Scholarship Money in Cash?

You are responsible for reporting all outside scholarships to the school. Your school will reduce your self help aid first (loans and work study). After that they will reduce their institutional aid.No problem with that. Where do you think the institutional money comes from? The generosity of other people, who give to the school. You have received funding, so they reduce their funding because your need has now decreased. You can ask the school if your scholarship can be used for the one time purchase of a laptop and perhaps a book voucher).

It is not unusual for the scholarship grantor to pay the scholarship directly to the school to make sure that the monies is being used as the grantor intended . It is not the intention of the scholarship grantor to pay for your plane ticket and other related expenses. These would not be qualified educational expenses.

You are suppose to get a job (summer earnings are probably also part of your financial aid package. It is your summer earnings that you should be using to help pay for your plane ticket and other expenses.