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WASHINGTON, DC, June 7, 2005
-- The Educational Policy Institute,
a non-profit international think tank
on educational opportunity, released the
first of their Policy Perspectives series
on education, with "No Merit in These
Scholarships," written by former
Major League Baseball Commissioner and
University Trustee Fay Vincent.
Mr. Vincent, a Yale law graduate and
a former trustee at Williams College,
Carleton College, and Fairfield University,
takes a look at the escalating issue of
increased merit-based aid in lieu of aid
to deserving students from low-income
families. “To my mind, merit-based
aid betrays the original goal of helping
worthy but disadvantaged students,"
says Vincent."It spends donors’
money in a way they may not intend, and
it invests college resources in short-term
promotional advantage instead of lasting
improvements of substance.”
According to the National
Association of State Student Grant &
Aid Programs (NASSGAP), state need-based
aid grew from $304 million to $1.2 billion
dollars — an increase of approximately
400 percent between 1993-94 and 2002-03
(inflation adjusted). Comparatively, stated
need-based aid grew from $2.75 billion
to $3.97 billion, an increase of 144 percent.
While the need-based aid pot is larger,
the trend is unmistakable.
"There is nothing inherently wrong
with merit-based aid," says EPI President
Watson Scott Swail. "The problem
is when we loose the balance between need
and non-need-based aid. Unfortunately,
that's what has happened over the course
of the past decade."
Mr. Vincent notes that need-based aid
is central to our vision of higher education
in America. “There is something
noble about giving money to talented young
people who could not pursue their education
without it,” says Mr. Vincent. "I
know what that gift can accomplish, and
I am grateful. I wonder how grateful the
recipients of merit aid will be."
"No Merit in These Scholarships"
is a reprint of a recent oped in the Washington
Post (May 29, 2005). To download the report,
please click
here.
* * * * *
The Educational
Policy Institute (EPI), a
non-partisan research organization with
offices in Washington, DC, Toronto, Canada,
and Melbourne, Australia, is dedicated
to policy-based research on educational
opportunity for all students. The mission
of EPI is to expand educational opportunity
for low-income and other historically-underrepresented
students through high-level research and
analysis.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Dr.
Watson Scott Swail, (877) e-POLICY
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