Whether or not you receive Obama Scholarship funding as part of the Obama Scholars Program depends on your direct costs, your student aid index, and your other financial aid.
The Obama Scholars Program checks whether or not to post scholarship funding based on a calculation:
Estimated Direct Costs - Student Aid Index - Other Gift Aid - $3000 Federal Work Study = Obama Scholarship
Your Estimated Direct Costs will include actual tuition, mandatory fees, housing, and meals (more information on what these amounts are can be found on the main Obama Scholars Program page). Your Student Aid Index is the number produced by your FAFSA, also known as your SAI. Your Other Gift Aid includes things like grants, scholarships, qualified tuition reduction, and community assistant awards - if you have questions about whether one of your awards counts as gift aid for the purposes of this program, please contact Financial Aid & Scholarship Services. Federal Work Study will be included in the calculation regardless of whether it is utilized. If you have low costs, a high student aid index, or high gift aid (or a combination), there may not be anything left over at the end for the program to cover. This means that it is possible for Obama Scholars to have a balance after their financial aid has been applied.
The important thing is that you will retain your eligibility as an Obama Scholar in future years if you continue to meet all eligibility requirements. This means that you will still be in the program, even if you do not receive any Obama Scholarship funding (though these terms will still count towards the limit). One advantage to being an Obama Scholar is that if you lose any scholarship or grant funding in the future and continue to meet the Obama Scholar renewal criteria, the Obama scholarship will be available to replace that funding through your estimated direct costs, minus your SAI.
