Financial Aid for Upper-Middle Class

cptofthehouse
Thu, 29 Nov 2012 12:57:14 +0000

I doubt that merit awards will be affected by financial need. I know a lot of kids who got merit money with zero financial need. The merit money is used as an incentive to “buy” the students a college most wants. At many colleges, the merit money is distributed by admissions, and the financial aid is distributed by the financial aid office, and the amounts are integrated if both awards are given so that no need is given for the amounts that the merit awards cover.

Also, there are schools that have merit within need awards where a student can get more money than need stipulates if they qualify for any need at all when there are scholarships in the financial aid pot. In other words if your kid needs $10K according to the fin aid calculations and also qualifies for a $20K award, he might get it whereas students with no need are not even in the running. This is when need is a factor to qualify, but is not the driving factor.

There are exceptions, of course, and you can ask an admissions office directly if applying for aid will affect merit awards or admissions.

For those schools where need is a factor in admissions, it’s not just a matter of foregoing aid the first year. Most of those schools have procedures set up so that if you apply in future years, you have restrictions or do not get aid. They tend to make that very clear. They will want prior year data to make sure you are not playing that game. Schools that are need blind in admissions don’t care. You just miss out that first year in aid, but if you are accepted at a school that is need aware on the basis that you will not need financial aid, and you apply for it later, there can be a sit out period or an outright denial.

Noname, FAFSA also hits the familes up for 5.6% of assets over the protection allowance that are not in those protected accounts. The difference is that primary home equity is absolutely not included in FAFSA calculations whereas most PROFILE schools do take at least some of it into consideration.