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95% of universities take scholarship money and reduce loans and work-study. But what about scholarship money beyond that? All of it goes to replace University grants. Which means you're only making money for the Univeristy, and you're not helping yourself!

I want to take a stand at financial aid departments accross America. I just sent an e-mail to the University of Notre Dame describing how a "Student A" could have just one $15,000 for his school, and still be unable to afford the University. The e-mail is below and I encourage everyone to cut and copy (sub in different colleges) this message to send to the schools you're applying to. I would also appreciate it if you could send a copy to ND at finaid@nd.edu

Strength in numbers, and we can change this system. If we all send some copies for different schools for each other we can make a difference!!

Here is the message: MAKE SURE TO CHANGE THE SCHOOL NAME, IF YOU'RE SENDING IT ANYWHERE ELSE!


I was wondering if Notre Dame has ever considered giving the option to allow extra scholarship money to reduce the EFC after the loans and work-study are replaced with scholarships? It seems to me that private scholarships are awarded to students, not universities. Once the loans and work-study are taken care of, what is the student incentive for them to work hard to win more scholarships if they are only winning the money for the university? Columbia, and many other schools allow extra scholarship money to help the students! At least offer a 50/50 split between reducing EFC and reducing university grant money. I would urge financial officers to take these factors into consideration regarding financial aid. Despite what the media says, not all families are able to afford their EFC and this would make it possible for those families to send their children to Notre Dame.

Here is a quick example:

EFC: $16,000
(but family can only afford $10,000, so $6000 in loans must be taken out)
ND: $37,000 a year

The financial aid office awards:
$15,0000 in grants,
$2000 work-study
$4000 loans.
EFC: $16,000
--------------------
TOTAL: $37,000

If this student wins a $6000 scholarship, the money helps the student. (replacing loans and work-study)

What if that same student placed in the renowned Siemens-Westinghouse competition and got a $15,000 scholarship? Not a penny would go to him/her! His science project would have just made Notre Dame $15,000! Why should the student bother taking the money? Remember that the family would still be forced to take $6,000 in loans a year! The student cannot afford to graduate with $24,000 of debt, so chooses to go to a different school. (maybe Columbia?)

Oh well, just another student. Actually, Notre Dame just lost one of the brightest scholars in the country.

That is the problem with the financial aid system.

By Dolce (Dolce) on Monday, August 18, 2003 - 11:28 am: Edit

Matto,
This is exactly the reason for my post entitled "Combining outside schol's and need-based aid." If you haven't read it yet, be sure to do so. I'd be interested in your opinion about the paraphrased letter that momof2 wrote there.
I agree that there is no incentive for a highschool student to spend hours and hours writing essays, doing research reports, filling out app's, and whatever else various scholarships require, if any potential scholarship winnings end up benefitting the university rather than the student. Schaolarship earnings should be treated as any other job income that the student earns because they really do have to WORK hard to earn it. Until recently I was unaware of this problem, and in fact, had told my son "OK, our EFC (based on that online calculator) will probably be about $xxx, so you need to get busy coming up with scholarship money to take care of part of that." (since we can't really afford the full $xxx due to some extenuating circumstances which fin/aid offices may or may not take into consideration.) Then when I found out that scholarships won't reduce our EFC at many colleges, I felt rather hopeless regarding his top choice schools. (Notre Dame is one of them, in fact, and I didn't realize until your post that they are one of the schools that take scholarship money and use it to replace university grants. It's bad enough they give zero merit aid--must they take merit scholarships away from the student too?)

By Dolce (Dolce) on Monday, August 18, 2003 - 11:31 am: Edit

Matto,
This is exactly the reason for my post entitled "Combining outside schol's and need-based aid." If you haven't read it yet, be sure to do so. I'd be interested in your opinion about the paraphrased letter that momof2 wrote there.
I agree that there is no incentive for a highschool student to spend hours and hours writing essays, doing research reports, filling out app's, and whatever else various scholarships require, if any potential scholarship winnings end up benefitting the university rather than the student. Schaolarship earnings should be treated as any other job income that the student earns because they really do have to WORK hard to earn it. Until recently I was unaware of this problem, and in fact, had told my son "OK, our EFC (based on that online calculator) will probably be about $xxx, so you need to get busy coming up with scholarship money to take care of part of that." (since we can't really afford the full $xxx due to some extenuating circumstances which fin/aid offices may or may not take into consideration.) Then when I found out that scholarships won't reduce our EFC at many colleges, I felt rather hopeless regarding his top choice schools. (Notre Dame is one of them, in fact, and I didn't realize until your post that they are one of the schools that take scholarship money and use it to replace university grants. It's bad enough they give zero merit aid--must they take merit scholarships away from the student too?)