As tuition rises, TCU will also raise funds for more merit scholarships.

The merit scholarship is based on academic recognition, which includes the Chancellor’s, Dean’s, Faculty, TCU and Founder’s scholarship.

“The new money we’re saying we are putting into merit scholarships is not necessarily giving the Dean Scholars or Provost Scholars more money in the freshmen class next year,” Chancellor Boschini said. “It’s making more Provost Scholars, more Community Scholars, more of all of that.”

Boschini said the change in merit scholarship funding is for diversity.

“We feel like it will get us more minority kids, more smart kids, more out-of-state kids, because we have to compete nowadays,” Boschini said.

With these new funds, more merit scholarships will be provided for incoming students, Boschini said. Students who have already been awarded a merit scholarship will not see a rise in their scholarship fund even with the 5.5 percent increase, he said.

“Students who already had a merit scholarship don’t need [the new merit scholarship funds] because,if they fill out the FAFSA and they need it, we always help meet their needs anyway,” Boschini said.

The Free Application for Federal Student Aid is a form college students can fill out to apply for assistance in order to pay for school.

Hannah Stein, first-year journalism major and merit scholar, said she the rise in tuition will not affect her very much, even though her scholarship will not increase.

“For me, it’s not as critical as It [might be] for some people,” Stein said. “I have friends whose families are relying on their academic scholarship, [so] I can see how that would really affect them and whether or not they can stay at TCU.”

Boschini said when a student receives a merit scholarship, they get a letter which says their scholarship is worth a certain amount of money each year for eight semesters.

“We want to make sure we’re not misleading anybody,” Boschini said.

Sydney Sanford, a junior film, television and digital media major, said she is a merit scholarship recipient. Sanford said half of her tuition is paid for through this scholarship.

Sanford received her scholarship before the rise in tuition, and the difference between her freshman year tuition to now will be about a 11 percent raise, she said.

She said she has not applied for FAFSA, but she said she plans to for the 2013-2014 year.

“I need more scholarship [money] partly because of the rise in tuition, because off-campus housing is expensive,” she said.