White Students Receive Disproportionate Share of Merit Aid, Report Says

Despite some white students’ concerns that too many scholarships are restricted to members of minority groups—leading to the occasional scholarship reserved for white students—a new analysis by the financial-aid expert Mark Kantrowitz has found that white students receive a disproportionate share of both institutional merit aid and outside scholarships. White students make up 62 percent of full-time students enrolled in four-year colleges but receive 76 percent of institutional merit scholarships; and white students are 40 percent more likely to receive private scholarships than minority students are.