<p>
An example is RIT, Rochester NY.
Freshman merit scholarships are up to $15,000, and transfer merit scholarships are up to $11,000; a difference of mere $4,000.
My sons both took the route of CC for two years, and then transferred to RIT to complete the degrees.
The route worked out better than we expected: my sons were offered more transfer merit scholarships ($11,000) than the freshman scholarships ($8,000 to $9,000; they did applied to RIT as freshman).</p>