Scholarships are in decline as tuition soars - Money - TODAY.com

Scholarships are in decline as tuition soars - Money - TODAY.com: "The percentage of students reporting winning scholarships dropped markedly, to 35 percent in the 2011-2012 school year, from 45 percent the year before, according to How America Pays for College 2012, a recent survey of college students and their families by student lender Sallie Mae.
Scholarship recipients are still getting almost exactly the same amount as the previous year, an average of $7,673. But the availability of money is being hurt as cash-strapped states cut funding for scholarships to public schools and the schools themselves aren't always able to make up the difference."

$8 million to zero Some states, like Georgia and Florida, have altered scholarship rules regarding who qualifies and how much money they get. Others have taken even more drastic steps.

Michigan's Merit and Promise scholarship program doled out more than $8 million to more than 6,500 students at the University of Michigan for the 2007-2008 school year, according to Pam Fowler, executive director of the college's Office of Financial Aid. By 2010-2011, that had fallen to zero.

Cash-poor states aren't providing more scholarship money despite record high enrollments, says Haley Chitty, spokesperson for the Washington, D.C.-based National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators.

"That means fewer funds are being spread out among more and more students," Chitty says.

According to Illinois State University's Grapevine project, which tabulates every state's financial support for higher education, such funding fell an average of 7.6 percent in 2011-2012.