Claymore -

I think you missed the point. The Merit Scholarships WERE ORIGINALLY need based with no limit. They NOW ARE CAPPED at fixed maximum amounts, and many of the "named" ones have been lowering the caps.

The earliest Merit scholars could go anywhere, give them all their money, and the scholarship paid whatever else was needed (sort of). Now, even Merit scholars have to look at whether they can afford the difference, because the maximum they can get from the "scholarship" is about $1K or so per year. (I haven't checked recently.)   That doesn't make much of a dent in the $20,000 to $30,000 estimated for the total cost of a year at Harvard or Yale, but it can be a healthy chunk of what most state schools will cost.

WHEN MERIT SCHOLARSHIPS WERE NEED BASED, the winners were encouraged to go to "the best" they could get admitted to. In the early days, it was rare for any school to refuse admission to any Merit scholar (although even then it did happen).

NOW THAT MERIT SCHOLARSHIPS ARE CAPPED, even Merit scholars have to consider whether they can afford "the best," and increasing numbers of them do choose "cheaper" (but usually very good) places.

The emphasis has changed, in the NMSC program as in a number of other aid programs, from the original notion of making sure that "the brightest" go to the "best schools" to helping assure that more of "the brightest" go to "better schools." And the kids are catching on to the shift in emphasis in growing numbers. (One might also say they're just being more realistic.) There is also a very active "industry" now that seems to have increasing influence, of "guidance corporations" who make the real $$ costs more evident to entering students (and their parents) than we (or our parents) knew some few years ago.

All you can really say about a Merit (or any other) scholarship is that it allows a student to go to a little bit more expensive school than might otherwise be affordable for that student and his/her family. It doesn't guarantee they can afford what might be their "first choice," and more of them see that now, in time to make more "reasonable" school selections.

John