Merit scholarships can be one of the best ways to pay for college, especially if your family will not qualify for need-based aid. It is important to know the different types and sources of merit-based scholarships available.

Just to be clear, a merit-based scholarship is “free” money offered based on something other than financial need. These scholarships are based on some type of “merit” a student has. “Merit” really refers to a student’s qualities or statistics and can be a combination of several things. Later, we talk more about this under the types of merit scholarships. I’d first like to talk about the sources.

Sources for Merit-Based Scholarships

There are 3 sources of merit-based scholarships: Colleges, State Programs, and Private Sources. Let’s walk through each one. 

College Merit-Based Scholarships  

The majority of merit scholarships come directly from colleges. Colleges offer these scholarships to attract students, especially top students. They offer merit-based scholarships in amounts ranging from hundreds of dollars up to the full cost of college plus extras. 

Most colleges share these merit scholarship opportunities on their websites, although sometimes the amounts are not disclosed. They offer several different types of merit scholarships, and we’ll cover those in the “types” section below. 

State-Funded Merit-Based Scholarships 

Many states have a variety of merit scholarship programs. These often use state lottery proceeds to fund college scholarships. Some of the largest and most known are: Big Futures (FL) granting up to full tuition, HOPE and Zel Miller Scholarships (GA), the full tuition New Mexico Opportunity Scholarship, the Massachusetts Paul Tsongas Scholarship program offering full-tuition scholarships, and the Minnesota Academic Excellence program. Some quick online research can help you find any merit-based scholarships your state may offer.

Privately Sourced Merit-Based Scholarships

Privately sourced merit scholarships are primarily funded through foundations, corporations, clubs & other organizations. Private merit scholarships vary in amount from hundreds of dollars to a full ride plus extras. Additionally, private merit-based scholarships may be offered to students in a local area, in a specific state, or may be offered nationally or internationally. 

Some of the biggest private merit scholarships include the Stamps Scholars offered through partner colleges (currently 37 colleges), Coca-Cola Scholars, awarded to 150 students per year, and the Equitable Excellence Scholarship. There are also well-known large private scholarship programs that look at both financial need and merit in awarding scholarships. Our database of over $5.1 billion dollars in private scholarships so you can find the ones that are applicable to your student. 

Very large and well-known scholarship programs have tons of competition, making the odds of winning very low for a particular student. A student’s best bets for winning private scholarships are going to be small, local scholarship programs. Usually, the high school guidance counselor’s office will have a list of these. Local scholarships tend to be offered through local businesses, Rotary clubs, Lions clubs, Knights of Columbus, Optimists, Elks, VFW, Women’s clubs, PEO, and more.

Types of Merit-Based Scholarships

Now that we have a better handle on the sources of merit-based scholarships, let’s jump into the different types of scholarships. I’ve heard arguments that there are really only two types – automatic and competitive – but we’ll break down why there are really 5 different types of merit-based scholarships below and what they mean to your college-bound student. 

Firstly, what are the 5 types? We define the 5 types of merit-based scholarships as: Automatic, Semi-Automatic, Competitive, National Merit, and Talent-based.

Automatic and semi-automatic merit scholarships tend to be offered by colleges or states. Competitive scholarships usually come from private sectors and involve some type of competition. The last two types, National Merit/National Recognition and talent scholarships could be automatic or competitively awarded. This varies based on the school and what they are offering.

Automatic Merit-Based Scholarships

 Automatic merit-based scholarships are scholarships that are guaranteed to be awarded to students who meet the stated criteria. Usually, this relates to a certain GPA or combination of GPA and ACT or SAT score. Class rank may also come into play and sometimes Valedictorians and Salutatorians are automatically awarded a large scholarship. Here’s a good post to learn more about automatic merit scholarships: What Is An Automatic Merit Scholarship?  

Semi-Automatic Merit-Based Scholarships

Semi-Automatic merit-based scholarships are very similar to Automatic scholarships. The biggest difference is that the school does not guarantee the student will receive the scholarship if they meet the stated criteria. You can spot a semi-automatic merit scholarship when it indicates the student “may” be awarded or is “considered” based on a specific GPA and ACT/SAT combination.

Competitive Merit-Based Scholarships

 Competitive merit-based scholarships are scholarships that a student is considered for either based directly on his or her college admission application or a separate scholarship application. This category varies widely in whether or not extra work is involved. The most competitive scholarships often involve scholarship days or weekends on campus with interviews and other activities as part of the competition. The reward for all this extra work is often very large as many of these are full tuition and full-ride scholarships.

Competitive scholarships can be just that, competitive. It’s important to know what to expect so you have a better chance of getting the award. Learn more about what competitive merit scholarships are and how your student can win one in some of our other free resources. 

National Merit or National Recognition Scholarships

These national merit-based scholarships may be more difficult to attain, but have a big payoff in the end. 

•  National merit scholarships are scholarships awarded based on achieving the designations related to the National Merit Scholarship Qualification Test (the PSAT). This typically includes taking the PSAT at a certain time (usually October of their Junior year of high school), getting a specific score and/or meeting other entry requirements. The requirements are posted on nationalmerit.org every year – review this information at the start of your student’s Junior year if this is something you’d like to pursue. 
• The National Recognition Programs award academic honors to underrepresented students. These include the National African American Recognition Program, National Hispanic Recognition Program, National Indigenous Recognition Program, and National Rural and Small Town Recognition Program.