By Colette Hadley, Senior Director of Consulting Services
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This article is part of a new opinion series from the National College Attainment Network (NCAN) on issues affecting postsecondary attainment. The viewpoints and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of NCAN.
Educational causes rank as the second-most popular charitable giving choice for individuals and family foundations in the United States. Encouragingly, many these donors to education direct their gifts to postsecondary causes like establishing scholarship
funds. This is a wonderfully generous thing for philanthropists to do.
But are these scholarship funds set up to be impactful and make a key difference in the lives of the thousands of students who are applying for scholarships each year? Well, that’s debatable.
Donors are well-intentioned and want to help and inspire students, but unfortunately, too many scholarship donors insist on award selection based on student characteristics that center only on achievement. Scholarships based on merit have a real appeal
to people who concentrate on excellence as a means of evaluating worth or importance.
However, merit-based scholarships do not consider a student’s financial background or family situation. Instead, they are awarded to a student based on some specified achievement, often in school activities, sports, volunteer service, hobbies, or essay
writing.
Need-based scholarships are granted to individuals based on an assessment of their financial position and ability to pay for college. Eligibility is based on the assets and income of the prospective student and their family.
If financial need is not a requirement, a student with significant family income and assets is just as entitled to a merit award as a student from a low-income background. Merit-based scholarship providers may choose to give awards for a student’s tennis
team involvement, volunteer work at the local zoo, excellent essay writing in a contest, participation in stamp collecting, or holding a position in student government, for example.
Helping students who meet some standard of merit determined by the donor, rather than channel scholarship dollars to support students from low-income backgrounds and students of color who otherwise would not complete postsecondary education, only exacerbates
the already large income achievement gap in degree completion. Most scholarships housed at US college
foundations, community foundations, and private foundations are merit-based. Effectively, they serve as a well-deserved reward for students who have excelled already, regardless of other factors.
Although some foundation and institutional scholarship programs administer scholarship funds that have financial need as a component, it is not usually the first priority. Compounding the problem, in almost every case, scholarships are relatively small
dollar amounts often set by the donor, are one-time awards and non-renewable, and lack a possible tie to support services.
Even if students with financial need are a focus of the foundation’s vision, most donors only help the cream of the crop. They end up selecting a small subset of students with extreme financial need and the highest GPAs and perfect resumes, but this does
little or nothing to advance the community levels of college degree attainment. Research shows that the students at the top of the class usually go to college anyway. Giving those students at the top of the class all the scholarships
is not the best way to make a measurable impact.
It’s long past time that we all make a commitment to distribute scholarship resources in a more equitable way. One of the best ways to increase college degree attainment is to deploy scholarship dollars using a strategic approach. We should lift up students
with financial need who would not otherwise access and complete a postsecondary credential or college degree.
Awarding scholarships in a strategic, need-based manner means incorporating elements in a scholarship program such as
Quality and consistent college preparedness and career advising services or coaching in high school years through to college graduation.
Awarding scholarships in tactically significant amounts to fill existing gaps in the student financial aid package without displacing other grant aid.
Giving awards that are renewable each year with simply earning satisfactory academic status (2.0 GPA).
Ensuring that scholarships are allowed to cover any expenses in the total cost of attendance budget for the student’s college or university.
Scholarship dollars are much more powerful when a student has a proper financial aid package, with federal, state, and institutional dollars, with any gaps filled by private scholarships.
Of course, there is nothing wrong with encouraging all students to achieve and participate in school activities, take up hobbies, excel in class, engage in community service, or play sports. These actions might help shape students in a positive way and
provide healthy inspiration to reach for their goals.
Ultimately, postsecondary scholarships are a means of providing financial support for college, so shouldn’t a student’s financial situation be the most significant determining factor in award selections? If scholarships were only about
recognition of a variety of achievements, and not also about the dollars, then wouldn’t giving a certificate at a ceremony would be sufficient? There would be no need to send a scholarship check to the college financial aid office.
Need-based scholarships affect students in two ways. The first is the direct impact of the money, and the second is the motivation to make the best effort to persist in college each year until degree completion. Something as simple as a well-designed
scholarship can have a profound and lasting impact on a student’s life and career prospects. And when it comes to donors, if they are suitably armed with relevant information and data on student needs, they often readily understand and embrace the
opportunity to establish need-based scholarship funds.
Scholarships can make a difference if properly constructed. Strategic need-based scholarship programs can be an effective tool to support students with
financial need to access and complete a degree, a vehicle for significantly reducing student and family loan debt, an efficient way to increase overall postsecondary attainment, a fantastic investment in human capital talent, and a valuable means
of achieving educational equity.
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