<prompt> Human: im a incoming freshmen that is planning on attending a relatively expensive university COA is roughly 54,000 a year. at first the money they offered me was a scholarship of 8,500 a year with a need-based scholarship of 12,050 a year. I asked the school if i could retake the SAT to get a better score in hopes of a better scholarship, they said thats ok so i retook the test. come around a march i got a new offer 14,000 scholarship, which is great but they somehow lowered my need-based scholarship to 6,550, having a total net change of zero. my financial status has not changed since then and i have not received any money from any other institutions. my question is if they are able to do this. i was always under the impression that the Need-based scholarship was always based on financial status and nothing else. i even double checked on their scholarship estimator and my need-based grant should have not change i acknowledge that its an estimator and not something guaranteed. i emailed their financial aid directory 3 days ago about this and havent heard anything since. What should i do? what can i do? please redirect me if this is not the right place.TL;DR college reduced my need-based grant to match the increase of my new scholarshipEdit: spelling.fucked up on the title, i acknowledge that.Update: thank you all for the criticism, i really needed that. at the moment i have made an ultimatum, if they wont readjust my grant chances are they wont then i will attend a state school at a more convenient price. again thank you all for this. side question: do people get notified when you reply to their comments? or is that only when you send them a message directly?  <response>: When need is calculated for need-based scholarships, they take other scholarships into account.Now that you have more scholarship money from other sources, your need is less. 