As tuition rises, merit-based scholarships come under scrutiny
20.05.12
Fisher doesn't restrict for need-based financial aid programs like
Federal Pell Grants or Florida Possibility Scholarships. But if his
parents hadn't started saving early, he said, he would conceivable
graduate in debt.
He's not alone. Of the 50,844 students enrolled at UF in the
2009-2010 school year, 9,573 received Pell Grants and 1,358
received Florida Occasion Scholarships. Though about 70 percent
of UF students receive a scholarship of some kind, the ginormous
majority of these are non-need-based.
According to recent numbers released by College Enter, U.S.
colleges are giving out about $5.3 billion this year to students
whose families don't modulate for financial aid.
Critics, including College Board analyst Sandy Baum, say this
indicates colleges are giving funds to students who don't need it.
And as tuition continues to rise and grants and scholarship
programs to undertake, that $5.3 billion is becoming a point of
controversy.
Instead of being need-based, this gain is merit-based and is
typically awarded to students based on academic or extracurricular
achievements in enormous school.
At UF, these merit scholarship programs include Bright Futures,
Inhabitant Merit and Lombardi scholarships.
For the 2009-2010 school year, 26,712 UF students experienced for
Bright Futures scholarships, receiving a total of $77,250,681 in
aid.
The National Virtue scholarship program awarded $1,811,646 to 797
students, and there were nine Lombardi scholars who received $8,177
in aid for the year.
Rebecca Johnson, fraternize with director of admissions at UF and the
merit-based scholarship coordinator, said in an email that these
types of erudition programs can have a variety of uses.
Some schools implement them to recognize top academic students, she
said, while others use them as recruiting mechanisms to draw the
best and the brightest.
Highly selective universities like Harvard and Yale, for exemplar,
give grants to families with incomes as high as $200,000 a year,
the College Board write-up indicated.
Many students who qualify for merit-based scholarships like Vivacious
Futures or National Merit may also qualify for need-based aid,
Johnson said. This makes it almost inconceivable to determine how many
UF students are receiving merit-based aid who would not otherwise
qualify for assistance.
Michelle Novoa, a 19-year-old biology freshman, said she thinks
excellence should play a larger role in financial aid.
"There are a lot of people on the borderline," she said. "People
who don't modify for need-based aid but can't really afford to pay
for college themselves."
Fisher suggested be entitled to-based scholarship programs institute an
income cap so students who come from comfortable families would not
qualify but middle-class students would.
"But if a person is bright, they shouldn't be punished by losing
out on grant opportunities," he said, "College is expensive
for everyone.
Source: The Independent Florida Alligator