I believe our emails from DU said the $5k was on top of whatever other merit aid the student would otherwise receive. So if the student qualified for their “max” of $33k then the ED 5k would push it up to 38K. I don’t remember the exact numbers as mine aren’t EDing there, but the $5k was in addition to the other money, so those kids would be eligible for 5K more than the max a non-ED kid could get. They definitely didn’t say the max an ED kid would get is lower than they’d get otherwise.