I understand that Iowa State offers National Merit Scholars “free ride” scholarships. That may be the main reason that so many have chosen to come here. None of the news stories I saw this year, or last, have mentioned the large size of these awards, and so the public may have speculated that other factors predominated in attracting these scholars to ISU.

There are issues here other than whether the press told the story well. It is easy to applaud spending money on quality scholars, but one may ask how much of it should be committed to those identified by the Pre-SAT scores, which determine who is a National Merit Scholar.

Not everything that is worthy produces a high score on that exam.

Bryan Cain

Professor of mathematics