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Statements Concerning Institutional Aid

Need-Based Aid
Messiah College offers the Messiah College Grant. This is a form of institutional aid that is based on a combination of demonstrated financial need and academic merit.

Our general policy is that a student will receive the same, or approximately the same, amount from this fund each year unless the student’s financial need changes significantly or other forms of aid become available to the student. The Messiah College Grant is defined as a form of aid that is to go to students with unmet financial need, and we wish to distribute this aid in a way that will help the most students. Consequently, we reserve the right to adjust awards from year to year, or within a particular academic year, if a student’s circumstances change. For example, if a student has this form of aid and then receives a scholarship which causes the total aid to exceed the financial need, we will adjust the institutional aid to meet the financial need and redistribute the now uncommitted aid to another needy student, even if the student’s financial aid package does not contain Federal aid.

Budget constraints prohibit us from making significant increases to student financial aid packages from year to year. So, even in cases in which the student’s need increases significantly, while we will do our best to provide additional assistance, students should not expect increases in the amount of their institutional aid. This is a statement of our policy as it has always been. There is not now and never has been any guarantee that a student will receive the same amount of institutional need-based aid every year.

In some cases, applicants and their families have circumstances which affect their ability to pay for the education, but which are not accounted for in the Federal Methodology or in our normal processing procedures. In those cases, the institution reserves the right to award institutional need-based forms of aid using a different formula than the Federal Methodology or different criteria than that which we would normally collect and utilize in our awarding decisions.

Other Institutional Aid Issues

Limited to Amount of Tuition: Under no circumstances can the combined amount of the various forms of institutional financial aid that a student receives exceed the amount of the student's tuition.

Full-time Enrollment Required: Almost all forms of institutional aid offered by Messiah College require that the student be enrolled full-time. The only exceptions are the Mature Student Discount and the High School Discount. The Mature Student Discount cannot be received in conjunction with the Messiah College Grant.

Scholarship Requirements Must be Met: Various merit scholarships require that the recipient achieve a G.P.A. higher than the minimum required under the Satisfactory Academic Progress policy, or that the student meet other criteria in order to continue to receive that scholarship. There might be situations in which the Financial Aid Office will send a Financial Aid Award notice to a student, listing the scholarship, before it has been determined that the student has met the other criteria for continuation of the scholarship. The student must still meet these other criteria and the fact that the scholarship appeared on the award notice should not be construed to mean that the student is guaranteed to receive the scholarship regardless of whether or not the student meets the criteria for continuation.

Institutional Aid Limited to Eight Semesters: Messiah College institutional financial aid programs are available for a maximum of eight semesters and are not available to students who have already received a bachelors degree from any institution.

Institutional Aid Only for Enrolled Students: If you receive any form of institutional financial aid, including a merit scholarship, the aid will be available during semesters you actually attend Messiah College or one of our off-campus programs which is approved for use of institutional financial aid. The aid will not be available for semesters when you are not in attendance. For example, if you graduate a semester early, you will not receive extra money in your last semester. In other words, there is no guaranteed aggregate financial aid amount or number of semesters that you will receive.

***Important Change***

One Semester Limit on Institutional Aid for Approved Off-Campus Programs: Beginning with the 2014-15 academic year, Messiah College students are permitted to use one semester of institutional financial aid at a set of approved off campus programs.  This is a change from previous policy that allowed the use of up to two semesters of institutional aid for these programs.   A list of these programs is available from the Intercultural Office.  A student who has used one semester of institutional financial aid for an off-campus program can attend additional semesters of these programs, but the only financial aid available for those additional semesters would be from state, federal and other external sources.