On my son’s parent page for a CSS profile school, a couple of parents are posting that the school is only allowing the Gates scholarship to fund the students portion of their cost of attendance.
This seems to contradict what the Gates scholarship says it does, which is to pay last dollar up to the full cost of attendance.
I would like to understand this better. Anyone have any explanation?
@kelsomom @BelknapPoint @thumper1 @Metawampe @politeperson ?
The way I read what you are writing is the school will provide what it will and then the scholarship kicks in with what they don’t cover.
Am I misreading what you wrote ?
In essence if the school is granting 50% of the COA, then they’d get the rest from gates.
At least it’s how I read what you wrote. The Gates website says similar:
The Gates Scholarship (TGS) is a highly selective, last-dollar scholarship for outstanding, minority, high school seniors from low-income households.
That’s what I thought but that’s not what is happening. They are only allowing gates to cover the 6k student contribution. The rest of the family contribution is not covered.
This seems to be a school requirement not a Gates policy. In fact, it seems contradictory to the Gates purpose which is why I am confused.
I would contact the financial aid office to seek clarity. Maybe you are misreading, the other parents are mistaken, or last dollar has a different meaning.
The school can likely resolve this quickly for you.
That’s what I’m hoping!!
I fixed an important typo. I had originally posted that the school is only allowing the Gates scholarship to find the parents portion, but I corrected it to state that the school is only allowing it to find the student’s portion.
The last dollar scholarships cover any “gapping” or “unmet need” between financial aid awards and the cost of attendance after the parent contribution is factored in. So at a meets need college, last dollar scholarships (including Gates) usually cover:
But those scholarships cannot be used for the parent contribution as far as I can tell because of federal regulations prohibiting funding over the COA.
But if the parent portion is, say, 10k, isn’t that part of the COA that Gates would cover? I realize I am missing something important but can’t seem to get to it.
One would think so, but no or at least not at the colleges that my oldest daughters considered. I guess that I am unclear about whether it is the colleges’ policies that dictated this or some sort of federal law. But the policy did impact which college both daughters selected. How the aid was packaged mattered. For our family, the last dollar scholarship kicked in at the colleges that packaged a low parental contribution + student contribution (work-study). The last dollar scholarship could not be used at colleges with a high parent contribution + no work study and no student contribution.
@kelsmom probably knows. I will guess that the parent contribution possibly is required. I’m not a Gates expert.
@Mwfan1921 might know
This is what the Gates handbook says so maybe it is the colleges’ policies. Highlights are mine…
STUDENT AID INDEX/FAMILY CONTRIBUTION
A Scholar’s SAI is calculated based on the information provided on the FAFSA by a Scholar’s parent(s) and/or the Scholar. Some schools collect additional information that may lead them to calculate a family contribution that differs from the SAI. This is commonly called “institutional methodology.”
As a federally based program, TGS uses “federal methodology” to calculate the TGS award amount. If the Scholar’s institution calculates a family contribution using their institutional methodology (IMFC) and does not allow TGS to fully or partially cover the IMFC, TGS will use IMFC in the award calculation.
Please note, if a Scholar’s IMFC is less than the federally calculated SAI, TGS will calculate the student’s award based on the federally calculated SAI.
Some institutions include students’ federal work-study and summer income contributions as part of the IMFC. TGS funding may be used to cover a Scholar’s federal work-study and summer income contributions, when allowable and appropriate…
Do you care to share the name of the school?
It’s not unusual for generous “meets needs” schools to limit scholarship “stacking” by first applying outside funding to the student’s contribution starting with any “summer savings” or work study expectations. It’s also not unusual for those schools to reduce a needs-based package due to the arrival of new income/funding, or to hold firm on their expectations for the Parent Contribution.
It’s Brown.
What I am starting to understand is that the policy is if a meets-need school considers that it meets full need and that they determine that the parents should pay, say, $10k then they won’t allow an outside scholarship to pay that $10k. What I don’t understand is why.
Schools like Brown are committed to meeting 100% of demonstrated need with no merit awards. How is the outside merit scholarship different from new income in Brown’s view, and why wouldn’t that affect the parent contribution?
If Brown were to allow families to take full advantage of outside scholarships, why wouldn’t it then reduce aid packages to those families and redirect institutional funding to others that don’t have newfound sources of funds for college? Brown prevents “stacking” so that its financial aid awards support the level of need they identify — nothing more, nothing less, and so that its financial aid packages won’t result in “over-awarding” and become an income stream for a family when combined with outside scholarships.
There are schools that don’t take this stance on “stacking.” Most of them do not have the generous “meets needs” policies of Brown and its peer institutions, though.
Often, a school is not technically preventing the outside scholarship from covering the parent contribution. What they are doing is reducing the school’s own aid by the amount of the outside scholarship. The effect is the same … the school has decided that they will not award their own aid if total scholarships are more than COA - Parent Contribution. They will reduce their own aid accordingly to keep from having scholarships covering any parent contribution.
In the case of this school, Brown is specifically stating that the school is not going to reduce its own funding … but they won’t allow TGS to provide funding that will exceed COA - Parent Contribution. TGS is last dollar funding. If Brown reduces its award when a TGS award comes through, they aren’t actually allowing it to be last dollar. It would be more like “last dollar + more dollars after we went back to change our award.” I don’t know if some schools might do that, but obviously Brown does not.
This section basically says that TGS honors the school’s decision to keep total scholarships as COA - Parent Contribution (with parent contribution determined using the CSS Profile, not FAFSA).
Also, Gates is “last dollar” funding, which is less of a need at schools like Brown that meet 100% of need and take a broader view of college expenses. It’s still providing a benefit to the student, especially if it’s relieving a student of work study and summer savings obligations.
Not always because some colleges do not expect work study or summer savings. How the colleges break up the total family contribution (between parent and student) can make a difference in whether or not the scholarship can be used.
For example, if a student gets into three colleges, they could all meet need with a COA of 90K and different packages.
So as a last dollar scholarship, Gates does not reduce the 80K grant from the colleges. Even though the family contribution is approximately the same in all cases, College A likely leads to a partial refund from the college (using Gates funds) that the student can use for personal expenses and books. College B leads to a smaller refund. College C means not only a higher parent contribution, but also no money at all from Gates. Obviously, the student can still get a job and help with the family contribution. But in scenario A, the student theoretically doesn’t need a job at all because they are getting help from their outside scholarship.
It is possible to get a Gates Scholarship and receive no award at all. From their manual:
ZERO DOLLAR AWARDS
If a Scholar’s Financial Aid Form demonstrates no unmet financial need or replaceable loans or work, the Scholar will be assigned an “Active” TGS status with a zero-dollar award for the academic term. The funds not utilized for that Scholar cannot be repurposed for other educational activities.
I don’t recall saying “always.” I was using the simplest case to illustrate the point I was trying to make. Anyway, the OP is referring to Brown. This is Brown’s policy (which is nearly identical to that of a peer institution I know well):
“Private outside scholarships and employee tuition benefits are encouraged and can be used to reduce the student’s expected summer earnings, and/or student employment. If the amount of outside assistance a student receives exceeds the total amount of these two components, then University Scholarship will be reduced, dollar for dollar.”
I understand. My main point is that it is very possible to get a last dollar scholarship that does not benefit either the family or the college in any way.
I was on the board of a “last dollar scholarship” organization. And yes, we were aware that in (limited) cases, neither the family nor the college were able to “benefit”. But our goal as an organization- and the wishes of our donors, both living and dead, was to provide assistance to the MAJORITY of our applicants who might not have made it to freshman week-- at all- without those last dollars. It wasn’t our job to change university policies on how they view outside awards; it wasn’t our job to lobby congress to change how Pell grants were administered; it wasn’t our job to endlessly grind on how unfair it was that a student admitted to Harvard or Princeton wasn’t going to be able to use the money we were prepared to award them just because the exceedingly generous Harvard/Princeton’s were already covering their “need”.
It was our job to help the kid admitted to our state flagship whose family-- quite literally- could not figure out where an extra 5K was going to come from that year to get the kid to college. Kid already working 50+ hours in the summer to cover the self-help, books, transportation. It was our job to help the kid admitted to the “less generous” schools which loaded the kid up with loans, loans and more loans-- and if we could make sure that the kid only took the federal maximum- and that their low income family didn’t have to worry about how the heck they were going to take a Parent Plus- that was considered a win.
If we lived in financial aid fairy land, then EVERY SINGLE KID could maximize every single dollar out there. But we don’t. And the VAST majority of low income kids are not worried that Brown and Yale are too generous with their own money, but won’t allow outside scholarships to replace self-help. No they are not. They are worried about needing to take a cab or an Uber if their chem lab ends at 10 pm but the bus stops running at 9 pm. They are worried that the 10 meal per week minimum food service contract costs as much as their family spends on food in a week to feed 5 people-- but since they won’t have a car at college and won’t be able to get to a supermarket, if they don’t sign a meal plan contract, how will they eat?
Etc. Brown’s financial aid policies really didn’t come up when we were talking to a kid’s social worker about the impact of an incarcerated parent on the kid’s college plans (i.e. who was going to serve as guardian to the 15 year old sibling if the kid “went away” to college".