Quoted In: Texas: UT Drops Merit Program for Need-Based Aid (The Wall Street Journal)

"An increase in the number of students seeking financial aid has prompted the University of Texas at Austin to phase out its multimillion-dollar National Merit Scholarship program starting next year so it can use the money for need-based scholarships," The Wall Street Journalreports. "Coming amid the recession and climbing college costs, the move by the state’s largest university could signal a renewed emphasis on need-based aid by the country’s colleges, experts said. Many schools have spent the past decade using scholarship money to attract high-performing students. ‘This gets back to equity in college — which should be the primary goal of student aid,’ said Justin Draeger, vice president of public policy at the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators."

You can read the complete Sept. 2, 2009 Wall Street Journal article on-line.