Sunday, January 16, 2011

A quiz about college scholarships

What percentage of college students receive private (non-institutional) scholarships totaling $10,000 or more?
   a) 1%
   b) 3%
   c) 7%
   d) 11%

Clue:  The average scholarship is $2,523 per recipient.

The correct answer is A, if you round up to whole numbers.  The exact number is .7%, according to Mark Kantrowitz, writing in the NYT's The Choice:
Very few students win a completely free ride each year. Less than 0.3 percent of students at four-year colleges received enough grants to cover the full cost of attendance and less than 0.7 percent received private scholarships totaling $10,000 or more. Debt is often unavoidable, especially at higher cost private colleges.
Keep in mind, this number excludes institutional scholarships (those awarded by the colleges), which comprise the majority of merit aid received by students.  This type of award often comes in the form of "discounts" off tuition that colleges give to those students whose GPAs and test scores are among the highest at their schools.  Unfortunately, I have been unable to find smilar percentage data on institutional merit aid.

2 comments:

  1. About the only thing he didn't mention was the lack of jobs for the college educated in their rural villages and the ban on moving to the cities. Those that emigrate anyway are still unemployed or working for nothing.

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  2. Interesting. I'm sure there's a lot more to learn about China.

    ReplyDelete