The latter has been a trend over the last several years, where colleges’ automatic merit scholarships are reduced or made harder to get for the following years’ applicants. There is this older list at http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/ that shows how many more big automatic merit scholarships were available several years ago; most of them are no longer available, smaller, or harder to get (e.g. competitive instead of automatic).
For students who have earned a merit scholarship, check carefully on the renewal criteria. Very high college GPA requirements can result in easy loss of scholarship, and a college facing budget issues may be less likely to exercise discretionary leniency with a student who (for example) earned a 3.59 GPA but has a scholarship that specifies a 3.60 GPA to renew.