Private Schools - Need based Aid reevaluation Question

Merit aid is often set during freshman year and continues for the 8 (or sometimes 10) semesters as long as grades are maintain. Some schools require those to be continuous semesters. My duaghter’s did, and she almost screwed it up as she took a semester off to do a Disney internship, but her school didn’t recognize it. She had asked permission but that wasn’t recorded correctly and we had to beg for the merit aid to be reinstated.

My other daughter attended a school where a lot of the students do internships or co-ops. Those done through the school are as if there is no break. There is a co-op program where the students have two 6-month co-ops plus take one or two online classes during the co-ops and in doing so they graduated in the summer after their senior year. They get FA during the co-ops, but because they aren’t full time students, it is reduced. My daughter was more the exception than the rule, going for 8 semesters, not a single credit transferred in, no summers.

Most of the schools you listed don’t give merit aid, only need based aid which is re-evaluated every year and shouldn’t matter if the student takes time off for a co-op, although the 4 year grad rate is very high and it doesn’t appear students at those schools are taking a semester off to work.