NEW YORK - New York University pulled out of the National Merit scholarships, becoming at least the ninth school to stop funding one of the largest U.S. merit-based aid programs, because it doesn't want to reward students based on a standardized test.
The National Merit Scholarship Corp. distributed more than $50 million to students in the 2009-2010 year based on the PSAT college-entry practice exam. Most of the money comes from almost 200 colleges to fund awards of as much as $8,000 over four years. Companies such as Boeing Co. and Pfizer Inc. also sponsor the program, primarily to benefit their employees' children.
NYU's withdrawal is another blow to National Merit, already ignored by many elite colleges and a subject of a critical report by a Harvard College-chaired commission.
National Merit was founded in 1955, supported with funding from Carnegie Corp. and the Ford Foundation. Economist Paul Krugman, Amazon.com Inc. Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos and Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts are past scholars, as is Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates.
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Harvard, Yale University and the six other schools in the Ivy League don't fund National Merit scholarships because they award only need-based aid.
About 3.5 million students, including as many as 1.6 million 11th-graders, took the PSAT last week, qualifying them for consideration in National Merit's competition.
The nonprofit company determines a score cutoff in each state to determine who advances as a semifinalist. Those that qualify must take the SAT exam, submit grades and write an essay to become one of about 15,000 finalists.
