I’m not complaining about anything. I’m just answering the question. The question was “will more and more colleges shift their available scholarships from merit aid to more need based aid?”
My point was that schools are moving towards need based aid vs merit because they have to. It’s math and graphs. Tuition inflation is and has been greater than income inflation. To make-up the difference either need FA or merit or both will need to be increased if tuition inflation keeps outpacing income inflation. The overall money bucket is only so big. Money from the scholarship bucket will probably shrink as money from the need bucket will increase.
If income and tuition had increased at the same rate we wouldn’t have the $1.6 Trillion student debt issue.
The first part of the question said “because of diversity and inclusion”. That sounds nice but it’s really because of money, not kindness. It sounds better than “because our tuition costs have grown way faster than your salary”.
Lots of articles and graphs but this one is pretty good even if a few years old.
It’s not just how I define and it’s not just my definition. Mwfan1921 told you that this is how schools report financial aid, and this is where I where I got the definition I used in my post #13, above:
Under any reasonable definition, a merit based award is financial aid. Read the linked Wikipedia page.
Further restrictions may be applied that have nothing to do with either need or merit factors; for instance, state of residence, gender, or intended area of study. But it’s all “financial aid,” because it’s “funding that is used to assist in covering the many costs incurred in the pursuit of post-secondary education.”
@BelknapPoint So this scholarship which makes zero mention of financial aid would to you be FA? https://www.mass.edu/osfa/programs/adams.asp
As I mentioned previously, if you are going based on the report from the college which includes scholarships that have no FA basis but are listed as such that is your business and certainly understandable.
As a high income family, we would not be expected nor provide any financial info to win the scholarship above should our kids pursue it. So would you say that someone who is a billionaire( we are not) and get the above is receiving financial aid? Lol.
And, you might/might not know this, but many very high income families fill out a FAFSA because they want their kids to be eligible for awards which are not based on family income but other factors. Many schools require this to be in the pool of candidates. Again many of these folks are full pay minus the scholarship, if any.
Yes, because as I’ve tried to explain to you twice already, financial aid is any money provided by another that is meant to assist with the costs of attending college. It’s really that simple.
Yes, I would (LOL), because I’m not using your skewed version of the definition of the term “financial aid.”
Yes, I am aware and have known for a long time that for some awards that are strictly based on merit, the completion of FAFSA is required, and for legitimate reasons.
Ok, merit aid is merit aid. It’s also financial aid.
You seem really stuck on the idea that the term “financial aid” can only refer to need-based aid. That’s incorrect. You should get over this mental block, because it’s doing you a disservice.
*What else should I know about merit-based financial aid?
Although most merit-based aid comes directly from colleges and universities, there are some state programs that offer merit-based aid. For any Massachusetts residents, one such award is the John and Abigail Adams Scholarship.*
According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, financial aid has a definition.
It doesn’t specify why someone is getting the money. A merit award is money that’s given to help pay for the student’s education, so it meets the definition of financial aid. You may not like that merit aid falls under that umbrella, but you can’t change the definition of a word just because you don’t like it.