The Unofficial SMART Scholarship Forum

Talk with your financial aid office. I basically went to them and told them I wanted them to bill SMART the full balance of my tuition and fees, prior to applying scholarships. That meant that I got a nice big refund each term.

Pretty much every school refunds the balance of your bill. My undergrad school bill never showed the financial aid and I had to subtract it myself when determining what to pay with loans/credit cards. So if I were getting SMART funding here I would end up with the scholarship stuff refunded to me later.

[quote="EERecipient"]I know SMART does not allow you to accept other Federal aid, but if we have merit money that we were awarded out of high school, does SMART pay the balance of tuition after that is applied or can I collect the refunded merit money from the school after SMART pays full tuition?[/quote]

SMART does not limit the amount you receive in outside scholarship (unless it is federal aid, as you mentioned). You will need to talk to your financial aid department at school to find the exact rules for your merit funding.

I had a few different merit scholarships from my school. One of which was only allowed to be used for tuition, so I could not get it as a refund or put it toward housing. They used it to decrease what SMART paid. Another was less specific, so they allowed me to put it toward my housing. They were always vague about it if they would refund the money, had it exceeded this.

I know SMART does not allow you to accept other Federal aid, but if we have merit money that we were awarded out of high school, does SMART pay the balance of tuition after that is applied or can I collect the refunded merit money from the school after SMART pays full tuition?