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.
All the latest on Orange County from Orange County.
Get our free TimesOC newsletter.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Daily Pilot.