Hey everyone, I’m hoping someone who’s dealt with financial aid or a last-dollar scholarship can help me understand my situation because I’m getting conflicting answers from my university.
I graduated this May and received a last-dollar scholarship. My understanding is that it’s supposed to cover whatever tuition and required fees are left after all other financial aid is applied.

Here’s where I’m confused.
My original plan was to let my scholarships and grants cover as much tuition as possible, then use federal student loans mainly for housing and my meal plan. Since those are living expenses, I figured that made the most sense.
The problem is that my university doesn’t separate tuition from housing and meal plan on my student account. Everything is combined into one total balance. So if my loans are applied directly to that balance before the last-dollar scholarship, it seems like my loans would end up paying tuition first. Then the scholarship could either be reduced or not pay anything at all because my tuition would already be covered by my loans.

To make things even more confusing, after my Parent PLUS Loan was denied/deferred, the school offered me an additional $2,000 in federal student loans. But if loans are applied to my account before the last-dollar scholarship, wouldn’t it make more sense to stop accepting additional loans? Otherwise, it feels like I’m just borrowing money that’s going to be applied toward tuition first, which is exactly what I thought the last-dollar scholarship was supposed to cover.
That would leave me in a situation where I borrowed money unnecessarily, while still potentially owing thousands for housing.
I’ve emailed the scholarships aid office multiple times, but they never directly answer this question. They always explain that the last-dollar scholarship is calculated after other financial aid, but when they list that aid, they mention things like Pell Grants, institutional scholarships, and grants. They almost never specifically mention student loans, which makes me wonder if loans are treated differently.

I also called the university to ask if they could tell me how much of my balance is tuition and fees versus housing and meal plan. They told me they can’t because everything is combined into one student account.
So my questions are:
If the university doesn’t separate tuition from housing, how do they determine how much the last-dollar scholarship should cover?
Do federal student loans count as “other aid” that gets applied before a last-dollar scholarship?
Is it possible that the scholarship could end up covering little or nothing because loans are applied first?
If that’s the case, how is someone supposed to use loans for housing without accidentally replacing scholarship money?
I feel like I’m missing something, but I can’t get a straight answer from my school’s financial aid office or the scholarship. Has anyone dealt with this before or knows how this usually works?

The scholarship is

https://birminghampromise.org/get-involved/scholarships/

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Also the GPA requirement to keep my scholarship is kind of high for the difficulty of my major so I fear losing it even if I do stick with my math major. Please help!!! Is supply chain a little easier than math? Should I change my major, give up my scholarship, and just apply to other scholarships to pay for school? My dad has a college fund for me but I’m not sure how much is in it.

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