file for need-based aid in a way that increases your chances of getting generous aid packages. Then, if you want to also look for merit scholarship money, have at it.</p>
<p>thanks so much!</p>
<p>Look at some of my previous posts. I posted a lot of scholarships in my previous posts.</p>
<p>What sblake says about outside merit scholarships and their affect on FA is true. However, you should recognize the difference between outside merit scholarships and instutitional merit scholarships which are given by the college. Institutional merit scholarships plus FA are often an excellent way to make college affordable. However, when looking for instutional merit scholarships, be aware that you will need to be in the tip top of the application pool to have a chance at getting one.</p>
<p>One more comment about outside scholarships, while you have the best chance at getting local ones, they are most often for only one year and the amounts are usually in the couple hundred to thousand dollar range. Since the majority of outside scholarships are for entering freshmen, it can be difficult to try to pay for a large portion of your college expenses this way.</p>