Ut Drops National Merit Scholars

[KRAM1]

Perhaps you have seen the info regarding UT deciding to stop offering National Merit Scholarships to "save" the funds for more "need based" scholarships. OK, first...does that mean No National Merit Scholars have financial needs? Pretty elitist attitude if you ask me on the part of UT...however, that is beside the point...looks again like someone is all about "needs based" as opposed to also rewarding high academic achievement regardless of financial capacity. So, UT is dropping out of one of the most prestigious academic scholarship programs around in favor of only "need based" funding. To quote the UT Office of Student Financial Services, "We want high achieving students here at the University of Texas. It really just came down to a budgetary decision about where to best direct our resources. We want to make sure for students who are meritorious enough to get here but who may have financial need that we are able to fill that need".

Just wondering do you buy that when National Merit Scholarships are not funded entirely through University funds but rather through a nonprofit organization supported by companies ans individual universities. Just wondering what your take on this might be. Interesting move on the part of UT in my opinion...these universities, including UT, seem to always be touting the number of National Merit Scholars they enroll.

[NThomas]

Perhaps you have seen the info regarding UT deciding to stop offering National Merit Scholarships to "save" the funds for more "need based" scholarships. OK, first...does that mean No National Merit Scholars have financial needs? Pretty elitist attitude if you ask me on the part of UT...however, that is beside the point...looks again like someone is all about "needs based" as opposed to also rewarding high academic achievement regardless of financial capacity. So, UT is dropping out of one of the most prestigious academic scholarship programs around in favor of only "need based" funding. To quote the UT Office of Student Financial Services, "We want high achieving students here at the University of Texas. It really just came down to a budgetary decision about where to best direct our resources. We want to make sure for students who are meritorious enough to get here but who may have financial need that we are able to fill that need".

Just wondering do you buy that when National Merit Scholarships are not funded entirely through University funds but rather through a nonprofit organization supported by companies ans individual universities. Just wondering what your take on this might be. Interesting move on the part of UT in my opinion...these universities, including UT, seem to always be touting the number of National Merit Scholars they enroll.

I think this is just another step UT Austin is taking to get out of things like the 10% rule. Sounds like if you can get a National Merit Scholarship, you'll qualify for multiple scholarships totaling up to the same amount. I think OU has the right idea though by publicly saying because of this, they are increasing their spending for NM.