<p>Okay, cant really consider it a trend yet, but two schools on my D's list that we have been looking at for past 3 years and offered full rides to NMFs are now offering less.</p>
<p>Alabama is now offering full tuition + one year of housing + very nice extras</p>
<p>Oklahoma City now offering full tuition Trustee scholarship, same as offered to kids with ACT>33 and SAT>1470 and GPA>3.6 .</p>
<p>So it is economy? College budget cuts? Was there some gathering late last spring that financial aid folks from across the country said, "Let's reduce scholarships to NMFs??"</p>
<p>I don’t think it was a concerted effort. I just think that the full rides were getting too expensive to keep when so many students were accepting them.</p>
<p>when my NMF son was a frosh at Bama, there were about 75 NMFs, and probably a good number were instate, so cheaper. This fall there will be at least 200, and probably at least half are from OOS…so those awards are over $130k. </p>
<p>For Bama, I think it’s a combo of a few issues…</p>
<p>1) The full rides are too expensive when awarded to all that qualify.</p>
<p>2) The actual stats of some of the NMFs (especially test scores) are lower than some other accepted kids who are getting smaller scholarships. It may have become harder to justify giving a $130k scholarship to a NMF student whose SAT is a 2100 (or lower), while a student whose SAT is 2250 is only getting full tuition. Doesn’t seem fair when the 2250 kid’s stats are helping the school MORE than the 2100 kid’s stats. </p>
<p>3) The school may have “done the math” and realized that non-NMFs (sometimes with better scores) will be happy with full tuition awards, then why spend so much on NMFs. Bama has been enrolling at least 500 frosh each year with free tuition, that alone provides a good number of high stats kids. They may offer “bonus merit” to those with very high stats…that sometimes have happened in the past. </p>
<p>4) with so many NMFs (and NAs) accepting, the “free honors housing” was becoming an issue. Assuring space in those pricey, private, “super suites” had become difficult to provide while also insisting that all frosh live on campus.</p>