This article focuses more on merit scholarships than financial aid but raises a point that bears repeating. Maintaining a high GPA such as 3.8 in a challenging major is more difficult than many high school students may realize. They look at their high school grades and assume college rigor will be similar. Depending on which high school they attended this may be a huge mistake.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/10/education/edlife/why-upperclassmen-pay-more-they-may-get-less.html
3.8 is definitely the highest GPA I have heard of to renew a merit scholarship. A student looking at a merit scholarship with a renewal GPA that high should consider it effectively a one year (or semester) scholarship.
It’s unfortunate that no one told her accepting something with a 3.8 GPA requirement is insane. As, in my opinion, any major. You could easily have one bad semester and be on probation. One more difficult semester and the scholarship is gone.
College is hard. There are any number of reasons for poor performance. I think any requirements 3.5 and above are a huge gamble, honestly.
Some law schools were doing this. The student would be given large scholarships and with a big gpa requirement that was almost impossible to meet, the scholarship would disappear, and suddenly the student had to pay 2 or even 3 years of tuition north of $40k, when the student would have been better off just paying for all 3-4 years at a public or lower cost school. A co-worker of mine had an offer and asked what would happen if she left after first year and was told she’d need to repay the scholarship (it must have been a loan or tuition credit or something that was contingent on her continuing, not a straight scholarship). She declined and just paid for school.
Smaller schools can pretty much control how many A’s are given out, and thus control how many scholarships are renewed.
I agree that any requirement above GPA 3.5 for scholarship renewal is insane.
I’ve heard of the high standards to maintain a scholarship in some law schools, and I’ve advised students who are looking at those law school scholarships to ask what percentage of recipients maintain them for all three years. The answers would lead me to believe the schools are offering them to lure students in with the expectation that many of those students will be full pay after first year.
My daughter had one undergraduate scholarship (a small one; her full tuition scholarship required a reasonable 3.0) that required an A- in every class in a particular minor. It was a risk we were willing to take because it was $5K a year, not full tuition, and we could cover it if it was lost, but it turned out that the courses in that minor were graded such that an A- was a reasonable threshold. I think one needs to be very careful with the renewal requirements of merit scholarships if the school is unaffordable (or would not be an attractive choice) without them.
I really hadn’t heard of the law school enticement scholarships until about 7-8 years ago when a friend’s son was offered some and started asking questions about these 4th tier law schools (I was not even aware that law schools were ‘tiered’ and had never heard the term). They didn’t sound like a good idea. Then, about 4 years ago the building I worked in was next door to a law school (with a better café than ours, so we’d take the walk for a good cup of coffee). It was a terrible school and situation for almost all students. I think the numbers were something like 60-70% had these ‘sweet deal’ scholarships for first year, but only a small percentage (25%?) kept them after first year. The year I left, the total enrollment at the school was down 30%. It is not a structure that works.
3.5 is also too high, in my opinion. And 3.2 is really pushing it.
Even a renewal GPA of 3.5 means that the student has to protect his/her GPA like a pre-med does. Among other things, it may limit intellectual exploration or otherwise taking risks with one’s GPA (e.g. taking a harder or honors course, taking an extra course, etc.). While not as bad as a 3.8 renewal GPA, it is still a relatively high risk of losing the scholarship.
A renewal GPA of 3.0 usually is not much of an issue for a student getting the top end scholarship at the school, but there is still some risk (e.g. rough first year, before there is any previous GPA to buffer a bad semester).
^ The renewal requirement can be reasonable (>3.0), somewhat challenging (>3.2), hard (>3.4), or insane (>3.5), particularly for engineering school. However, some schools offer additional scholarship if you do maintain a high GPA. So it is not necessary upperclassmen losing merit aids. One can actually gets more merit aid from the department in upperclassmen.
There is nothing punitive about requiring students to have to keep a certain gpa to keep the scholarships, but anything above a 3.4 or so is really hard. I know a lot of kids who lost their Bright Futures scholarships for not meeting the gpa requirement (3.0), but that’s also after giving them a semester or two grace period to bring up the gpa. I’ve also known a few who lost it for not taking enough credits, for taking non-qualified courses, for not following up on it. The college kids have got to have a little interest in their education or the state would just keep paying money out every semester whether any progress is made or not. My daughter was a little shocked that they took back about $220 after she dropped a class. They aren’t going to pay if you drop the class!
I liked that the United Negro College Fund pays more for upper classmen than freshmen. At least they are on top of the situation and realize where their money is really needed.
Just to expand on this discussion a little bit, I also think it’s worth keeping in mind that even a 3.0 can be hard. I understand the rationale behind “…but that’s also after giving them a semester or two grace period to bring up the GPA.”
The problem is, some freshman in particular (but really, any students struggling with significant hurdles) have super catastrophic first semesters. I have a bright friend who grew up very low income in a bad school district (few opportunities, etc), and after making it into an elite university has struggled immensely with both the social and academic transition. This student finished last semester with a 1.something GPA. It is nearly impossible to bring that up to a 3.0 – depending on the number of credit hours (it’s usually recommended to take the bare minimum required to be considered full-time when on probation), it can be mathematically impossible to raise a 1.something to a 3.0 in one semester. This institution and some of the student’s scholarships from third parties only give them 1 semester to recover.
Some catastrophic semesters cannot be recovered from, period. I like what MIT does in that their first freshman semester is Pass/No record. I’m sure it helps with retention rates.
I like what my D’s school does for most of their scholarships. If you don’t meet the 3.0 cumulative GPA threshold at the end of freshman year or subsequent, you’re put on scholarship probation. You then have to get a 3.0 in every semester during which you’re on probation to avoid losing the scholarship. Once you pull the cumulative GPA up to 3.0, then you’re off scholarship probation. However, even if you never pull it up to 3.0 (for instance after one of those catastrophic freshman years), as long as you get a 3.0 every semester after that, you’re good. It can make for some stressful semesters, especially for students in fields, such as engineering, where a 3.0 isn’t all that easy to achieve, but it seems more than fair to me. And the scholarship stays in place while you’re on probation.
@beth’s mom…What school does your D attend? That sounds like a very responsible thing to do.
^^ University of Alabama.
Wow. I’m glad I went to Brown. My financial aid remained constant and all I had to do was make “satisfactory academic progress”. They met my full need with no loans and no scholarships. My hat’s off to those of you who have to compete for scholarships!
Upperclassmen lose aid for several reasons.
All true, but the article was, to me, about losing it ways it which it is almost impossible to keep it, i.e, gpa requirements of 3.8 or as in the case of some of the law schools, having to be in the top 10% of the class. If the class has 30 or 40% start on the super duper scholaship and only 10% can keep them, things aren’t going to turn out well for most.
@widgetmidget Brown does not give merit scholarship so they do not use academic achievement as criteria for renewal.
@billcsho Having gone to Brown, I’m aware of their financial aid policy. All Ivy Group universities prohibit merit aid. The positive aspect of this is that they meet “full need” as a matter of policy and so you don’t need to worry about having merit aid renewed.