O'Connell's Off Topic

I think the article is off point. Unless things have changed since I was coming out of high school (and I don't think they have), OSU offers virtually the same deal that OU does. When I was looking at schools, the only difference in the national merit deals offered by OU and OSU was $250 per year. Also, both deals were essentially the full cost of tuition, fees, books, room, and board, with just a very little extra for other expenses - basically the full cost of education. Many other schools - Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Cornell, Stanford, etc. - offer similar financial aid deals to students who are strong enough to get in so long as they are poor enough to qualify for the aid. Of course, I realize there is no need-based component to the OU deal, but the idea is to try to compete with the top school for some of the top students, and if you don't offer a pretty sweet deal, you are not going to get them. I can also tell you that OU and OSU are not the only schools that offer full rides to top students. Some other schools do too, though they may not tie the awards to the national merit program. Whether it is wise to use the national merit competition as the primary basis for deciding which students get full rides is a legitimate issue for debate, but I have no problem with giving full rides to attract top students, whatever the criteria.

Finally, it should be noted that many of the national merits at OU are from Oklahoma (in fact, I believe most of them are from Oklahoma). Without the outstanding financial aid offers, I would be willing to bet that most of those students would leave the state to go to bigger name schools. So in a very real sense, OU is preventing a major brain drain from the state and improving the university's perception by making attracting financial aid offers to top students from Oklahoma high schools (as well as to some top students from other states). Univ. of Texas does not have to worry about this as much, become it is the flagship state university for one of the biggest states in the country (and widely considered a top 10 public university in its own right - not Harvard, but good enough to draw many top students based on academics and the reduced price of in-state tuition). As a final piece of anecdotal evidence, a friend of mine who is originally from Tennessee attended OU solely because of the great National Merit financial aid package. She wound up winning an award as the top math major at OU, earned her MBA at OU, and now lives and works in the Norman area. In her case, at least, I think Oklahoma got exactly what it bargained for (and more) by offering her a full ride.

Our son was an in-state National Merit Scholar two years ago. He received letters from several schools offering him scholarships valued at up to $66,000 (Texas Tech).
OU's value was around $45,000, yet of course he was in-state.
And of course he chose OU.
Now after two years he has almost 100 credit hours with only two Bs.
He loves the Business School.
He's also been very active in the community through his fraternity.
I'd say for him, (and for me), it's been a great program.

OK. This is good to read. I am partial to the OU Business School. He got a great great package from OU. And Tech offered a great package, too. The student and his family are very fortunate - due to his good work in school.

I can only add that maybe OU could have spread the scholarship funds around to 1 or more ADDITIONAL students. But, this is a good outcome. And, there are no doubt other similar examples. Boomer Sooner.

nm

Not sure I agree with this.
Where do you get this information please?

I still disagree with the characterization of the scholarship packages as lavish. Let's take a look at what an out-of-state national merit finalist has to pay at OU to attend school. The information below was taken from OU's website. It shows that the out-of-state national merit package still falls about $50,000 short of the total cost of education for 5 years.

Yearly Cost for Non-Residents at OU

Non-Resident Tuition/Fees* $18,295
Room & Board $7,826
Books $1,030
Non-Resident Total $27,151

Add this up over 5 years (that is the length of the scholarship offer; note that I will even neglect the inevitable tuition and fee hikes which will make this cost higher), and you get a total cost of about $136,000, which does not even count some costs that other schools consider part of the cost of education when they compose aid packages (e.g., travel, health insurance, modest entertainment and clothing allowances).

If you subtract the $85,000-90,000 in scholarships, out-of-state students are still left at about $50,000 short of a full ride (albeit for 5 years instead of 4)! I don't think that is lavish. Also, we should not overlook the fact that a significant portion of the national merit award package comes from the OSRHE, not OU.

I don't see how OU could attact many of the really top students from neighboring states if they did not make them such offers. I imagine that many if not most of these top students can already attend a comparable in-state public school at little or no greater cost (keeping in mind that these student would usually receive at least some scholarships or other aid from those in-state schools and only have to pay in-state tuition there). Then there is the added difficulty of also luring those students away from the much bigger name private schools, which often have huge amounts of money to give in financial aid. OU is already fighting a losing battle in attracting those top out-of-state students who are from families with average or below average incomes, because schools like the 8 Ivy League members as well as MIT, Stanford, etc., already virtually give those students a full ride if they are smart enough to get admitted.

As for the top Oklahoma high school students, I believe OU and OSU both offer similar financial aid packages which can amount to essentially a full ride. Without such offers, I disagree that OU would get many of those students. As aforementioned, those that are from families that are not particularly well off will already find themselves getting tremendous financial aid offers from the big name private schools which guarantee to meet the financial need for all admitted students (and recently, many of those top schools have even totally eliminated the student loan component for students with family incomes of, e.g., $80,000 or less; those with higher family incomes may have to pay a bit more, but often will still only pay a small fraction of the cost of education unless the families have pretty high incomes or assets). In fact, I read the other day that the average student at Yale only pays something like $12,000 per year toward the total cost to attend including tuition, fees, books, room, board, etc. That is the average, not merely the amount paid by the poorer students! Add that up over 4-5 years, and Yale is not much more expensive to the average out-of-state national merit student than OU currently is, even with the so-called "lavish" scholarship packages! Take away the full-ride for Oklahoma national merits, and the result will be a major brain drain from the state.

I can tell you from my own personal experience that I turned down OU's full ride offer because I had almost as good a deal from an even more highly regarded Ivy League school, and I wanted to get a chance to see another part of the country. Because of OU's great offer, it was a hard decision, since I was (and still am) a huge OU fan. I knew many other national merits who went to OU because of the attractive scholarship package (they were not as poor as I was, so they would not have gotten quite as good a need-based aid package from the top private schools). For example, I was one of the 100 Oklahoma Academic All-Staters in 1996, and I recall that more than half of them chose OU. That is a great get for OU, but you can bet that far, far fewer of them would have gone to OU if not for the full-ride. They were all smart enough to get into bigger name schools or garner huge scholarships from elsewhere, so if OU had not offered such a sweet deal, most of them would have made a different college choice (and a fair number, like myself, still did not find the scholarship package to be great enough to entice them). For example, while my near full-ride from the Ivy was due to financial need, I also received large scholarship offers from other schools (e.g., a full tuition plus research for work study offer from USC with a guarantee that any additional need would be met with grants/scholarships so that I would have no student loans). So even putting my top choice aside since its aid package was based primarily on need, OU still had to offer a full ride to stay competitive with merit-based awards from other schools.

What do you mean by "diverse students"? Why should that be a concern? There are plenty of regular kids who are smart. And there are plenty of regular students who are willing to pay tuition. OU should recruit those kids. The "diverse" students can work out their own deal wherever they want to go to school - including at OU.

OU should strongly emphasize recruiting kids from Oklahoma and Texas and Kansas and Arkansas. OU should avoid getting into bidding wars for "bright, diverse students wanting to attend OU." "Diverse" students are and have been welcome at OU. They should pay tuition - just like any other student.

I have lots of contact with students who are good college prospects. OU does not need to and should not offer lavish scholarships to get students. OU should try to be competitive on scholarships. The strongest competition for students comes from OSU, Tech, Arkansas.

Let the so called super students go to Stanford, Michigan, Vanderbilt. If that's their preference. But OU should avoid a bidding contest. They; don't bring any more value to OU than a good kid from Chickasha, Moore, or Plano or Midland. That's the student who OU should go after.

OSU did quite well with a kid (Boone Pickens) from Holdenville OK. He was not "diverse" and he did not demand a big scholarship.

What are some of the "countless errors and omissions". ?

Your post indicates general agreement with the article. "OU should consider spreading its award money around a bit more.." That is the author's main point.

We agree on that. Go Sooners.

Obviously, we have a difference of opinion...and that is okay, yet to me your last 4 statements tell all.
I don't want OU to be like OSU.

I have already identified many of the errors and omissions. The author implies that OU's offer is lavish but never clarifies that it falls $50,000+ short of a full-ride. I think that is an important omission that would greatly impact readers' perceptions (I even wonder if the author is aware of the large gap between the total cost of education and the out-of-state national merit award). He erroneously implies that this money is coming from OU, when a significant portion comes from the OSRHE. He makes it sound as if OU offers wildly more than any other school, when OSU offers an only slighly less attractive package for national merits. He implies, if he does not outright state, that OU's tuition hikes are being driven by the national merit program, when the reality is that nearly all universities (whether or not they have a national merit program) have had similar price increases. Etc., etc., etc. The article is poorly researched, poorly reasoned, and in my opinion, mischaracterizes the OU national merit program. It looks like an article from someone who knows very little about the intricacies of college financial aid and scholarship competition.

In your opinion. You have stated that you favor spreading the money out. So....the author and you do agree on a major point. Spread the money out among other deserving students. That's what OU should do. $85,000 is a ridiculous amount of scholarship.

"knows very little about the intricacies of college financial aid and scholarship competition". Let's strive for transparency. OU is a public, tax supported school.

" He erroneously implies that this money is coming from OU, when a significant portion comes from the OSRHE.". What is that? Is it tax payer funded?