The New York Times has a story today on the rise of merit-based scholarships, which are playing an increasingly important role in the college decisions of middle-income families.
While there are no national statistics post-recession, an Education Department study released last fall showed that the percentage of students receiving merit aid grew so rapidly from 1995 to 2008 that it rivaled the number of students receiving need-based aid.
Recent College Board data from more than 600 nonprofit colleges and universities show that some are giving fewer students more money or stretching their dollars by handing smaller amounts to more students. But others are expanding the number of recipients as well as the amount of their awards.
As many universities, like their students’ families, struggle to make ends meet during the economic recession, merit-based awards are also being used, in some cases, to entice less qualified students who can afford to pay the remainder of the tuition bill. In those cases, it simply becomes a matter of trying to fill seats. So “merit” is not always an appropriate term to describe financial aid that is not based strictly on financial need.
In many other cases, of course, colleges use merit-based aid to attract the brightest students, who might choose a more prestigious institution otherwise. Either way, merit-based aid is playing a more prominent role than ever in the admissions decisions colleges make as well as the matriculation decisions students and their families make.
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