Spring Break
Unfair scholarship opportunities
Should county affluence affect financial aid?
Stephanie Fu
Issue date: 1/27/09 Section: Opinion
With refund checks finally coming through from the university's cashier offices, my friends and I started to discuss financial issues. As with a lot of students, our parents do not or cannot provide all of our college tuitions and expenses. Most apply for financial aid through FAFSA and others obtain grants or scholarships.
However, one thing that seemed unfair to us is the amount of scholarships offered to certain students.
There are hundreds of scholarships ranging from local to regional. Several churches and banks offer scholarships to deserving students in their community. Unfortunately, many of these local or state scholarships are offered only to students coming from specific counties. Looking at a list of scholarships offered for education majors alone, students from smaller counties like Craven, Hertford and Hyde were only applicable for about half of the scholarship opportunities.
Why is it that more scholarships are available to larger counties like Charlotte-Mecklenburg and Wake?
Some of the reasons that I have gathered from talking with residents from several counties, both small and large, is that the larger counties are more affluent and provide better opportunities within their school systems, including better funding and more advanced placement classes.
Even if statistics by the Census Bureau of North Carolina show that larger counties are more affluent, why should students be penalized for this by being restricted from regional, attainable scholarships because of their address?
There is a wide range of households in Wake County -some people live near the poverty line and some are upper middle class and some are millionaires-a fact that is true of other counties throughout the state, yet larger ones still receive special opportunities.
As far as the academic opportunities, it is true that certain high schools, like magnet schools, charter or private schools, offer more advanced placement courses or extra-curricular activities that make a student stand out on a paper application. A high school in Wake County could offer 20 or 30 advanced placement courses, while a high school in a smaller county may offer only four. However, what is important is how a student takes advantage of their opportunities.
This is what makes the issue so controversial for me: Certain counties don't have a rigorous or competitive academic atmosphere and this can lead to disadvantages for students that live there. They don't get to learn some of the skills that are already being practiced by students in larger, wealthier counties.
I don't think that all the scholarships that are restricted to small counties should be taken away. Perhaps the only solution is for students from every county in North Carolina to take advantage of an education, despite the scarcity of scholarships available to some.
This writer can be contacted at opinion@theeastcarolinian.com.
However, one thing that seemed unfair to us is the amount of scholarships offered to certain students.
There are hundreds of scholarships ranging from local to regional. Several churches and banks offer scholarships to deserving students in their community. Unfortunately, many of these local or state scholarships are offered only to students coming from specific counties. Looking at a list of scholarships offered for education majors alone, students from smaller counties like Craven, Hertford and Hyde were only applicable for about half of the scholarship opportunities.
Why is it that more scholarships are available to larger counties like Charlotte-Mecklenburg and Wake?
Some of the reasons that I have gathered from talking with residents from several counties, both small and large, is that the larger counties are more affluent and provide better opportunities within their school systems, including better funding and more advanced placement classes.
Even if statistics by the Census Bureau of North Carolina show that larger counties are more affluent, why should students be penalized for this by being restricted from regional, attainable scholarships because of their address?
There is a wide range of households in Wake County -some people live near the poverty line and some are upper middle class and some are millionaires-a fact that is true of other counties throughout the state, yet larger ones still receive special opportunities.
As far as the academic opportunities, it is true that certain high schools, like magnet schools, charter or private schools, offer more advanced placement courses or extra-curricular activities that make a student stand out on a paper application. A high school in Wake County could offer 20 or 30 advanced placement courses, while a high school in a smaller county may offer only four. However, what is important is how a student takes advantage of their opportunities.
This is what makes the issue so controversial for me: Certain counties don't have a rigorous or competitive academic atmosphere and this can lead to disadvantages for students that live there. They don't get to learn some of the skills that are already being practiced by students in larger, wealthier counties.
I don't think that all the scholarships that are restricted to small counties should be taken away. Perhaps the only solution is for students from every county in North Carolina to take advantage of an education, despite the scarcity of scholarships available to some.
This writer can be contacted at opinion@theeastcarolinian.com.
Be the first to comment on this story