It’s also about your children and what they do — and that means that good grades can be worth a whole lot of money. In many cases, it is bait for students who can raise the school’s profile in the eyes of the rankings overlords at places like U.S. News & World Report. In others, it’s become so rampant that discounts are necessary just to keep heads in the beds and pay the light bill. It goes by the name merit aid, and it’s not the same as the more limited academic scholarships of a generation ago. “Aid” is a bit of a misnomer, albeit one that we seem to be stuck with.

Source: New York Times January 23, 2021 09:56 UTC