Where Did The Scholarships Go?

MCD for Parents

Assessing Affordability, Part 2

by Leigh Moore

2.24.2026

The Big Picture--The 3 A's and Scholarship Melt

My college advising model is grounded in my fervent belief that college "fit" must be defined in terms of affordability ("Can we pay this much?"), admissibility ("Does the student belong here academically?"), and affinity ("Does the student like the place? Will it serve to meet their needs?") My data collection has always existed to address those three questions.

Admissibility and affinity are necessarily fraught with nuance. Affordability, though? Why must it be so difficult for families to estimate the cost of the bachelor's degree? Last week, I addressed sticker prices and provided a nifty custom cost projection tool. This week, I'm looking at grants, both need- and non-need-based aid.

Nomenclature:

For the purposes of this post, if the the word "grant" is used without qualification, it can refer either to a need-based or non-need-based (aka merit) award.

Zooming In on the SEC

Strictly in the interest of creating a digestible-sized dataset, I chose to confine this post to the 16 colleges in the Southeastern Conference. I live in the SEC and was educated accordingly, so these institutions are of great interest to me. That's a good thing, since they are an attractive option for many of the students I have advised.

Between football dynasties, conference expansion, and record enrollment numbers, SEC schools are riding a wave of popularity that rivals any national championship run. That popularity translates into the ability to retain a lot of students who don't receive grant awards--or, more to the point, who once received grant aid but no longer do. I'm sure consulting companies have a fancy term for the dynamic, but I've always called it "scholarship melt."

What Causes Scholarship Melt? (and why it matters to you)

Here are a few reasons why the percentage of upperclass* students receiving grants is usually lower than that of first-year students:

• Lost awards

  Merit scholarship requirements were not met.

  Make sure your student understands the fine print related to a merit scholarship. Must they maintain a 3.0? Must they complete a certain number of credit hours?

  
  

• Low 4-year grad rates

  If a lot of students in their 5th or 6th years--or, heaven help us, 7th or 8th years--are on campus, that's a bigger denominator of un-aided students. (Merit awards are typically capped at 4 years.)

  For no good reason, the default graduation rate is broadly understood to be the 6-year rate. Because most parents envision a four-year path to their student's degree, I've provided those rates in the melt tool above.

• Substitution effect

  Some students with grants, whether or not they demonstrated need, opt

  not to return after year one. They may be replaced by a full-pay cohort.

  Per my previous post, consider the entire cost of the bachelor's degree. Do not assume that "Year 1 net price X 4" will approximate your total cost.

So,...what?

Scholarship melt is not an accident.

It is no secret that colleges rely on predictive data models. Most SEC institutions operate in similar fashion, with proportionately fewer upperclass students receiving grants than their first-year counterparts.

Parents, my objective is not to steer your student away from colleges which seem to employ such tactics more aggressively than others; Auburn and Tennessee simply enjoy ever-strengthening market positions which allow them operate as they do. The phrase "because they can" comes to mind.

No, my goal is to make you aware of the landmines which can turn college dreams into financial nightmares, even for families who do not demonstrate financial need. No two colleges are exactly alike; the point is not to avoid a particular institution but to understand the landscape at all of the colleges your student is considering.

*Federal data sources supply information for first year classes and for all undergraduates. They do not parse out information for upperclass students but provide sufficient information for users to do so.

Moore College Data provides independent higher education data analysis and visualization tools for families, counselors, and institutions.