Which is better for merit aid: University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign or Boston University?

Boston University is usually the more relevant school to look at if you are specifically hoping for merit scholarships, but neither school should be treated as a place where large merit aid is easy to count on. BU does offer named merit awards and institutional scholarships that can significantly reduce cost for some students, while UIUC is much more limited on broad university merit, especially for students who are not Illinois residents. At UIUC, the biggest price advantage often comes from in-state tuition rather than merit money.

UIUC tends to make the most sense for an Illinois resident who already benefits from the lower public-school price and sees any merit award as a bonus. If you are out of state, UIUC is often not the place to expect major merit that will transform the cost.

BU fits the student who has a very strong academic profile and is willing to apply knowing merit is competitive but at least more visibly part of the landscape. Private universities like BU sometimes use merit scholarships to attract top applicants. That said, BU is also expensive, so even a decent merit award may still leave a high net cost.

If merit aid is the main lens, I would lean toward BU only in the sense that it has more meaningful merit opportunities on paper. UIUC can still come out cheaper for an in-state student even with little or no merit, while BU may offer bigger scholarships to a smaller slice of applicants.