Ontario’s neediest university students receive hundreds of dollars less in publicly funded scholarships than students from the most affluent homes, says a new report obtained by the Star.

The findings have prompted the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance to call on the government and post-secondary institutions to end the “misuse of funds” by basing scholarships solely on financial need.

“What you are seeing is that students who tend to come from the higher-income background are much more likely to have what’s needed to fit a merit-based scholarship — you’re looking at students who have the opportunity to travel to Africa to volunteer, who may be able to go to private school, students who aren’t necessarily working while they are in high school,” said Jen Carter, president of the student alliance and a member of the student council at Western University.

“We are finding this switch — where a lot of the merit-based scholarships are ending up going to students who don’t necessarily need them.”

The survey of 9,000 students, to be released Tuesday, found that youth whose families earn less than $25,000 a year in total received an average of $547 less than those whose parents earn more than $125,000 a year.

Students from the most affluent homes bring in more scholarship money when compared with all other income groups.

Such scholarships are given out by institutions using “set aside” tuition money, plus government funds, based primarily on high school grades, leadership activities and community service.

The average amount for merit-based scholarships among first-year students is $1,905. The survey found that 60 per cent of first-year students received such funds. Just 13 per cent of first-year students were given money based on need.

Rodrigo Narro-Perez, who just graduated from McMaster University and is a member of the student alliance, received both merit- and needs-based scholarships.

He said that if universities were to transfer all of the merit-based scholarship money to needs-based scholarships, it could solve financial aid issues for low-income students, who still struggle to afford a post-secondary education.

“It’s not to diminish the work of students who have received merit-based assistance,” he added. “But it would help someone who may be working two part-time jobs during high school” and wouldn’t cost schools or the government any more money.

“It’s not inputting hundreds of millions into the scholarship system, but reallocating,” he said.

Spencer Nestico-Semianiw, a 19-year-old McMaster University student, received a $1,000 entrance scholarship last year but “I did not need the money — it was purely just money that I got.”

He said other universities offered similar scholarships and they had no bearing on where he ultimately chose to attend.

He is working as an intern at the student alliance this summer.

In a statement to the Star, the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities noted the government itself only gives loans and grants to students based on financial need, adding that “Postsecondary institutions have the autonomy to provide additional student assistance in a manner they see fit, including merit-based scholarships in order to reward and attract students.”

Carter said moving the money around could “effectively address every single dollar of unmet financial need in the province.”

The report notes that “since high-performing students are often those with high-income backgrounds and relatively few challenges to attaining post-secondary education, it makes little sense for those students to receive financial assistance in the form of merit-based scholarships.”

Carter said merit-based aid “is a culture we’ve created that ends up being an arms race between universities as a recruiting tool. We see universities fighting each other over the amount they are going to give as an entrance scholarship.”

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“It’s clearly a culture we’ve created, and clearly a culture we can change.”

She, too, received both merit- and needs-based scholarships, and the $3,500 based on her academics was the deciding factor to go to King’s. She was also given $2,000 for a program where she worked on campus to earn that money.

She said the student alliance is talking about public funds only, and not scholarships set up by private donors.