Does athletic or merit aid result in lower finaid?

[Unregistered]

I understand that EFC is not changed by the outside aid. But if the school is offering 100% of the student's need, does is really matter if they call it merit aid, athletic aid, or whatever. Your kid is going to get that aid in one form or another.

EFC is changed ( for worse) by outside aid. The stuff is pretty confusing . Does someone have a reliable link one can go to to clarify all this?

[Unregistered]

EFC is changed ( for worse) by outside aid. The stuff is pretty confusing . Does someone have a reliable link one can go to to clarify all this?

Wrong.

EFC is not changed by aid.

The outside aid is simply counted as inside aid, rather than money the family is contributing, since the family is not contributing the outside aid.

The F in EFC stands for Family - it is the money that the formula estimates the family can/should be paying.

[Unregistered]

EFC is changed ( for worse) by outside aid. The stuff is pretty confusing . Does someone have a reliable link one can go to to clarify all this?

https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/fafsa/n...how-calculated

[Unregistered]

Wrong.

EFC is not changed by aid.

The outside aid is simply counted as inside aid, rather than money the family is contributing, since the family is not contributing the outside aid.

The F in EFC stands for Family - it is the money that the formula estimates the family can/should be paying.

Then how does this explain the umass Lowell example described earlier?

[Unregistered]

Then how does this explain the umass Lowell example described earlier?

A could possible options come to mind
1) they were confusing EFC with some other figure. Maybe the student aid report talks about family contribution and adds the outside private scholarship to that figure.


2) the person they spoke to at the school gave an incorrect explanation and there was some other change in financial status they didn't account for (eg increase in student earnings or assets).

[Unregistered]

I understand that EFC is not changed by the outside aid. But if the school is offering 100% of the student's need, does is really matter if they call it merit aid, athletic aid, or whatever. Your kid is going to get that aid in one form or another.

It does matter because each does have some form of a catch. Athletic generally is not guaranteed each year for all four years. Get cut, drop off a team or the coach just doesn't want give you $ any more you better have a back up plan if you were counting on that money. If your income is low enough you should be able to make that back up with need based aid. But some people may not qualify for more. Merit/academic money lasts all four years as long as you maintain a certain GPA (which could be a struggle if a student is in over his/her head academically). Financial aid or other need based grants should remain constant as long as your household income doesn't change dramatically (if say you work on commission and have a really great year you could get hit the following year with less aid).

[Unregistered]

I think a lot of the confusion comes from the phrase EFC (Expected Family Contribution). The FAFSA (or other need calc formulas) are made to create what I'll call a Target Aid Figure (TAF).

TAF = Merit Aid + Athletic Grants + Outside Scholarships + Loans + Work Study + Unmet Need. (might be a couple more categories but you get the idea)

EFC + TAF = Tuition.

Since TAF includes ALL aid a student receives - and in reality, that is the figure being calculated. When you get outside aid, it reduces the TAF, thus increasing the EFC.

Different schools have different ways of figuring aid once they have the figures. I'm sure you can imagine all sorts of complicated formulas that each fin aid dept uses to attempt to fairly allocate available aid. For example a few (well endowed schools) meet all need, other schools start with loans then meet a percentage of whats left with grants, others meet a percentage of TAF with grants and then give loans.

There's nothing in the EFC Formula that factors in merit or athletic scholarship aid so I don't see how the EFC would change if one were to receive merit or athletic aid:

https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/sites/d...fc-formula.pdf

[Unregistered]

There's nothing in the EFC Formula that factors in merit or athletic scholarship aid so I don't see how the EFC would change if one were to receive merit or athletic aid:

https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/sites/d...fc-formula.pdf

The EFC formula calculates what YOU are expected to contribute. This is outside of any awards and is purely based on your financial profile. TC is Total Cost of Attendance which is Tuition ++. TC - EFC = Need. Need is broken into initial need and remaining need.

your EFC is calculated yearly, and it remains constant across schools. your need will vary as total costs vary across schools. All awards (merit, outside, athletic) go against your initial need, and loans kick in to cover your remaining need. Of.course some also take private loans to cover portions of EFC as well. All aid is counted in your package. Schools are forbidden from packaging any student above the Total Cost of Attendance

[Unregistered]

The EFC formula calculates what YOU are expected to contribute. This is outside of any awards and is purely based on your financial profile. TC is Total Cost of Attendance which is Tuition ++. TC - EFC = Need. Need is broken into initial need and remaining need.

your EFC is calculated yearly, and it remains constant across schools. your need will vary as total costs vary across schools. All awards (merit, outside, athletic) go against your initial need, and loans kick in to cover your remaining need. Of.course some also take private loans to cover portions of EFC as well. All aid is counted in your package. Schools are forbidden from packaging any student above the Total Cost of Attendance

A couple of corrections...

1) Some schools do no not meet all need - not even with loans. In these cases, you either go elsewhere or you have to find more than your EFC.

2) Some schools start by giving max loans and then comes the other aid.

[Unregistered]

Big 5 conference schools as well as smaller conference fully funded schools offer 100% COA plus discretionary cash payouts up to $2500 per year. Before anyone claims NT players only do the math. That's over 600 scholarships just in those conferences. And yes I know many programs split up the scholarships but there are players getting paid to play soccer in college on the girls side at least.

[Unregistered]

Appreciate the clarification (correction?)
To the original question:
Can Academic merit or Athletic Scholarship grants impact need-based aid?
the simple anwer is Yes.

scholarships are still good tho. Many families (who park range rovers at Lancaster) may not qualify nor will they apply for need-based aid. Doesn't mean that they aren't looking to pay less for college. Academic and Athletic Scholarships allow colleges to discount tuition for desirable students. Keep your grade up!

[Unregistered]

Big 5 conference schools as well as smaller conference fully funded schools offer 100% COA plus discretionary cash payouts up to $2500 per year. Before anyone claims NT players only do the math. That's over 600 scholarships just in those conferences. And yes I know many programs split up the scholarships but there are players getting paid to play soccer in college on the girls side at least.

Toughest conferences to land a spot as well. MA doesn't send too many players their way

[Unregistered]

Toughest conferences to land a spot as well. MA doesn't send too many players their way

That's because most of the players around here actually suck and aren't willing to pay the price to be a good soccer player. How could they when you have parents telling them that some tiny D3 school should be their goal?

[Unregistered]

That's because most of the players around here actually suck and aren't willing to pay the price to be a good soccer player. How could they when you have parents telling them that some tiny D3 school should be their goal?

You can pay the price and still not be great. Its called god-given talent and athleticism. Without that, you won't go far no better how much you train, practice, push yourself, etc.

[Unregistered]

You can pay the price and still not be great. Its called god-given talent and athleticism. Without that, you won't go far no better how much you train, practice, push yourself, etc.

All very true, but if you start off by setting soccer as a secondary goal and then only give 3/4 effort, you shouldn't even bother. It is amazing how many parents around here are paying for top shelf soccer experiences for their kids without any intention of committing to the soccer aspect of the equation. Sad