My family is financially stable (although not wealthy) and with the financial aid packets we’ve gotten so far, my family can afford to pay for my college education. I was in the process of applying for external scholarships, when a question came to my mind…
So I just wanted to get some opinions - do you feel morally obligated to not apply to scholarships, if you don’t absolutely need them to attend college? Should kids from families who can afford to pay refrain from applying for merit scholarships in order to ‘save’ the money for less-well-off kids, who otherwise wouldn’t be able to attend college?
I’m curious to see other’s thought about this.
If you earn them, take them. If your parents have extra money, they can always donate it to the university’s alum funds to help others. I’m sitting here watching an ESPN documentary about Snoop Dog’s son trying to get recruited to play football. He should take the football scholarship. Other famous sports figures and actors have kids who win scholarships. I think they should take them. They’ve earned them.
Apply away, though there are few merit-only scholarships. Those scholarships may pave the way to internships etc, and if your family has money after graduation, that can help pay for law school or a less stressed retirement.
If a scholarship is based on merit, then it should go to the most meritorious person, regardless of financial situation. If a scholarship is intended for students with financial need, then need will be a component of the scholarship criteria.
As long as you’re eligible for the scholarship, take it if you get it.
As my parents said: “why should we be punished due to the fact that we scrimped and saved for college and thus have cash available to pay for it, when others squandered their money and don’t have cash now?”
I understand your hesitation. It’s admirable but I’m not sure you are in the financial bracket of those who should think in these terms. Sure, if I were Julia Roberts who makes 20+ million dollars a picture, I’d be proud but embarrassed for my child to be scooping up money from external scholarships (I see school incentive scholarships like a football scholarship as a different category.) However, being “financially stable” doesn’t mean that college costs are coming easy and without a sacrifice. If you getting any sort of financial aid then absolutely you should be applying for scholarships. Even if your family could pay the full amount you shouldn’t feel like you are stealing money from the less fortunate. The less fortunate have more access to financial aid if they choose the right schools. The middle class depends a lot more on merit to help them through. There will be plenty of other times in your life when you might and should hold back for the benefit of others. This isn’t really one of those times.
Of course you should apply. If a scholarship is purely based on merit & you’re selected, you’ve earned it. If there’s a need component, they’ll ask for your financial info; you won’t be “taking it” from those in need, since the scholarship committee likely won’t pick you based on your financials. Pretty much if you qualify, you have a right to apply. If you don’t qualify, you can apply anyways of course, but don’t expect to get any $.
Sooo be sure to look for merit-only scholarships & good luck. 
Applying doesn’t hurt anyone. It’s up to the scholarship committee to decide who to award the money to, not you. They will award the money based on whatever criteria they have decided–financial need, academic merit, extracurriculars, volunteer activities, etc. If the scholarship is meant for students with financial need, the committee won’t give you the scholarship. If it’s a scholarship that doesn’t consider financial need, then the people responsible for funding the scholarship understand fully that the money may go to someone who doesn’t strictly need the money, but they may be deserving in other ways–high academic or extracurricular achievement, for example.
It would be unethical to make your financial situation look worse than it is in order to get more scholarship money, but that’s clearly not what your doing. Don’t worry about it. Apply to whatever you qualify for. They list scholarship qualifications for a reason.
Go ahead and apply, but I’ve scoured every source I can and I’ve found like 10 merit scholarships anywhere ever, so usually this isn’t an issue
I would apply. If the awards are income based, you won’t get them if your family makes too much. And if they’re merit, you deserve whatever you do win because you did the work to earn it.
Have you read I think it’s the P Diddy interview? His son was accepted with a big merit or sports scholarship and people got on his case. His response? Look my son earned that and who am I to take it away from him? My cousins mother is one of the top 10 lawyers in her state and my niece got almost a full ride. The funny thing is that I know my aunt and probably P Diddy have philanthropic interests in the school now and will donate many times beyond the scholarship. Think of that!
I think that unless you’re truly wealthy (and I mean wealthy), then there is nothing wrong with it.
However, I do know of a case where an upper-middle-class student got a full ride merit, and the “only child” had a pre-paid, which more than covered any remaining costs, and the parents were harping on her to “get more” to pay for extras (like sorority dues). They asked my opinion and I told them to “back off” and let truly needy kids get those add’l awards. Geez!!!
I don’t see why not. I believe that good things happen to good people. But I want to say, there are scholarship for financially needy people, you obviously would not fall in that category. But if you deserve it, then you deserve it. Like someone said you can always help someone else out another way.
mom2collegekids,I think even the ‘truly wealthy’ should get to compete and take the honors of merit scholarships. Why should a Kennedy not get to be a Rhodes scholar or NMF? Why should someone with prepaid tuition (which is really just a form of a 529 plan) not get to be honored as the Elks club volunteer of the year or best athlete or whatever other prize there is? Sometimes those who receive certain awards get to live in a certain dorm or be part of a club. Sometimes it is just the honor of saying ‘I’m on a full ride scholarship for merit’ and I earned it myself.
Tomorrow Snoop Dog’s will sign his NLI to play football, and he most certainly will be taking a scholarship that can go to someone else. I still think it is his right to take it because he earned it. Did he earn it because his father is rich enough to send him to a private high school where he had the best coaches and facilities and ESPN followed him around and showcased him? Yes, he had more opportunities than most high school football players. It’s never going to be the same opportunities for everyone. There are a lot of opportunities only open to poor kids. or minority kids (even rich ones) or females or musicians. I think all who are qualified should be allowed to take the awards.
There was a boy who won a MLK scholarship (a local one awarded by a black civic group in Southern California). Turns out this boy was white, which wasn’t against the rules for the award. There was a big uproar and the boy was shamed into withdrawing (after he’d already won) because ‘everyone should have known’ it was only for black kids. Really? A scholarship named after a man who dreamed that one day everyone would be judged by his character and not by the color of his skin should only go to kids with a certain skin color? I think the scholarship committee should be ashamed of their decision and their sloppy rules. If a scholarship is restricted, those restrictions should be clearly stated, but if not, anyone qualified should have the same chance.
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Why should a Kennedy not get to be a Rhodes scholar or NMF?
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Who said anything about a wealthy NMF shouldn’t become a NMF?
As for things like Rhodes Scholars, those are typically very unique and really the issue of whether a “poorer” student should get it is really not the issue there. Nor would it be for a funded PhD program.
I’m just saying that if a student has “plenty” (merit, lots of family money, etc), then chasing after “bits more” for sorority money is just…well…gross…especially when a poor child needs that money for …uh…books!!!
True story: Even though strictly speaking we didn’t need help to pay for her two years at community college, I made Happykid apply for the one merit-based scholarship she was qualified for there because she needed practice writing essays and getting LORs before her eventual transfer process. I also figured the money would come in handy if she got it. Well she did get the scholarship, so every cent that we would have paid for the CC went straight to the bank to help pay for the place she would be transferring to. Which turned out to be a lucky because Happydad lost his job half-way through her junior year, and there wasn’t a cent extra to put toward anything. That two year scholarship at the CC meant she was able to graduate from her state U with only the debt from her junior and senior year federal loans.
Unless your college fund is socked away in an account that can only be used for your education, there is no guarantee that your family won’t suffer a severe financial reversal that could change their plans for how they will cover the costs of your studies. Apply for the merit-based scholarships that you are eligible for. If you get the money, take it and be proud of your success.
But I’m arguing that even if you have oodles of money, the student can still apply for all scholarships he is qualified for without guilt. I just disagree with mom2collegekids. It doesn’t matter to me if the award money is spent on sorority dues or books or transportation or a luxury apartment. Those who give out the scholarships make the rules and the terms and if they want to add a ‘need’ requirement, they can, or if they want to restrict the award to books or exclude payments to sororities, they can. If they don’t and you win, you win. My daughter’s friend got lots of little awards when she didn’t need the money at all. She got $400 from the NHS for something, won the art contest at school, won some civic award, all on top of her merit money. Could others have used the money? Of course. For her, it was more about winning the essay contest or art show than the money, but she did the work and won. She wasn’t first in the class (or even top 20), she wasn’t an athlete, she didn’t win the beauty pageant (and yes, this school had one), but she worked for all the awards she got.
Michael Bloomberg was mayor of NYC, but he didn’t really need the job and it could have gone to someone who really needed a job. Too bad. Tom Brady doesn’t need the car that came with his MVP award, but he still gets it even if someone else could use it more. That is life.
I don’t find anything wrong with a family looking to have all expenses paid, even sorority dues which include room and board, even if the family can pay. As long as the student is qualified for the award, go for it.
This is a real issue that has been discussed in terms of whether colleges that are not meeting full need should even be offering merit money. I’ve seen a lot of discussion about it. The fact of the matter is that merit awards are offered to buy the school the students that it most wants. Any individual feeling that such awards should go only to those needing the money, can personally refrain (if not needy) in applying for such awards, and donating the funds back to scholarships or other causes. But right now these scholarships are out there for a good reason that serves the colleges’ needs wants, those that offer them.
Those who make the scholarship rules can do so. Personally, my kids got plenty of scholarship money. Did I encourage them to seek out every last dime? Heck no. I wouldn’t feel right about that. All but only a small amount of their merit were “assured merit” which meant that ANYONE who had those stats got those awards.
It’s just my personal opinion, but I don’t think that well-heeled folks should be scrounging for every last dime of merit awards to cover every penny of education and EC-fun (sorority dues) when the awards are highly competitive and there are likely many needier students needing “book money” or some other help… At some point, it’s just ugly and greedy.
Comparing what a NFL quarterback gets is silly. Any poor person who can do what Brady can do, can get the same. The only people that Brady was competing with for that car were a bunch of other highly paid players. BTW…Tom gave that car away to his teammate who caught that interception.