|
It seems that an analysis of merit aid money should not be undertaken from the point of view of averages. Part of the merit aid issue is the availability of that aid for students who are "superior" academically to the median student at the college or university. Certainly some merit aid awards are designed to bring down the costs of attendance by a large percentage of the upper quartile of applicants (See University of Rochester as an example of this approach), but other schools are trying to attract the HYP crowd. My point is that merit aid money averages don't mean much. What would be more relevant would be to find out how much the average upper quartile applicant to a particular college is awarded in merit aid and how colleges compare on this measure.
|