Please go here to meet our 2018 Scholarship Winners.
Attention: College Students and Parents of College Students. If you are headed out to university this Fall please be aware of two sneaky collegiate financial aid tricks to separate you from your hard earned cash. Each is summarized in the post linked below.
Scholarship Displacement – Different colleges and universities set a baseline level at which the amount of private scholarship moneys that a student has earned outside of the attending university, is folded back into the university (and not into the student’s private account). That level set is arbitrary and varies from University to University.
Example – Kennedy Mapes OHS c/o 2018 earned $2000 from the 2018 Building A Better World Scholarship. She also won a $4000 Community Foundation Scholarship spread out over four years, as well as $1000 from a private third source. Lake Superior State, where she will attend in the Fall, has a $2000 scholarship displacement limit. After her Lake State financial aid package counts $1000 from Community Foundation and $1000 from third party source she’s reached her Displacement limit. If we send our Scholarship to Lake State in Kennedy’s name – our $2000 replaces an amount that she was already been awarded by the University. They reduce her previous total of school sponsored scholarships by $2000. In essence our $2000 award to Kennedy becomes a donation to Lake Superior State – and never reaches her pocket.
This practice is going on all over the state of Michigan; kids and their parents often don’t even know that is happening. The Muskegon Community Foundation struggles mightily with their scholarships beings converted into displaced institutional donations to the university, instead of real scholarships to the student. In addition, student’s who are expected to go out and seek private scholarships, depending on the displacement level as determined by the individual university – have absolutely no incentive to do so – since the money will never make it into their student account.
Since Building a Better World Scholarship has attained 501 c-3 non profit status, we are able to bypass this system and write the check directly to Kennedy. The $2000 limit is not surpassed and she keeps all of her well deserved scholarship moneys. While that helps our Scholarship Award Winners, it does nothing for hundreds who don’t even realize that the practice is happening.
Frontloading – is equally misleading. The practice is similar to bait and switch advertising. The university in order to lure in unsuspecting freshmen, frontload first year student aid package by stuffing it with good sized university grants. Naturally, you expect that package to repeat itself for four years. But it doesn’t; this is a one year deal. The next three years you make up the difference with loans, thus increasing your final debt out the door.
Example – You’ll understand Frontloading best through an experience I had with Oakridge High School’s 2018 Salutatorian Jared Holter. In March 2018, Jared and I visited Western Michigan University’s Financial Aid Department with a goal of discussing his financial aid package for attendance in the Fall. Jared’s first year aid package included a substantial $6000 freshman grant. That grant, we learned from the Director of Financial Aid, was valid for one year only. The next three years, Jared, if he chose to attend WMU – would have to make up the difference with cash or loans. An unsuspecting student and/or parent, might not be aware of this fact, and naturally expect the subsequent three years at Western to cost approximately the same as year one. They would be wrong – about $18,000 wrong. Jared asked the right questions. He said “No Thank You” to WMU and will be attending the University of Michigan in the Fall of 2018.
Each of the above practices, Frontloading and Scholarship Displacement, is at best misleading, at worst unethical. Each, if left to effect a student’s financial aid package without attention, could be extremely costly .
So – Stay Woke People. Ask questions people. Make wise decisions..
And consider supporting Oakridge Students with a donation to Building A Better World Scholarship today 🙂
Together, we can.
