<p>I am a little baffled that people are surprised that a lot of schools count the scholarship as an asset and therefore as part of the EFC. If the family had $15,000 available for college (per year) and won a $10,000 scholarship, then of course they now have an EFC of $25,000. It is called need-based aid, after all, and the need is now less. What else would you expect? Now if the school takes that out of the grant portion of their need-based package before reducing the work-study and loans, that is a different issue.</p>
<p>The other reason for a scholarship being preferable to not having one is that in most cases it is guaranteed for 4 years as long as certain GPA requirements are met. This buffers people from changes in their own financial circumstances that might affect the FA package.</p>