Scholarships for Achievement, Not Need, Increase Rapidly

College: The shift comes largely in response to middle-class parents' concerns about costs.

By STUART SILVERSTEIN Times Staff Writer

Los Angeles Times June 17 2002

College scholarships, long directed at needy students, increasingly are being awarded based on achievement rather than financial hardship.

The result is a far greater rise in state and college, grants to relatively affluent students than to students from poor and moderate income families, many higher education researchers say.

"We're to the point today that almost 25% of all of the state grant dollars to undergraduates are now awarded without any determination of financial need," up from 10% in 1990, said Donald E. Heller, a senior research associate with the Center for the Study of Higher Educationat Pennsylvania State University. "So that means, literally, that the son of ajanitor in Georgia would qualify for,the same kind of scholarship as would, let's say, Ted Turner's kid."

According to an analysis by Heller, the percentage of students from the highest-income families snaring state grants climbed four times faster than among low-income students between the 1992-93 and 1999-2000 school years.

Heller also found that the financially best-off students are now about as likely as the poorest to get scholarships directly from their schools. In the 1999-2000 school year, the nation's public and private colleges awarded scholarships to about a fifth of students supported by families earning $ 100,000 or more. The figure was virtually identical for students from families earning less than $20,000, according to Heller's analysis.

Although similar figures are not available for California, the state appears in many ways to have bucked the financial aid pattern that has kept many low- and moderate-income students out of four-year schools. Researchers cite the relatively moderate attendance fees at Californ4s public colleges and universities, along with the substantial grants offered by the state or the schools themselves.

A recent Irvine Foundation survey of 40 leading U.S. universities found that four California schools-UCLA, UC Berkeley, UC San Diego and USC, a private school-led the nation in enrolling lower-income students. Likewise, nearly all of the 22 schools in the California State University system have surpassed the national average for enrolling lower-income students.

California took a major step in 2000 by expanding its Cal Grant aid program, which focuses on students on the bottom half of the income scale. Meanwhile, other states, many of them in the Sun Belt, have launched achievement-based scholarship programs that disregard financial need.

The shift comes largely in response to middle-class parents' concerns about rising college costs. At the same time, colleges are offering more merit scholarships, which tend to go to more affluent students, to improve their academic standing. "We keep spending more and more money on kids who were born lucky, and we increasingly disadvantage kids who were born into poor families," said Thomas G. Mortenson, an Iowa education policy analyst.

Those who advocate for lower-income students say that need-based grants have, since the 1960s, been important weapons against poverty. They also say the redirected aid comes at the worst time: just as the numbers of lower-income youths reaching college age are booming, and as more low-income adults are returning to school. It also comes as tuitions in cash-strapped states are soaring.

More Money to Affluent

Although Ivy League and other prestigious schools promise to cover financial gaps for any accepted student who can!t afford college costs, admissions officers say that not many low-income students either apply or qualify for admission. Most of the nation's nearly $31 billion in annual grants--especially federal grants-still go to poor or moderate-income students. But nearly two-thirds of the overall scholarship and grant dollars come from states or from the schools themselves, and more of that money is being channeled to affluent students.

Eventually, "the poor kid who is not an absolute superstar is very likely to be frozen out," said Gordon C. Winston, an economics professor at Williams College in Massachusetts. "Right now, we're not in terrible shape, but I think we're getting there."

Loans have increasingly filled the gap for students from all economic levels, but research shows that the burden falls heaviest on lower-income students. What's more, the fear of being saddled with college loans, experts say, stops many low-income youths from going to college and leads others who are qualified for four-year schools to attend community colleges instead.

Other low- and moderate-income students try to manage the costs of their education by working long hours or studying part time-tactics that, new research shows, often lead to higher dropout rates.

Merit Scholarship Boom

The boom in state merit scholarships is often traced to 1993, when Georgia launched a program that became a model for other states. Known as Georgia!s HOPE Scholarship, the awards are granted to students maintaining at least aB average in their core subjects throughout high school and who attend colleges in the state.

The aim was to motivate high school students, and keep the most talented young people in Georgia once they head off to college. The lottery-financed program has funneled scholarships totaling$1.55 billion to 605,422 students. Meanwhile, Georgia has spent little on need-based grants, appropriating $1 million this school year, compared with $310.3 million for HOPE scholarships.

HOPE is the nation's largest merit-based state scholarship program, followed by such initiatives as Florida Bright Futures, Louisiana Tuition Opportunity Program for Students and Michigan Merit Award.

Sayan De, an honors student who won a nearly $4,000-a-year HOPE scholarship to the University of Georgia and who now is bound for medical school, has mixed feelings about HOPE.

De, the son of two biochemists who together earn more than $ 100,000 annually, said his decision to stay in-state and use his HOPE scholarship saved his family money. He also thinks merit scholarships are a legitimate way to encourage achievement.

Still, De said he is troubled by the increased numbers of affluent students from middle- and upper-middle-class suburbs who he now sees flocking to the University of Georgia-a trend leaving fewer spaces for low-income students at the. state's flagship school. Because they don't get enough aid, lower-income students "have less of a chance to experience the education I think they deserve," De said.

De isn't the only one with misgivings. Two years ago, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit charging that Michigan's merit scholarship program relied on a standardized test that discriminated against minority and low-income students. Civil rights advocates have raised some related concerns in Florida, and say they are preparing to file a complaint with the federal government.

Anita White, one of the students cited in the ACLU case against Michigan, is heading into her junior year at Central Michigan University, and hopes eventually to attend medical school. Yet even though she is one of two children in a family supported by a single mother earning just $2 1,000 a year, White receives no grant aid directly from the state because her score was too low on Michigan's standardized test.

White, who has a 2.97 grade point average at Central Michigan, has covered her expenses with loans and federal and university grants, and by working on campus as a dormitory resident advisor and a dishwasher. White said that the two jobs have taken a toll on her studies but that she had little other choice. If you are low-income, she said, "you have to fight for your education."

Rich suburban high school students "get better educations, and they get the [scholarship] money," she said.

White and many experts acknowledge that moderate-income students--essentially those with family earnings in the vicinity of the U.S. median of about $5 1,000 a year-are pinched too. They typically c&t qualify for federal grants, which mainly go to students from families earning less than $40,000. Also, unless they both live and attend school in a handful of comparatively generous states such as California, these students often don't qualify for state need-based aid either.

Bidding Wars for Stars

Meanwhile, public and private colleges also are shifting more of their money into scholarships based solely or partly on merit. Some experts say it leads to bidding wars for star high school students, many of them from affluent homes.

Carnegie Mellon University, for example, urges accepted applicants who have received better aid offers elsewhere to give the Pittsburgh school a chance to make a counteroffer. Michael Steidel, the school's director of admissions, said many of the students involved are financially needy, but he conceded that the median family incomes of incoming freshmen receiving grants have risen in recent years.

That's also the case at Pomona College in Claremont. The median income for parents of Pomona students receiving aid from the school has risen, after taking inflation into account, by 22% in the last four years, to $69,759. Almost as many students with family incomes of more than $90,000 receive grants as those from families earning less than $50,000.

Bruce Poch, the college's vice president of admissions, said Pomona modified its aid policy partly because of "screams that the middle class is finding it rougher and rougher" to pay for college. The school was concerned that many of the middle-class students it accepted were drawn away by other schools.

Practices Defended

In defense of their practices, college administrators say they have a legitimate interest in recruiting students with the top grades and test scores because they add to their campuses' intellectual vitality.

Moreover, many administrators and high school guidance counselors say scholarship money remains available for low-income students, though there is less of it for students who are not academic standouts. The main barrier for students from poor families, they contend, is the weak academic preparation they generally receive before college.

"If I go to a low-income high school and the kids haven't taken Algebra H or U.S. history and it's senior year, there's not a damn thing I can do with them, no matter how bright they are," said Pomona College's Poch.

The experience of Ivy League schools and other prestigious universities that pledge to meet the full financial needs of admitted students also shows that it takes more than need-based financial aid to bring in-low- and moderate-income students.

The Irvine study found that at Stanford University, for example, only 10. 8% of domestic students in 2000-01 were from families whose income was low enough to qualify for federal Pell grants. Meanwhile, the median incomes of the parents of freshmen receiving grants from Stanford has reached $68,000. That is up about 17% over the last four years, after adjusting for inflation.

Robin Mamlet, dean of admissions, acknowledged that the school is giving financial aid to middle-income families "more responsively than ever." But she insists that the problem is one of recruitment and of overcoming "an unevenness of opportunity" in the nation's educational system.

"We are not as successful as we would like to be at reaching out to low-income students and having them see that Stanford can be an option for them," she said.

Robert M. Shireman, the Irvine Foundations higher education program director, doesn't believe it has to be that way. He cites the success of other high-caliber schools in California in attracting and providing financial support for less-affluent students.

"If UC Berkeley, UCLA, UC San Diego and USC can admit such large numbers [of lower-income students] and be some of the top universities in the country, then others should be able to do that also," he said.