Outside scholarships represent scholarships offered by entities outside of Tulane, as many different organizations sponsor student scholarships.
Students are encouraged to research and apply for outside scholarship opportunities via a library's reference section, through online searches, by asking local organizations, or by using a personalized search engine. One such personalized search engine is FastWeb, which compares your demographic and personal information with a robust database of scholarship listings to identify scholarship opportunities for which you might be eligible. Application information and deadlines are provided.
To make sure a web search service is reputable, contact the National Fraud Information Center (800-876-7060).
To file a complaint about scholarship scams, or for free information about scholarship scams, students or parents should visit the Federal Trade Commission’s website or call 1-877-FTC-HELP (1-877-382-4357).
Impact of the Receipt of an Outside Scholarship
It is important that a student (or family) not assume they may retain all scholarship originally offered from all parties, as one type of scholarship may effect a change in another type of scholarship. Therefore, it is important to report all outside financial aid (for example, scholarships, resources, grants, tuition waivers, tuition assistance and awards) to the Tulane University Financial Aid Office. This requirement to report outside financial aid is also noted in the terms and conditions for receipt of any and all financial aid as a Tulane student.**
Tulane reduces loan, grant and work study eligibility in light of outside scholarship as required for federal aid.
Tulane does not reduce Tulane merit scholarship in light of outside scholarship except as stipulated in the merit award letter; however, a Tulane merit scholarship may cause an outside scholarship to be reduced.*
Tulane reduces Tulane need based scholarship in light of outside scholarship to stay within the student's financial aid cost of attendance and/or, in some cases, to prevent the outside scholarship from being reduced (for example, if the outside scholarship donor counts Tulane scholarship as a reduction to their scholarship amount).*
*Certain outside scholarship donors and/or tuition assistance programs (for example, Vanderbilt and Duke) will ask Tulane for the amount of scholarship Tulane offers a student to offset Tulane tuition, and it is important to note that Tulane reports all (merit, need, and any other) Tulane scholarship as tuition scholarship. All Tulane scholarship is initially awarded to cover some portion of Tulane tuition charges based on full-time tuition being charged and is prorated when necessary and appropriate to the actual amount of Tulane tuition charged. Please note that if for some reason the full amount of Tulane scholarship is not initially reported to such an outside donor, Tulane will at some point react. As necessary Tulane will either return outside donor funding and if funds have credited to a student's Tulane account, then Tulane will bill the student's account or reduce Tulane scholarship which if already credited will result as a billing transaction to the student's account in order to stay within the specified outside donor requirement parameters. For example, an outside donor may limit their scholarship to only pay 70% of a student's Tulane tuition, or Tulane tuition minus Tulane tuition scholarship, whichever is less. In this case, for example, if Tulane tuition were $45,000 and the outside donor sent a 70% scholarship of $31,500, but the student originally was offered Tulane scholarship of $25,000, the total of the outside donor amount of $31,500 plus the $25,000 original Tulane scholarship would exceed Tulane's tuition charge by $11,500. To avoid violating the terms of the outside donor's scholarship, Tulane would either return $11,500 to the outside donor or reduce Tulane gift aid by $11,500 or would pursue some combination of doing both which would result in an overall elimination of the $11,500 overage, and if funds had fully credited to the student's account, Tulane would then bill the student for the $11,500 adjustment downward in total gift aid. Again, a student or family should not assume they may retain all scholarship originally offered from all parties, as one type of scholarship may eventually effect a change in another type of scholarship!
**Review Tulane University Financial Aid Information for more information
Tulane’s Outside Scholarship Distribution Information
Checks or money orders from outside scholarship entities who wish to award Tulane students should be mailed to (please include detailed identification for the recipient(s), as well as the donor organization, and please do not mail cash payments. Accounts Receivable and Financial Aid have established procedures to share information when a scholarship payment arrives from an outside entity for a Tulane student):
Financial Aid, Gibson Hall Ste. 130
Tulane University #1320
6823 St. Charles Avenue
New Orleans, LA 70118
