If you are upper middle class and get the Presidential scholarship, I really don’t imagine you receiving any additional grant aid unless there are multiple kids in your family in college (and even then,probably not). Merit aid will not offset your EFC (as determined by USC- not FAFSA). If you are upper middle class, colleges expect your family to have saved money for college and to liquidate assets or borrow against those assets. So they don’t simply expect your family to pay out of current earnings. They look at all assets and expect those to be tapped.