Negotiation Question Forum

[gotsnork2]

When negotiating scholarships, obviously if one school offered you more money you could leverage their offer against your current scholarship amount. But does anyone know if it's appropriate to negotiate regarding total COA? For example, if you're offered $30K a year from a school with a $45K a year tuition, you would pay $15K a year in tuition. However, say another school only offered you $20K and their tuition was only $30K a year, so your total tuition would equal $10K a year. Is there any precedent for this strategy or is it based solely on the raw scholarship amount itself? Could you ask for the extra $5K to even out the total cost of attendance even though the scholarship amount your arguing with is actually less than what you were offered?

[Tiago Splitter]

When negotiating scholarships, obviously if one school offered you more money you could leverage their offer against your current scholarship amount. But does anyone know if it's appropriate to negotiate regarding total COA? For example, if you're offered $30K a year from a school with a $45K a year tuition, you would pay $15K a year in tuition. However, say another school only offered you $20K and their tuition was only $30K a year, so your total tuition would equal $10K a year. Is there any precedent for this strategy or is it based solely on the raw scholarship amount itself? Could you ask for the extra $5K to even out the total cost of attendance even though the scholarship amount your arguing with is actually less than what you were offered?

That's absolutely fine. Use COA if it helps you, straight scholarships if it doesn't.

[calbarexamftw]

Yes. Ask away. There's no downside. And no need to follow any formalities. Once you're admitted, they won't revoke your admission for being (courteously) aggressive. And you now have leverage, since you saying no will hurt their yield ratio. When you get to law school, you'll see that financial aid and admission types are not big-wigs.