<p>We're researching merit scholarship opportunities at UNC-Chapel Hill. The Carolina Scholars Award offers in-state students $8500/year. Oos students get an amount that covers full tuition, fees, room & board. The Col. Robinson Scholarship offers in-state students $5,000/year. Oos students are again awarded full tuition, fees, room & board. According to the UNC website, the estimated cost if a student lives on campus is $17,424. If a student lives at home with parents, they estimate the cost to be $11,044. So even if a student's parents lived close enough for the student to commute, neither of these scholarships would cover the entire cost, while oos students get a full ride. Is there something I'm missing? Why would the award be so much greater to oos students while it doesn't even cover 1/2 of the full cost to in-state students who need to live on campus?</p>
<p>I guess I could ask this another way - does anyone know of an in-state student being offered a merit-based, full-ride scholarship outside of the Morehead-Cain scholarship? Or does UNC frequently offer generous need-based aid so that these two scholarships would most likely cover the remainder?</p>
<p>100% of need is met at UNC. However, if you’re looking for another merit based scholarship, you could try the Robertson Scholars Program. My best guess as to why the OOS awards are bigger is to catch the best students</p>
<p>The Music Department offers a merit-based full-ride Kenan scholarship to 4 students per year, in-state or out-of-state.</p>
<p>“My best guess as to why the OOS awards are bigger is to catch the best students.”</p>
<p>My OOS student probably wouldn’t have chosen UNC without the full ride they offered. I realize there are in state students with similar stats (4.0 val; 4 yr ECs and state/regional awards in sports, arts, social issues, and academics; excellent essays; 34 ACT; 2300+ SAT; great recs, etc… as we so often see on CC), but since UNC was willing to pay for it, my kid was ecstatic to accept. If UNC had offered $3-10K, as several other schools did, the decision wouldn’t have been so quick and certain.</p>
<p>One possible rationale for the distribution of $$$: UNC is putting all its eggs in one basket for the OOS scholarships. For the class of 2013, 34 of 211 academic merit scholarships went to OOS students (16% of the total number of recipients – consistent with the IS/OOS quota). The press release ([UNC</a> awards nearly $1.2 million in scholarships](<a href=“http://giving.unc.edu/news/2009/merit09.htm]UNC”>http://giving.unc.edu/news/2009/merit09.htm)) seems to indicate that all 34 were full ride. Perhaps this increases the likelihood that OOS students who are funded are truly the very top-notch, and those coveted spots aren’t being filled with students who are merely mediocre. Perhaps it increases the likelihood that these truly outstanding students will accept, and enrich the Carolina learning community.</p>
<p>For in-state recipients, however, they seem to be casting a wider net. Perhaps this is to ensure that a greater number of students have the opportunity to receive SOME assistance? Maybe this enables them to make offers to the many excellent students who are not at the very top of their class?</p>
<p>I do understand the disconnect, and if you do the math, you’ll see that 40% of the 1.2 million awarded did go to OOS students. (By granting those students in-state status for tuition, much more scholarship money is left for the deserving in-state students, but that is an entirely different debate that I am not EVEN going to bring up here!)</p>
<p>The theory that I have proposed here is merely that: one theory. I can see plenty of arguments against the way they have decided to distribute funds. I, too, have wondered about why there aren’t more full rides offered to in-state students. I have also wondered if the offer made to my kid is really fair to the deserving in-state kids. </p>
<p>In the end, I have little to do with how the Office of Financial Aid makes their decisions. I’m not sure if they are being fair or reasonable or not. But I am sure of one thing: My kid is entirely committed to living up to the responsibility of accepting this generous award, and will do whatever it takes to remain worthy of the honor.</p>
<p>I hope this post doesn’t come across as self-serving, or glorifying my kid. That is not my intention AT ALL. I am merely trying to make sense out of the situation and propose one possible explanation to the OP’s very valid and reasonable question.</p>
<p>Good post Grizz Mom. I concur with your position. As an in-state student I would like to say that 100% of my need was met as well. I will graduate debt free as a Carolina Covenant Scholar. UNC’s aid office is very helpful.</p>
<p>@GrizzMom: While I understand your argument, my main issue with it is that it is the in-state students, who through their taxes, pay for most of the scholarship money. While there are certainly deserving out-of-staters, some of whom are arguably more deserving than in-state students, their parents have not had to pay NC income and sales tax for the last 18 years (and I understand that not all NC residents have lived here 18 years.)</p>
<p>Tony: I understand your argument, as well, and it is certainly more valid than mine. I believe state institutions have a primary responsibility to those taxpayers who support them. </p>
<p>I’m not certain that taxes actually pay for ‘most of the scholarship money,’ as I haven’t specifically researched that point. I was under the impression that most of the full ride OOS scholarships are funded through endowments from large (multi million dollar) donations that were made in the past. </p>
<p>I AM certain, though, that NC taxpayers provide much needed support to the university as a whole, and agree with you entirely in that respect. Since I haven’t made any contribution of this sort, my expectation is that my kid will make a meaningful, if intangible, contribution to the learning community to compensate.</p>
<p>I don’t know whether my opinion is a rational one, or whether I am merely rationalizing so I can sleep better at night. But I do appreciate being able to have this respectful discussion.</p>
<p>You very well might be right about the endowment, I was going off the word of a family friend at another UNC system school about their scholarship funds, and it wouldn’t suprise me if Carolina has a more generous alumni base… Also, I did not intend my argument to imply that you should sleep less well at night because your child has accepted the scholarship, if I was OSS I would do it in an instant, my point is simply that Carolina, which is pretty good about understanding that its funding comes from ALL AREAS of NC (whether it be through the 82/18 instate/oss policy, or the de facto county-based quota system) should perhaps refocus its scholarship dollars to aid the people of the state a bit more.</p>
<p>Obviously UNC highly values the contributions of oos students as they are restricted to accepting a small percentage, and obviously the ones accepted are highly qualified. It just seems that when students are awarded the same scholarhsip, the monetary value of the reward should be the same. Looking at the information at face value, it appears that in-state students who are qualified enough to win the scholarship aren’t valued nearly as much as oos students. Might this then just chase these students away to oos schools or even more expensive private schools which might offer a better package? </p>
<p>GrizzMom, thanks for your honesty. I’m sure no one faults your student for taking the full-ride. I’d rather have mine closer to home, but given our financial situation, she’s going to take the best offer she can get at the best school she can find. Honestly, if we hadn’t moved to NC this year, she probably would have had a good chance at being one of those oos students offered a full-ride. But now that we’re in-state, I don’t know how likely that would be. Maybe she’d have a decent shot at the Morehead-Cain. In any case, for several reasons, she’s now at the point of not wanting to even apply at UNC-Chapel Hill. I just think it’s a shame that they don’t offer equitable scholarships to equally qualified students. I think it’s likely to drive many good students away.</p>
<p>NeedAVacation,
I’m sorry your daughter is at a point that she might not want to apply to UNC-CH. It’s such a great school, as you know. I hope she reconsiders, and applies for the Morehead-Cain and Robertson scholarships. </p>
<p>I agree that it seems UNC is valuing OOS more than in state students, and I feel badly for the in state students who are victims of this inequity. Thanks for not holding any personal grudges against me or my kid for being on the other side of the fence!</p>
<p>These merit scholarships are funded by private donations, not North Carolina taxes. If a donor chooses to support a scholarship only for in-state students (or even for students from a certain county), that is their prerogative. Similarly, if a donor chooses to endow a scholarship to attract high-achieving out-of-state students, I think that’s perfectly acceptable as well.</p>
<p>For in-state students, tuition is $3,865. That’s an outstanding deal. Heck, even the $21,753 charged in out-of-state tuition is still a good deal.</p>
<p>UNC-Chapel Hill does a great job of supporting all of its students financially, and because of the makeup of the student body, this benefit goes mostly to North Carolinians. It is need-blind, and meets the full demonstrated need of all admitted students. It created trailblazing initiatives such as the Carolina Covenant to support low-income students, and actively recruits low-income students through high school advising programs. Carolina supports high-achieving middle-income students who just miss the cutoff for federal financial aid through programs such as Advantage Scholarships. And UNC supports the highest-achieving students, regardless of financial need, through merit scholarships including the Robertson and Morehead-Cain. And even if one doesn’t qualify for any of the need-based or merit-based programs, tuition is still very low compared to peer universities.</p>
<p>I realize that your point is about parity between and among the various financial aid and scholarship programs, and there is certainly some truth to that point. Each of these aid programs was created and endowed separately, and in some cases even the out-of-state and in-state scholarships for the same program were donated by different people with different restrictions and stipulations. Over time, and when interfaced with some strange provisions of North Carolina law about how UNC uses scholarship endowments, this has indeed created some odd disconnects. But I would also point out that there are several scholarships for which out-of-state students are completely ineligible: Old Well, Founders, and College Fellows, for example. </p>
<p>Now one could of course note that offering scholarships for in-state students only is unfair to equally qualified out-of-state students. But I think such worries are misplaced. UNC has a large number of aid programs that vary drastically from one another. Each program taken alone is somewhat bizarre and out of place. Taken together, though, UNC’s aid programs do an absolutely fantastic job of supporting students financially. To think otherwise, in my opinion, is to miss the forest for the trees.</p>
<p>ThoughtProvoking:</p>
<p>You’re right that these merit scholarships originate from private endowments, but you are incorrect in saying that the NC taxpayers are not (also) paying for these out-of-state full freight scholarships. When the out-of-state scholarships became full-freight (legislation passed in 2005), the NC taxpayers were left to pay the remaining costs. The NC taxpayers also pay for full-freight out-of-state athletic scholarships. Much has been written about this. Here is one article:
[The</a> College Pulse: Scholarship program busts UNC’s 18% cap, allows more out-of-state students](<a href=“http://www.collegepulse.net/2009/08/scholarship-program-busts-uncs-18-cap.html]The”>http://www.collegepulse.net/2009/08/scholarship-program-busts-uncs-18-cap.html)</p>