Merit Aid on the Rise in Colleges

(from Inside Higher Ed) From 2001 to 2017, spending on non-need-based aid at public colleges and universities rose from $1.1 billion to $3 billion. Increasingly higher ed experts believe that deepening enrollment challenges have turned merit scholarships, originally developed to reward academic excellence, into tuition discounts colleges use to attrach students. Over the same time period, public institutions spent a total of $32 billion on non-need aid, versus $49 billion on need-based aid. As the drive for students has grown more intense, the gap has likely narrowed further, and left spending for need-based aid. 

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