Need some advice re: college scholarships

[bluesaturn]

Well, you have to remember that estimated family contribution includes parents getting loans. Also, FAFSA considers mom and dad's contributions to a retirement plan to be a luxury expense, money that should instead be spent on tuition (unless you are age 60 I believe, or older).
I think more accurately the estimated family contribution may be more that people WANT to pay, but based on their income, it is within their means.

Yes I agree and I'm sorry for my lack of clarity. The amount is technically possible based on their income. But as you alluded to in order to pay this amount many people would have to stop funding their retirement, pull younger sibings out of private school or sports, etc. So many families don't find themselves able to pay this amount from a pratical standpoint.

Scholarships that are not "need based" are still based on needing them for college expenses. They are generally not earned like prize money, but go directly to the college. If they're not needed, they're not dispersed.

I've been on several scholarship committees and we're always amazed at how many students think we're going to hand them a check - despite it clearly stating on the application that "the check will go directly to the school of your choice for tuition only."

There are some scholarships that are given without rules, but that's not the norm.

So if you send the check to the school, I'm assuming the school deposits the check into the student account. Then if the student has more money in their account than charges, normally they would receive a refund (like if the parent paid more than tuition cost). So in this case, does your scholarship require the college return the money to you? I'm just wondering because my experience seems to be different from many people on this thread, so I'm wondering how other scholarships may be handled.

 

[arminnie]

I have never heard of scholarship $$ for graduate schhol.

I've never heard of anyone saving undergrad scholarships for grad school. But very few students pay full tuition for grad school if they are going full time.

My last semester at Stanford grad school (years ago) my scholarship my last quarter was less then $200. I was starting a job making a lot of money in a few months so they shifted me more to debt.

The $200 was really just a token amount to say that they provided scholarships to most of the students. They laughed at me when I registered and said maybe that would buy a couple of books!