How many students do you all think actually are at Alabama with the help of the automatic merit money? I will include the 1/3, 1/2 and full tuition. Do you know if there are any published figures?
I believe that the minimum ACT score for the smallest merit award is 27. If 36% of all UA freshman have had an ACT of 30 or higher for the last two years, then it is possible that around half of all students are getting some aid.
At this time, let’s all pray daily for the continued health and prosperity of Bama football players who make a lot of this possible!
Roll tide!
Don’t mean to minimize the role of the Athletic Dept, but most of the scholarship money comes from the endowment, which largely comes from gifts of alumni. However, the athletic team success surely stimulates alumni giving.
I’d be surprised if it’s quite that high, since you also have to meet GPA requirements to get most merit awards.
I’ve been curious about this for a while too, so I just went through the 2014-15 Common Data Set.
It looks like out of a cohort of 6,428 full-time freshmen in that class, 1,736 of those eligible for need-based financial aid also received non-need based scholarship or grant aid. Another 1,653 students with no demonstrated financial need were awarded non-need-based aid (excluding athletic awards and tuition benefits).
Assuming I’m using the right numbers and extrapolating correctly (a big assumption), it looks like @Atlanta68 is correct, that approximately 52% of students (3,389 out of 6,428) are receiving some form of non-need-based, the bulk of which I’m assuming is the automatic “merit” aid.
In case anybody is interested, the average amount of institutional non-need-based aid was $12,186. Keep in mind that dollar amount reflects both in-state and out-of-state awards and full and partial tuition awards. If somebody wants to go back and parse the in-state vs. out-of-state enrollment numbers to come up with a formula, they might be able to reveal more information about what percentage is receiving the Presidential or higher, both in-state and out-of-state.
I found the same numbers LucieTheLakie! Thank you!