Merit Aid: Publics that Fund at least 50% of Freshmen Tuition and Fees

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Thanks to the availability of a 2012 NY Times Table on Merit Money, we have identified the public universities that meet two criteria for providing non-need based merit aid to students: (1) at least 10 percent of freshmen receive the merit aid and (2) the merit aid covers at least 50 percent of the cost of in-state tuition and fees. (It is likely that many of the universities listed below also provide excellent merit aid for highly-qualified out-of-state students.)

The merit aid is not limited to National Merit Scholarships.  For information regarding those scholarships, please see Best Major Universities for National Merit Scholarship Funding and PSAT National Merit Qualifying Scores and SAT Equivalencies, by State.

After identifying the universities that meet the two criteria listed above, we then ranked and scaled them.  Finally, we weighted the results so that the dollar amount of merit aid counts for two-thirds of the total.  We weighted the results in this way because the 10 percent threshold for freshmen receiving aid is already high.

Here are the public universities with the best merit aid for in-state students:

1. Alabama–108% tuition and fees; 27% of freshmen

2. College of Charleston–104% tuition and fees; 23% of freshmen

3. Mississippi–100% tuition and fees; 24% of freshmen

4. Alabama Huntsville–92% tuition and fees; 27% of freshmen

5. SUNY Plattsburgh–91% tuition and fees; 28% of freshmen

6. Truman State–78% tuition and fees; 41 % of freshmen

7. LSU–91% tuition and fees; 25% of freshmen

8. UT Dallas–98% tuition and fees; 12% of freshmen

9. Arizona State–91% tuition and fees; 19% of freshmen

10. Maryland Baltimore Co–87% tuition and fees; 16% of freshmen

11. Idaho–79% tuition and fees; 23% of freshmen

12. Alabama Birmingham–76% tuition and fees; 25% of freshmen

13. Nebraska–75% tuition and fees; 25% of freshmen

14. Indiana–81% tuition and fees; 18% of freshmen

15. Arizona–73% tuition and fees; 23% of freshmen

16. Auburn–71% tuition and fees; 24% of freshmen

17. UT Permian Basin-65% tuition and fees; 28% of freshmen

18. South Carolina–53% tuition and fees; 37% of freshmen

19. New College Fla–51% tuition and fees; 36% of freshmen

20. Southern Miss–72% tuition and fees; 11% of freshmen

21. Mississippi State–56% tuition and fees; 24% of freshmen

22. Ohio State–53% tuition and fees; 24% of freshmen

23. Connecticut–60% tuition and fees; 11% of freshmen

24. Georgia State–55% tuition and fees; 14% of freshmen

25. Colorado State–56% tuition and fees; 12% of freshmen

26. Cincinnati–53% tuition and fees; 15% of freshmen

27. Kansas State–51% tuition and fees; 15% of freshmen

28. Texas A&M–53% tuition and fees; 10% of freshmen

Also notable are the following:

Michigan–46% of tuition and fees; 46% of freshmen

Purdue–75% of tuition and fees; 9% of freshmen