Late Scholarships

General Forum
1

Long story short, I’m currently pursuing my MFA in glass as a first-year out-of-state student. I received a scholarship covering about $12k of my $32k yearly tuition, which is meant to cover in-state costs for first-year students. I assumed the remaining balance would be covered by loans through financial aid, so I received about $57k in total aid, which aligns with the cost of attendance (COA) for out-of-state students.

However, I recently found out that I was awarded two more scholarships to help cover tuition, but they haven’t been applied to my account yet due to some administrative mix-up. Apparently, this happens frequently at my school, but that’s another story.

My question is: since I’ve already reached my COA with the initial scholarship and loans, what happens to these additional scholarships that would exceed my COA by nearly $20k for the year? I’ve already accepted them and was told they’d be processed in about 14 days, but it’s been longer than that. Has anyone else dealt with this situation? What happens to the extra money I should have been awarded?

Thanks in advance!

2

You’ll get the excess funds refunded to you. What you choose to do with it is up to you, but if your loans are accruing interest, putting the money toward paying those off might be a smart move.

3

Unless they’re gap scholarships (which typically don’t consider loans), the excess should be refunded to you. However, I’d recommend reaching out to your financial aid office since the process can vary from school to school.

4

Even though I’ve already reached the COA? Ideally, I’d use the extra funds to repay the loans I took out to cover tuition I shouldn’t have had to pay, but I’ve been told multiple times that I can receive more aid than the COA.