“When it comes to paying for college, merit aid is one way to close the gap between the cost of attendance and need-based financial aid. This type of aid is not awarded based on need, but on academic, athletic, artistic or special-interest merit. The average merit award among the 1,078 ranked colleges that provided this information to U.S. News in an annual survey was about $11,279 in fall 2018. Merit aid might cover a student’s entire tuition or be a one-time award of a few hundred dollars. Here are 12 things to know about merit scholarships.” …
According to this article, in dollar amounts, there is an average loss 0f $1,000 from the average institutional grant of $15,800. However, it is unclear whether this is because an average of 6% of students lose their eligibility because of low GPA, or because, on average, the amounts drops by 6% because of dropping GPAs. My guess is that the former is the most common case.
The analysis was from 2011-2012, but there is no reason to suppose that it has changed.
I don’t think the averages tell you much. Most of the merit (and it seems they have included talent and athletic scholarships in with merit) that is lost is from one student losing all his money, not 15 students losing $1000 each. My kids had several grants and it was ‘all or nothing’ when it came to renewing the awards. One did lose her theater $$ because she changed majors, but she did not lose her merit aid from admissions. The other had athletic, merit from the school, and merit from the state, all with different requirements to keep them.
I do know a few kids who lost their Bright Futures, either from low gpa or from taking less than 12 credits (or courses that ‘counted’ for the 12 credits). They received warnings but didn’t fix the problems. Once the awards are gone, they cannot be reinstated.