I’ve created two lists of colleges to target for merit aid, one consisting of only 50-50 schools and a more general list taking into consideration test scores. Since all the colleges on the lists are private schools, I thought I would create a list best financial bets for 50-50 public universities. As I started looking at the schools, I realized that the criteria I used for the private colleges didn’t exactly apply to the public universities.
College Characteristics
50-50 Highlights: Colleges for Hispanic Students
Since 2000, the percentage of Hispanics enrolled in college has increased by 50% to 15.8% of all college students. There are 444 colleges and universities with 500 or more full-time undergraduates where ten percent or more of the undergraduate population is Hispanic. A total of 92 of these schools appear on the 50-50 schools list.
50-50 Highlights: Colleges for African-American Students
There are no Historically Black Colleges or Universities that meet the 50-50 criteria. I have created two tables of 50-50 schools that may be of use to African-American students or anyone looking for schools with more diversity.
How to Find Merit Scholarships: Follow the Money, Part 3
In Part Two of How to Find Merit Scholarships, I said that you need to look at the numbers on institutional aid and non-federal loans to get an idea of which schools are more likely to give out merit money. Now we’ll look at some examples to see how it works.
How to Find Merit Scholarships: Follow the Money, Part 2
(Part 1 showed how to identify colleges that are likely sources of merit money.)
Now that you know who has the money, you need to target those schools more likely to be giving it away. I do this by looking at information on institutional grants. This is money the school is giving the student and is usually the largest single source of financial aid for an individual student at private schools. Since IPEDS doesn’t require the school to distinguish between need and merit based grants, I also look at the percentage of freshman who receive the institutional grants.
How to Find Merit Scholarships: Follow the Money
There are 1,586 public and not-for-profit colleges with 500 or more full-time undergraduates. Which of them are likely to give you merit scholarships? Unfortunately, there’s really no one right way to search for such colleges. After all, the college that provides a generous amount of merit scholarship to one student will deny it to another.
Guaranteed Tuition and 4 Year Graduation: Part 1
The University of Wisconsin offers a guarantee to graduate in four years. The University of Illinois guarantees its tuition for four years. Both offers are fairly new to colleges in general and don’t have much of a track record in terms of students enrolling under the programs. So which is a better deal? Or are they both just gimmicks for colleges to sooth the family fear of rising tuition costs?
6 Options for Public Liberal Arts Colleges
Liberal Arts Colleges are known for their focus on undergraduate teaching. They’re generally small with few or no graduate students and rank high in student engagement in research, internships, and culminating senior experiences. They can be very good for preparing students for graduate school. And they’re overwhelmingly private institutions.