Merit Scholarships

State funding for public universities has steadily declined for decades. Those cuts sped up during the Great Recession and then again during the pandemic. State colleges and universities have raised tuition but have also offered more scholarships to smart, wealthy students. Why would giving rich students scholarships make financial sense for a university? Stephen Burd investigated this in some reporting for the Education Policy program at New America. (Originally aired: July 1st, 2020)