There are many reasons students decide to attend one university over another.
For some students, especially those that aren’t poor enough to qualify for financial aid but not rich enough that going out of state is an easy option, availability of merit scholarships is critical in that decision process.
Over the past decade, there has been a general decline in awards for every major merit-based scholarship program I know about, both on the state level with Bright Futures and on the UF institutional level with programs such as the National Merit and University Scholars programs.
In many cases, the cuts have been more than 50 percent over a period of several years.
Many factors caused UF to become a university of prominent national stature, but one of the most important was that National Merit Scholars were essentially bought.
One could argue that the awards were excessive, but it is indisputable that the increased number of National Merit Scholars made UF a more compelling place to attend. SAT scores rose, GPAs rose and general perception of the quality of the Student Body increased. It seems that the university benefited from a positive feedback effect, with more students viewing UF as an acceptable substitute to Vanderbilt, Miami and Emory, especially at the rock-bottom price.
National Merit was reduced from thousands to $1,000 a year.
University Scholars seems to have been reduced just from last year to $1,750 from $2,000.
Reitz Scholars and Lombardi Scholars awards have also been substantially diminished over the last several years.
In addition, many of these merit-based scholarships require the student to sign up for one-credit courses that eat into the scholarship amount. For example, the College of Business requires three one-credit courses be taken over three semesters to participate in University Scholars Program. In effect, that is about a $500 reduction in the scholarship that makes it marginally less appealing.
In the interest of full disclosure, I am fortunate to receive merit scholarship money at UF, and a diminishing amount of scholarship money is still money that many students do not have, but the decline of these scholarships poses a legitimate policy question.
If UF wants to remain the top destination for education among many of the state’s top students, it must be more attractive than other national universities to stay on top.
With tuition set to rise to the national average over the next several years along with increased competition for top students from places like the University of Alabama and the University of Central Florida, it would be a prudent action to stop the slide in funding for merit-based scholarships at the UF.
The administration should reclaim competition for top students as a top priority.
The return on the investment — especially in future alumni donations — could be well worth the investment.
Travis Hornsby is a statistics and economics junior.
