Best 54 Public Colleges for Merit Scholarships

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(The following has been updated for 2019.) Merit scholarships from colleges aren’t simply a way for schools to reward students for accomplishments, it’s part of the supply and demand of paying for college. Colleges use merit aid as a way to increase the supply of “accomplished” students at their schools. This is why the most competitive colleges in the country such as Princeton and Harvard don’t offer merit scholarships–they have no problem attracting high achieving students to their schools.

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Where to find merit scholarships

In general, merit scholarships or aid is associated with private schools (See 4 Easy Steps to Find 254 Colleges for Potential Merit Scholarships). Most students that would qualify for merit aid at a private college will find that their state flagship universities aren’t worried about providing incentives to attend them. Like the most selective schools in the country, they aren’t hurting for quality students since they charge so much less for tuition.

However, there are some public universities where students are more likely to receive merit scholarships than others. Some colleges may do this so that they can raise their academic reputation in the state. Some are trying to keep students from leaving the state and others are trying to convince out-of-state students to come to fill spaces.

Therefore, students who know that they aren’t likely to qualify for need-based aid at their public universities, might consider such schools. The list below shows 54 50-50 schools where at least 40% of freshman received non-need based aid according to data publicly available from the Common Data Set.

Understand the data

You need to be careful using these numbers. The main reason is that they can be very wrong. For example, the University of Kentucky reported 4,758 freshman on its 2017-18 CDS form. It also listed that 5,107 freshman without financial need were awarded institutional non-need scholarships or grants. The University of Utah has a similar error. According to its publicly posted CDS, they had 1,934 freshman without need (Freshman minus the number who had need) but they had awarded non-need aid to 2,164 freshman without need.

These are obviously data errors of some sort and I sincerely don’t want this to be used as an excuse for colleges not to post their CDS information. But the fact is that families need to be careful in using this and any information from these reports. As far as I know, colleges aren’t paid for the time it takes to compile the data and it isn’t used to meet any regulatory requirements. Since it’s being used by publishers to make money, my guess is that the colleges’ primary motivation is publicity. But if you think about it, none of this lends itself to strict data quality standards.

And yet here I go offering the data available because who doesn’t want to know which public universities offer the most merit scholarships? I just hope Utah and Kentucky figure out their data errors soon and I very much appreciate them posting their Common Data Sets.

Ultimately, chances are the schools on the list below are contributing significantly to merit aid based on the percentage of freshman receiving institutional aid. These schools tend to have a higher percentage of freshman receiving institutional grants, an average of 70% compared to 54% for all public 50-50 colleges. The higher the percentage of freshman receiving grants, the more likely that students without need are getting some of the money.

There are 34 states that have colleges on the 50-50 Public Colleges for Merit Aid list, up from 27 from last time. This could just be from an increase in the number of universities posting their Common Data Sets. South Carolina and Pennsylvania have the most with four each. Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, and Ohio tied for second with three each.

The table below lists 50-50 public universities where at least 40% of freshman without need received merit aid. 50-50 schools accept at least 50% of students and have at least a 50% graduation rate. As usual, for 50-50 schools the five-year graduation rate is used for public schools. All of this information is part of the DIY College Rankings Spreadsheet.

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50-50 Public Universities for Merit Aid

Name	State	Full-time Under-grads	4/5 yr Grad Rate	% Fresh w/out need Receiving Merit Aid	% Freshman Receiving Institutional Grants (16-17)
Auburn University	AL	21,762	73	48	62
Northern Arizona University	AZ	21,990	53	69	83
University of Arizona	AZ	29,325	60	66	83
University of Colorado Boulder	CO	26,977	66	57	49
Eastern Connecticut State University	CT	4,210	52	50	72
University of Delaware	DE	18,195	82	51	65
University of Hawaii at Manoa	HI	10,702	53	63	63
University of Idaho	ID	7,166	50	83	88
Ball State University	IN	15,203	59	53	51
Indiana University-Bloomington	IN	32,212	75	46	58
Iowa State University	IA	28,743	70	78	76
University of Iowa	IA	21,222	71	41	76
University of Northern Iowa	IA	9,100	64	53	63
University of Kansas	KS	17,151	60	56	67
Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College	LA	22,060	59	49	55
University of Maine	ME	8,204	55	98	99
St Mary’s College of Maryland	MD	1,516	77	62	80
University of Maryland-Baltimore County	MD	9,543	58	47	44
Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts	MA	1,201	52	65	82
University of Massachusetts-Amherst	MA	21,577	76	63	80
University of Massachusetts-Lowell	MA	10,495	56	59	76
Central Michigan University	MI	15,585	52	74	86
Grand Valley State University	MI	19,373	60	47	68
Michigan Technological University	MI	5,492	60	83	92
University of Minnesota-Duluth	MN	8,906	56	42	69
Mississippi State University	MS	16,803	54	97	83
University of Mississippi	MS	17,511	56	64	71
Missouri State University-Springfield	MO	15,363	51	46	59
University of Nebraska at Kearney	NE	4,063	54	47	64
Keene State College	NH	3,624	61	79	93
Plymouth State University	NH	3,971	53	65	98
University of New Hampshire-Main Campus	NH	12,677	76	53	71
New Jersey Institute of Technology	NJ	6,380	56	64	62
SUNY College at Potsdam	NY	3,196	50	59	86
Kent State University at Kent	OH	19,108	52	57	79
Miami University-Oxford	OH	16,619	78	48	67
University of Cincinnati-Main Campus	OH	22,622	63	41	54
Oklahoma State University-Main Campus	OK	18,221	58	62	73
Oregon State University	OR	18,829	59	59	68
Kutztown University of Pennsylvania	PA	7,053	50	42	53
Mansfield University of Pennsylvania	PA	1,655	53	42	78
Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania	PA	7,125	64	42	51
Temple University	PA	26,643	67	60	82
Citadel Military College of South Carolina	SC	2,559	71	65	41
College of Charleston	SC	9,083	67	59	37
University of South Carolina-Columbia	SC	25,243	72	60	62
Winthrop University	SC	4,488	54	58	55
University of South Dakota	SD	4,908	54	60	67
The University of Tennessee-Knoxville	TN	20,965	67	47	48
The University of Texas at Dallas	TX	15,294	66	44	61
University of Vermont	VT	10,395	73	84	92
University of Mary Washington	VA	3,905	68	73	79
Washington State University	WA	22,166	58	73	76
University of Wyoming	WY	8,281	51	51	67

50-50 Highlights: 54 Public Colleges for Merit Aid

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50-50 Highlights: 54 Public Colleges for Merit Aid

Where to find merit scholarships

Understand the data

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