UCI will no longer fund National Merit Scholars

Michael Miller

UC Irvine officials will have to redirect a small bit of their

financial aid in 2006, after the University of California announced

Wednesday that it will no longer provide funding for National Merit

Scholarships.

In a telephone press conference Wednesday morning, UC provost and

senior vice president M.R.C. Greenwood said the university would

redirect National Merit funding to other scholarships beginning in

fall 2006.

The chancellors of the UC campuses, at their last meeting, agreed

to the policy because they believed that the National Merit practice

of judging students by a single test went against university

standards.

As a result, UCI -- which gave out around $45,000 in National

Merit Scholarships last year -- will soon have more flexibility in

funding students, said Brent Yunek, UCI’s director of financial aid

and scholarships.

“It’ll take time to realize that full $45,000 savings, but

ultimately, there will be that much to redirect to other scholarship

programs,” he said.

In 2004-05, UCI sponsored 49 National Merit Scholars.

The National Merit Scholarship Program, which began in 1955 and

honors about 8,200 finalists nationwide every year, evaluates

students by their scores on the Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test,

or PSAT. UC administrators, in assessing students for scholarships,

also consider grade point average and other standardized tests.

“A single high-stakes test should never be used to make a

significant decision for the future,” Greenwood said. “The National

Merit Scholarship Program uses the PSAT score to eliminate the vast

majority of students from future consideration, and this particular

procedure is just not consistent with our policies.

“We believe that multiple pieces of information are necessary for

these types of decisions.”

With the National Merit Scholarships no longer offered in fall

2006, the campuses may divert those funds to other merit-based

awards, including regents and chancellors scholarships.

Greenwood said individual campuses could select other programs to

sponsor as well.

Yunek said he did not know whether funding for other awards would

cover an equal number of students.

Nevertheless, he said he supports the university’s decision.

“The National Merit program bases its participation in large part

on that PSAT that a large number of students are not taking,” Yunek

said. “I think that’s the crux of it. It’s just a different approach

to defining merit.”

Six of the nine UC campuses -- Irvine, Davis, Los Angeles, San

Diego, Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz -- provide funding for National

Merit Scholarships.

Greenwood added that currently enrolled students who receive the

four-year scholarships will continue to get funds even after fall

2006. Elaine Detweiler, director of public information for the

National Merit Scholarship Corp., expressed disappointment at the new

UC policy but said that she and her colleagues had been expecting it.

“It wasn’t a surprise,” Detweiler said from the corporation’s

Illinois headquarters. “We’ve been following the process. We had been

hopeful that it would go the other way, simply because it means there

are fewer scholarships for finalists.”

The UC policy applies only to scholarships directly funded by the

university, as others funded by the National Merit Scholarship Corp.

or by corporate sponsors will not be affected.

Detweiler said that of the 8,200 scholarships the corporation

awards every year, about 4,600 of them are sponsored by colleges or

universities.