Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. of Maryland has proposed shifting $4-million from the state's merit-based scholarship program to a program that awards aid based on need. The Republican governor's proposal, which faces review by Maryland's Democrat-dominated legislature, defies a nationwide trend in which many states have put more money into merit-based aid.

The proposal, which is part of the budget plan for the next fiscal year that Governor Ehrlich released last week, represents a possible though politically dicey solution for states whose public universities have compensated for steep budget cuts in recent years by raising tuition, making the campuses less accessible to the neediest students. At the University of Maryland at College Park, the Maryland system's flagship campus, tuition has risen 21 percent in the past year, to more than $6,000 per semester.

Governor Ehrlich took "a step in the right direction," said Donald E. Heller, a senior research associate at the Center for the Study of Higher Education, at Pennsylvania State University at University Park.

"Shifting money from merit-based programs to need-based is exactly what states ought to be doing," Mr. Heller said. "The governor should be commended. I hope the legislature will go along with it."

Like many states, Maryland created its merit-based Hope scholarship program in the late 1990s as an incentive for talented high-school graduates to stay in the state for college.

But that priority may no longer be justifiable, Mr. Heller and other financial-aid analysts said, in an era of deep budget deficits.

"The programs that were hot in the '90s are leaving a lot of students behind in this decade," said Travis J. Reindl, director of state policy at the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. Governor Ehrlich's proposal "definitely represents a shift from where we've been, and it may say something about where we're headed."

But such proposals will face a tough sell in many legislatures, Mr. Heller and Mr. Reindl said, because merit-based scholarships are popular among the middle-class voters whose children are the primary beneficiaries of the scholarships.

"My guess is that you're not going to see a groundswell of support for this in other states," Mr. Heller said. He noted that lawmakers in two states, Georgia and Florida, have resisted proposals to deal with budget shortfalls by limiting awards in their merit-based programs.

Maryland's Hope scholarship, however, is significantly more limited in scope than merit programs in other states, Mr. Heller said, making it more likely that Governor Ehrlich's plan could be enacted.

Georgia's HOPE scholarship program, after which the Maryland program is modeled, cost $360-million in 2002 and is projected to run a $434-million deficit by 2008. The Maryland program, by contrast, cost $16-million last year.

Still, one key Maryland lawmaker gave Mr. Ehrlich's plan a mixed review. "I'm strongly supportive of directing more money to need-based scholarship programs, but I don't see any reason to take it out of the Hope scholarship," said Sen. Brian E. Frosh, a Democrat. "We have a false crisis here, created by the governor's unwillingness to raise revenue."

The Hope program in Maryland awards grants of $3,000 to $5,000 a year to students who agree to stay in the state after graduation and to work in professions, such as teaching and technology, that have employee shortages. It also provides some $3,000 scholarships, based on family income, to students in other majors and to students who transfer from community colleges to four-year institutions. Those recipients' annual family incomes must be less than $95,000. All recipients must maintain at least a B average.

Under Mr. Ehrlich's plan, students who already receive the scholarship could continue to do so, but there would be no new grants.

The money would instead be earmarked for programs that help students from middle- and lower-income families pay tuition at any college or university in the state. There would be no academic criteria for receiving the grants other than meeting admissions standards and passing required courses. The grants would be capped at $2,700.

"We understand that there are some difficult choices that are being made there," said Janice B. Doyle, assistant secretary for finance policy at the Maryland Higher Education Commission. "There are going to be some people who are not going to be pleased. But we're concerned about the student who is being shut out because they really cannot afford tuition. There are students being squeezed even if they're attending community college."