The article deals mainly with predicting merit aid, not need-based aid.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/19/your-money/paying-for-college.html
That NYT article links to this one, which is almost 5 years old but still has a take on merit I hadn’t heard before (that may explain why it’s so opaque and colleges don’t want to list stats for merit?):
So “merit” is used, in some cases, simply to get full payers to come. Regardless of academic achievement?
It also says
^ I didn’t know that. It seems like colleges are increasing need-based aid for bright low income students, but apparently that is not the case, at least on average.
:0
It goes on the explain the history of merit aid. Apparently it started in the state I live in.
https://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/septoct-2013/merit-aid-madness/
Merit aid at schools in the USNWR 50-100 range for LACs is easier to see. Sometimes, it’s on the school’s website or you can parse something out by looking at the CDS and looking for the number of kids who received merit aid who didn’t get need-based aid. It’s much harder to figure out who get merit at the top schools that actually offer it. Sometimes, it’s as few as 10-15 kids in a class of 500 students. Websites say things like “leadership” matters but scores and GPA is always important as well. Most don’t require a separate application, so kids just apply and cross their fingers. This goes for the few top universities that offer merit as well (ie. Wash U, Vanderbilt, Duke). It’s given to so few kids that no one can plan on receiving any and one just has to apply and throw their hat in the ring.
Parents just have to be ready to help their kids make decisions in the end based on budget and fit and, in the meantime, try not to fall in love with a school that could cost $70,000 if the family is in the donut hole when it comes to financial aid.
Other than merit scholarships that are assured for stats, merit scholarships are generally a lot more opaque than college admissions or (now with net price calculators, despite their limitations) need-based financial aid. This may be intentional, since colleges may not want to commit their discount money up front, but be able to decide on the fly after seeing their applicant pool.
Hence, if a non-assured merit scholarship is needed to make a given college affordable, it is best to put that college into the reach category.
Although, in theory, a high school with Naviance could make Naviance charts for admission-with-some-specified-amount-of-merit-scholarship as well as just admission.
Our high school does publish who got merit aid and from which schools. The chart has the student’s name, the amount of the merit, and the school. I guess it’s up to the parents to know the kids well enough that you can guess at their stats…unless our GC is willing to offer them up. We’ll have to see…
And, yes, @ucbalumnus - if one needs that merit to attend then make sure your child knows that before they decide to apply or not!
@homerdog Wow - I’d have a real problem with that info being public.
I think it’s optional and parents can opt in to have their child’s info released. People around here love to brag. Ugh.
At my kid’s school, the name of each college they were admitted to AND the level of merit aid they received was printed in a brochure given out to all 2000 attendees of graduation. So it might say “Samantha Jones, UNC, BU, Amherst. $160,000.”
@SouthernHope without the merit being broken out by college, that’s not super helpful.
@SouthernHope that’s terribly misleading. Wow.
well, think about why it was done (my kids attended an urban “tough” public high school)…it was to say to the parents sitting in the audience, “this school may not have the resources of the suburban publics or the urban privates but our kids still get into top schools and get top dollars.” So its more of a all-boats-rise sort of thing…that actually has been more of a boost than anything that made people feel bad. In one case, we had a kid get the top award at UNC, Duke, UChicago and i believe USC/california and his total was upwards of $600,000! (calculated over the 4 years grant)
Whether it is opaque or not is very institution dependent. And there is significant difference between token merit, differential packaging, automatic, and competitive merit. The first 2 are seem to be what is being discussed in the quoted portions (I didn’t follow the link.) They are different beasts than the latter 2. The latter 2 are pretty transparent. They are spelled out clearly on websites.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek right. I think I’m talking most about competitive merit. I’m some of these cases, you find out if you’re a candidate after you submit your app and then there may even be interviews after that. I understand why the info is opaque. With only a small percent of kids getting those types of scholarships, there isn’t really one “type” of kid who gets them. You do often see posters on CC asking about certain scholarships and trying to get examples of students who received them.
The Washington Monthly article is really rubbing me the wrong way. I think most people understand the Robin Hood approach that colleges and universities take to determining tuition and financial aid (i.e. take the money from the wealthy to cover the poor - even though all students are receiving the same product). However, the article essentially takes the position that schools should squeeze every possible cent from their wealthier families.
Ultimately, I think it comes down to a relatively simple value call. Schools that are offering discounts are doing so because they realize that their isn’t enough demand for their product at the full price. I think a major part of this is that college costs have been outstripping general inflation for as long as I can remember. I seem to recall an average increase of ~6% in the 90’s, and I found this pretty quickly:
I think the other issue is the obsession that a lot of schools have with their ranking. This seems to feed their obsession with attracting top students. They could probably eliminate merit aid if they were to simply accept the loss of applicants in the top 10% standardized tests scores and GPAs and focus on being the best possible school for the remaining 90%.
The articles suggest that what they would lose would be the nearly-full-payers, not necessarily the top stats kids.
My kids definitely seek out competitive merit. I don’t think the process for competitive merit is any more opaque than college admissions. The number available, avg stats of recipients, student profiles of recipients, description of the type of student awarded the scholarship, etc are all normally posted online. Once you have been through the process enough times, you get pretty good at estimating what it takes. (At some schools, it can be more competitive than elite school admissions. Duke/UNC Robertson, UVA Jefferson, NCSU Parks, etc.) They absolutely do NOT fit the profile quote
I see competitive merit as very different than schools that just randomly include “merit scholarships” in their FA packages. That is usually token merit or differential packaging. I think they fit that quote. Competitive merit is usually used to attract and keep top students from attending other colleges. (Automatic merit like NMS type scholarships often serve the same purpose at lower ranked schools.)
Right, but the issue raised was what kinds of kids are they trying to attract? The brightest or the wealthiest?
Probably depends on the college. At the same college, it may vary from year to year as the applicant pool, expected competition from other colleges, and the college’s own finances change.
@ucbalumnus Exactly. Which means that sometimes last year’s information won’t even help. Things could change from year to year. I think I saw some posts about Miami of OH and how kids don’t seem to be getting as much merit aid this year. You never know until you get your package.
@OHMomof2 I don’t think that question actually applies to your typical “named” competitive merit scholarships any more than @homerdog’s “You never know until you get your package.” That type of merit is definitely opaque. Those are not really what I am referring to as competitive merit. Those I see more as financial aid merit awards.
Those scholarships are different from your advertised “named” scholarships which usually have a governing board, selection committees/interviewing process, built in program for the scholars, etc. Wells is an example: https://wellsscholars.indiana.edu/nomination-process/index.html The scholarships are limited in number (18-22 in Wells’s case), have GPA/participation requirements for maintaining the scholarships, etc. The process is described on their websites. The criteria for selection are listed, etc.