On Oct. 14, Oberlin’s administration announced the Midwest Merit Scholarship, which will award $25,000 a year to all admitted students from Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin starting in fall 2025.

“The primary goal of the Midwest Merit Scholarship is to raise awareness among students and families from Midwestern states that Oberlin offers generous financial aid and reassure them that private institutions like Oberlin are accessible to them,” Vice President and Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Manuel Carballo wrote to the Review.

Based on data from the College in 2022, 19 percent of Oberlin students’ permanent state addresses were in the Midwest, with 6.4 percent of students from Ohio.

“I think people who aren’t actually from here can tend to see Ohio and the Midwest as a monolith,” College second-year Jay Beal, who comes from Youngstown, OH, said. “I hope the scholarship can be uplifting to the kind of people from here [who] you hear generalized as rednecks or backward when we as students are talking about them.”

The scholarship will not draw funds from or replace any other program, only organize and reaffirm available opportunities.

“[The scholarship] allows us to consolidate existing sources of financial aid into a named scholarship that we can market to Midwestern students and families in order to help build awareness of Oberlin’s affordability,” Carballo wrote.

In the written announcement of the scholarship, President Carmen Twillie Ambar said the scholarship was an investment in the Midwest itself as well as Oberlin students.

“We’re investing not just in our students but in the future of the Midwest itself,” she said.

Carballo reaffirmed this sentiment in his statement.

“Students who grow up in the Midwest who also attend college here are more likely to stay after graduation, so it’s also an investment in the future of the region that is our home,” he wrote.

College second-year Ray Davis, who is from Illinois, had similar feelings to Beal’s about biases against the Midwest.

“It does annoy me when people talk s**t about Ohio in a way that isn’t about politicians or something,” Davis said. “I have family here and they’re amazing. My grandma lives in the Youngstown area and is consistently involved in left-wing activism. Broad-brush stereotypes of a state don’t help anyone.”

Ultimately, the Midwest Merit Scholarship aims to increase enrollment of Midwestern students and affirm the many great qualities of living and learning in the Midwest. Among current Midwestern students, many are happy to be recognized, and many already have a unique relationship with attending school in their home region.

“It’s interesting being at Oberlin and at home at the same time; a nice mix of familiarity and difference,” Beal said.