Outside Scholarships

Most financial aid professionals and guidance counselors recommend students use Fastweb when searching for outside scholarships online. This web site is free for students and does a nationwide search for scholarships. Libraries, a parent’s employer, and community organizations are other good places to inquire. We also recommend sending inquiry letters to companies asking for information on available scholarships. We have attached a sample inquiry letter provided by the National Association for Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA). http://nasfaa.org/subhomes/financialaidnight/SampleScholarshipInquiryLetter102606.doc

All legitimate scholarship searches should be free and should not ask for any credit card or bank information. If a family is unsure of the legitimacy of a scholarship offer or search, please do not hesitate to contact the Office of Financial Aid or the Better Business Bureau.

The following are some additional FREE scholarship search engines that many of our students find helpful:

www.collegeboard.com
www.finaid.org
www.gocollege.com
www.aessuccess.org
www.StudentScholarshipSearch.com

If a student receives an outside scholarship, it must be reported to the Office of Financial Aid as a resource. Depending on the student’s financial aid situation, additional scholarships could cause a reduction in other types of assistance.

Our policy on outside funding
Outside scholarships and the research you do to gain additional support for your college education should be rewarded. Overall, you should not be penalized for the research that you do. While you are required to report any outside scholarships to the school's financial aid office, we hope that the policies of JCU and how we treat outside funding will benefit you to the extent possible.

Every college and university has an outside scholarship policy that specifies what happens to your need-based financial aid package when you win a merit scholarship. An outside scholarship is any scholarship not awarded by the government or the school, such as a scholarship provided by a private sector company, philanthropist or foundation. Outside scholarships are considered resources, meaning that they have the potential to reduce your financial aid package dollar for dollar. Often we may not have a choice in the matter. Federal rules concerning "overaward situations" require the school to reduce the financial aid package when the sum of financial aid from all sources exceeds our total cost of education by more than $300.

Our policy is to apply the outside scholarship to unmet need, and then reduce self-help (loans and work-study) before touching institutional grants. This lets you replace your loans, which must be repaid, with the outside scholarship.