Jonathan Hughes: [00:00:00] For the past week or so, I’ve been talking to families and students who are reviewing financial aid offers and are left with questions. Maybe you’ve had one or two of these same questions, or if you know someone who you think would benefit from this information, I hope you’ll take a moment to forward them this episode because I know that our question today is one that a lot of students and families have. So let’s hear it from our student at Blue Hills Regional Technical High School.

Student 3: Can my financial aid change throughout the four years?

Jonathan Hughes: Okay, this is a great question and the simple answer is maybe, but probably not, and probably not too much. So let me explain why now, as you have no doubt realized, your [00:01:00] financial aid offer covers one academic year.

This makes sense because college costs change from year to year, and so can other factors like whether a student lives on campus or how many classes they’re taking. So your costs can vary from year to year. Now, let’s talk about financial aid. There are two ways that financial aid is awarded merit-based and need-based.

Now, let’s take need-based first. Need-based aid includes things like grants and works study, and you qualify for this type of aid by filing your financial aid forms. Like the FAFSA or the CSS profile or any other forms you may need to file in demonstrating on those forms that your family needs financial help.

In order to afford the college, you need to file financial aid forms every year if you want aid for the following year. Now, here’s the thing. The main components used to determine your financial aid are parent income, [00:02:00] student income, parent assets, and student assets. And while those can change from year to year, now if the opposite happens and you suffer a loss of income or assets, definitely let the financial aid office know they can and often do review the circumstances to see if you may be eligible for more aid than you were initially given.

And that situation is actually much more common than receiving less aid from one year to the next. So it’s very unlikely that you will lose a significant amount of need-based financial aid from one year to the next. But now let’s talk about merit-based aid. Merit-based aid isn’t based on your family’s finances, it’s based on student achievement.

So think scholarships, athletic scholarships, academic scholarships, artistic scholarships. Those are merit aid and they’re usually offered by the college. Now, it’s really important that if you qualify for a merit scholarship, [00:03:00] that you ask the financial aid office a few key questions. Is this scholarship only for one year?

Can it be renewed from year to year? And if it can be renewed, will the amount stay the same each year? And what do I need to do to ensure renewal? Some scholarships vary from year to year, but here is the most important point. Be sure to understand what the student must do to continue qualifying for that scholarship each year.

Oftentimes, students must maintain a certain GPA in order to requalify. Athletic scholarships may have specific participation or performance benchmarks, whatever the criteria. Make sure you know what they are and that you meet them. Because in the relatively few cases over the years where I have spoken to families who have received substantially less in financial aid from one year to the next, it was almost always because the student didn’t meet the requirements to renew [00:04:00] their merit based scholarship.

So as long as you avoid that situation, and as long as your finances don’t vary too significantly from year to year, it’s very unlikely that your financial aid amount will substantially dip from one year to the next. As always, I’d like to thank our producer, Shaun Connolly. I’d like to thank Lauren Danz, Lisa Rooney, Meredith Clement, AJ Yee, and Christina Davidson for their assistance in posting the show.

Once again, my name is Jonathan Hughes and this has been the MEFA.