<p>The transparency point is intriguing. I’d like to know more about the research that concludes clear and transparent merit-based aid programs have a bigger influence on the decisions of low- and moderate-income kids to go to college than need-based aid. It sounds plausible. Need-based aid on the whole is extremely non-transparent and something that students and their families generally can’t count on until extremely late in the process, once their individual FA offer is made. By that time a lot of lower-income kids will have foregone even thinking about college. </p>
<p>I do have some concern that shifting from need-based to merit-based diverts aid from the lower end of the income scale to the higher end. On the other hand it may not be a zero-sum proposition. If clear and transparent merit-based state aid gets more lower-income kids into college, the total amount of aid going to that end of the income spectrum might actually increase—while also positioning more kids from lower-income families to compete for higher-end jobs, earn higher incomes, and contribute more to the state’s economy. And political support for a uniform merit-based program might allow such a program to enjoy more taxpayer support over time, for exactly the same reasons that supporters of Social Security and Medicare have always opposed “means-testing” for those programs. If Social Security or Medicare were converted to income-based “welfare” programs, their political support would crumble, the programs would shrink, and over time they’d probably provide less help to those who need it because they wouldn’t be funded. Same, possibly, for taxpayer-supported FA programs. So what appears on its face to be a regressive move might in fact be a clever Rooseveltian stratagem to build political support for more taxpayer-supported FA.</p>