I wonder if the KU stat also includes some non-renewable scholarships.
I think it is short sighted to rule out a school completely because of the fear of what may or may not happen. My D has a full scholarship at Texas A&M and is a Chem major. She has maintained her scholarship for 3 years now. Once you get a good baseline of grades in the beginning, the risk of one class blowing your GPA lessens considerably. You have to judge if your kid is a straight A student without any studying or effort in HS. Those are the students who seem to have a lot of trouble getting organized into good study habits. We also planned her schedule to include some stress relieving easier classes, just in case to math and science stuff got overwhelming. The good news is that getting those top grades brings additional honors, recognition, and opportunities as you go along in your college career. Sure, I was a little worried about her keeping the 3.5, but it has worked out fine.
I totally agree @Debbie7452. I would never rule a school out completely because of this one factor, but it would definitely be one of several aspects to consider. Unfortunately, my D is the straight A student with little effort. I know one day it will come back to bite her in the *** (and am surprised, frankly, that it hasn’t yet). I think she may struggle during the first semester or two of college while she figures out how things work. Great idea to balance some lighter classes with the harder ones to make the transition easier.
My son has a 4 yr renewable engineering scholarship (requires a 3.0 gpa). He’s managed to keep it so far (he’ll be a junior in August) with a 3.07 cum gpa.
I had a half-tuition scholarship to University of Rochester many years ago and it had a 3.5 GPA requirement, which I managed to meet, but they were not in the business of screwing over students who were close. The requirement was there so they had an ‘out’ if a student was screwing off and getting a 3.2 when he or she was capable of a 3.7 or 3.8.
@mjrube94 My D was in that exact situation. She was straight A student in HS with little effort and has many AP credits. She still did struggle a little bit during the first semester in engineering school as she skipped all the 100 level classes in Calc, Chem, and Physics and basically taking most sophomore courses from the beginning. She did catch up in the second semester though and keep her freshmen GPA above 3.6. My suggestion to her was not to take too many credits in the first semester (only 14) as a transition considering the rigor of courses she took. Then she went up to 18 credits in the second semester. She will be a sophomore but with junior standing next semester and she will only need to take 15-16 credits each semester from now on.
GPA to maintain scholarship was a consideration for us too. D’s scholarship requires a 3.25 and she’s in engineering. We weren’t too concerned going in, knowing that she was capable, sensible, and had good study habits already. But we still discussed it. The transition to college can be a challenge. She had a ton of AP credit so she stepped straight to some more advanced classes but also was able to have a lighter load at first. We didn’t push her to find a job first semester.
We also discussed a backup plan for if she lost the scholarship–come back, live at home, and finish the degree at local state U (If she had not been a top student and earned scholarships this would have been plan A).
After year one, there’s no indication we are going to ever need that plan B. 
I think it’s reasonable to ask the school’s how the students who are awarded the scholarships you are offered do at keeping the award through graduation. They may or may not say, but how they respond may gain you some helpful information.
Note that at NEU and other schools that take in a lot of transfers, you should expect the percentage of students who get merit awards to drop after freshman year.
I think it is consideration, but usually it’s the case at every school and sometimes you just have to take a chance. If you don’t want to go to a school with a 3.5 requirement to retain the scholarship, what is your alternative? Does another school have a 3.0 requirement for the same level of scholarship? Is the 3.0 school not as desirable? That’s the decision you have to make.
My daughter has several scholarships with different requirements, but her other choices had the same or similar requirements, so she wasn’t really giving up anything to take these offers.
Students earning the top merit scholarships are the least likely to need more than eight semesters, but the 3.4 GPA renewal requirement is more of a concern (loss of a scholarship could result in needing extra semesters, if the student has to reduce course loads to make time to work to earn money for school).