Editorial: Pitt's need-based aid is good call

There are two kinds of scholarships in the world of higher education.

There are the ones that you get because of merit. You achieved a grade or passed a test or submitted an essay or won a contest. You show real skill as a student or real promise in your field.

Then there are the ones that you get because of need. They are acknowledgments that the math just doesn’t add up for a $50,000 household to send an 18-year-old to college — whether you are looking at tuition of $13,000 annually for a smaller state school like Indiana University of Pennsylvania or over $55,000 for a big-name research institution like Carnegie Mellon.

According to “Crisis Point,” a report from think tank New America, between 2001 and 2017, 40% of financial aid awarded at 339 public colleges and universities in the United States was based on merit over need.

The National Center for Education Statistics says that in the same period, the average cost of a year of public college tuition jumped from $7,586 to $17,237.

The New America study points to use of the merit-based aid as an “arms race,” with major universities competing against one another for students. But at public schools — including state-related institutions like the University of Pittsburgh and Penn State — the loser there can be the taxpayer as much as the low-income good student who state schools were really designed to help.

In 2001, Ohio State was the No. 2 school when it came to merit money, giving away $36.5 million. In 2017, it was $76 million — $19 million of which was in athletic scholarships, according to Cleveland.com — but that still wasn’t enough to make the top five in merit spending. Meanwhile, Pennsylvania’s state-related Temple crept up and took that silver medal spot with $80.1 million.

The money that gets pumped into a state school isn’t intended to help get to a Division I championship. They are ladders to help kids climb as high as they can through education, and that intrinsically acknowledges need.

So kudos to Pitt for 10 years of steady effort to put more money into need.

On top of that, the university announced the Pitt Success Pell Match Program a year ago. Federal Pell Grants averaging $4,500 go to undergrads in financial need. Pitt matches them dollar for dollar at all five campuses.

Between the grant and the match, that can cut the cost of a year at Pitt in half for a Pennsylvania student. For a four-year degree, that might mean student loans that equal the cost of an SUV instead of a house.

Providing merit aid is a good thing, but state schools should be helping all students climb the educational ladder.