On its surface, merit aid for college is an appealing concept to most parents, especially those who are Moms and Dads of high-achieving students.
But questions and objections start to arise with attempts at implementation of merit aid, as colleges try to ensure that available money fairly gets into the hands of students who most deserve it.
Today’s column endeavors to define for you what merit aid is, where it is utilized, how it is typically disbursed, who tends to receive it and why it appears to be losing momentum as colleges grapple with the concept and the practical difficulties of implementation.
Now, if I were to be cynical about merit aid, I could make a pretty good case that parent supporters and opponents of merit aid fall into two distinct camps: supporters of merit aid are those with children who are recipients of merit aid; and opponents of merit aid are the parents of all other students, the vast majority of young people who do not receive merit aid.
Despite my frustration with many things college-related, I am still not that cynical, and I hope you aren’t either. Let’s both be skeptical, however, and together let’s dissect the what, where, how, who and why questions of merit aid. Let’s ask:
- WHAT is merit aid? To answer that question, let’s start with what merit aid is not. It is not need-based. Instead, merit aid is based on a college’s subjective evaluation of a student’s admission credentials. In its simplest terms, merit aid is most often awarded to a student with GPA and standardized test scores higher than the average accepted student at a particular school.
- WHERE is merit aid available? To be consistent with my first answer, I’ll start by delineating where merit aid is not available, and that includes a number of very different colleges. First, merit aid is not available at America’s most selective schools, such as the Ivies, Duke, Northwestern, Stanford, etc. At these schools, admission is need-blind and all financial aid is need-based, as the pool of applicants is so strong that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to single out certain applicants as deserving of merit aid. Merit aid is also often not available at some state schools, which sometimes operate under government mandate to only make financial aid available based on strict need criteria. Merit aid is often available at less selective private colleges and universities which aspire to be stronger in terms of their student bodies. To be frank, it is used as an enrollment management tool at such schools, helping them to recruit stronger students who might otherwise wish to attend a more selective private school or a brand-name state school.
- HOW are merit aid decisions made and how is the money disbursed? Very mysteriously is the short answer to both of those questions. While an individual student is, of course, the end beneficiary when merit aid is awarded, it is often for purposes of rounding out an entire class that merit aid is made available. Schools want to have entering classes that include football quarterbacks, student government leaders, actors and actresses, marching band members, mathematicians and on and on, all the specialties that make up the various activities on campus. As a result, school officials decide who should receive merit aid and how to disburse the funds based on enrollment management goals. If a school has decided it is important to have a chamber orchestra, then it logically wants to have students who can make up that orchestra and it may be willing to “pay” for those musicians, not in hard cash, but instead in the form of a tuition discount. This leads to the related question of. . .
- WHO receive
The first paragraph of Education Next’s Grading Schools: Can Citizens Tell a Good School When They See One? discusses the widespread availability of school standardized test score data. Reading that, I thought I knew what the article would be about. Citizens judging schools based on test scores alone, rather than more meaningful measures. It resonated with me, because the same day I read the article, I had fallen prey to that trap. I was talking about a really great school…and talking only about its test scores. Someone called me on it. I could have mentioned the amazing parent engagement at the school. Or discussed how students at this school–over 90% of whom receive free or reduced price lunch–collected money to send to relief efforts in Haiti. In imparting such citizenship to its students, this school must be doing something right. I know all this, about this school and many others. B