The Article: States Shift to Merit Scholarships
The Source: The Wall Street Journal
The Author: Jennifer Levitz and Scott Thurm
The Date: 12/23/12
More than 25 states award some financial aid for college students based on academic achievement, as opposed to need. Thirteen states, primarily in the South, award more than half of their financial aid based on merit.
Now that movement may be picking up steam.
Last year, with Georgia?s scholarship program facing financial distress, lawmakers decided to increase the academic requirements for scholarships. Administrators say the change will help keep the program solvent. But it also wound up funneling a greater portion of the remaining aid to higher-income students.
Georgia?whose Hope scholarship program is among the largest merit-based programs in the country?is at the forefront of a growing national debate over state-backed financial aid for college students. Should states direct aid to the highest-achieving students, regardless of income? Or should the money go to poorer students?
Proponents of merit, or some combination of merit and need, say focusing on achievement helps reduce a ?brain drain? of talented residents leaving home states, and rewards those who study hard and apply themselves.
Though the trend rarely gets much attention and is obscured by increases in federal grants to poor students, 27 states have created some sort of merit-aid program since Georgia launched its own in 1993.
Of those, 13 states based over half of their grant money on merit in 2010-2011, the latest year available. In Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Dakota and Georgia, more than 85% of grants were merit-based.
Now, with funding for the scholarships falling behind steady hikes in college tuition and in the number of kids receiving them, lawmakers in Tennessee, South Carolina, New Mexico and other states are weighing some tough calls on how to distribute their grants.
For its part, Georgia rejected proposals by some lawmakers for an income cap and decided instead to require better grades and, for the first time, strong SAT or ACT test scores for full-tuition scholarships.
Digging Deeper:
How does a state balance the need for responsible budgets, with a desire to make college more affordable for all people?
Do they have a moral obligation to make a college education accessible to all people?
Does this trend in merit based scholarships represent a new form of de facto discrimination?
Source: http://www.cfcbe.com/2012/12/27/the-shift-to-merit-based-scholarships/
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