Financial aid applicant: Any applicant who submits any one of the institutionally required financial aid applications/forms, such as the FAFSA.
Indebtedness: Aggregate dollar amount borrowed by the student.
Institutional and external funds: Endowment, alumni, or external monies for which the institution determines the recipient or the dollar amount awarded.
Financial need: As determined by your institution using the federal methodology and/or your institution's own standards.
Need-based aid: College-funded or college-administered award from institutional, state, federal, or other sources for which a student must have financial need to qualify. This includes both institutional and noninstitutional student aid (grants, jobs, and loans).
Need-based gift aid: Scholarships and grants from institutional, state, federal, or other sources for which a student must have financial need to qualify.
Non-need-based gift aid: Scholarships and grants, gifts, or merit-based aid from institutional, state, federal, or other sources (including unrestricted funds or gifts and endowment income) awarded solely on the basis of academic achievement, merit, or any other non-need-based reason. When reporting questions H1 and H2, non-need-based aid that is used to meet need should be counted as need-based aid.
Note: Suggested order of precedence for counting non-need money as need-based:
Non-need institutional grants
Non-need tuition waivers
Non-need athletic awards
Non-need federal grants
Non-need state grants
Non-need outside grants
Non-need student loans
Non-need parent loans
Non-need work
Stanford's need-based/non-need-based definitions: A student's entire package is considered to be non-need-based if the student was not an aid applicant or if the student received any scholarship/grant money and the amount of that scholarship/grant money was greater than the student's need. If the student is only receiving self-help that aid is considered to be need-based if the student has Financial need and non-need-based if the student has no Financial need. Funds disbursed through the financial aid system for expenses outside of the budget (e.g., URO Research Grants) are always counted as non-need-based and are not included in the student's total need-based package.
Scholarships/grants from external sources: Monies received from outside (private) sources that the student brings with them (e.g., Kiwanis, NMSQT scholarships). The institution may process paperwork to receive the dollars, but it has no role in determining the recipient or the dollar amount awarded.
Self-help aid: Need-based loans and jobs up to the level of institutionally determined need. In section H1 self-help amounts over the amount of need, in other words self-help to help with the EFC, are included. In section H2 for h, i, j, k, l, and m the amount of the student's total award over need is removed from self-help.
Work study and employment: Federal and state work study aid, and any employment packaged by your institution in financial aid award. Amounts reported for Federal Work-Study are those actually earned by students. The amounts reported under “State and Other work-study/employment” are the earnings expectation included in student packages as we do not track the actual earnings.