In a message dated 10/5/00 7:43:02 PM Central Daylight Time,
edmiston@BLUFFTON.EDU writes:
<< In response to Robert Carlson's post:
(Point 1) I do realize that life is not fair. And I don't necessarily
expect someone else to pay for my son's education. However, scholarships do
exist at most colleges, and I see no reason adopt the attitude: "it's up to
me to pay for my education, so I'm not going to try to get a scholarship."
My response: By all means, if you can get the scholarships then do so. I
have no objection. But if you can't, then pursue other means, such as
working through college.
(Point 2) It might be "fair" to award scholarships by lottery. But higher
education has adopted a different interpretation of "fair." Indeed, there
are several types of "fair." One type of fair aid is "need based," and this
depends very little on grades and very much on family resources. Another
type of aid is "athletics based," and I personally think this is a travesty,
but it exists. Robert Carlson mentioned another type of aid which is armed
forces based. You not only earn a salary in the military, you also earn the
"right" to a certain amount of educational aid should you decide to attend
college after leaving the service. That seems like having someone else to
pay for your education, doesn't it, Bob? All of these sound like that...
why should someone else pay for my education simply because I can play
football, or because I am poor, or because I served in the military?
However, these exist, so it seems to me the people who qualify might as well
take advantage of them.
My response: Again, life is not fair as you note above. Concerning your
comment on military service, this seems to be the response of someone who has
never served in the military or served their country. If you want to compare
serving in the military to playing football, then so be it. I would not do
so.
(Point 3) And finally, the financial aid most appropriate for our discussion
on grades would be scholarships based upon academic ability. When colleges
award academic scholarships I think they genuinely want to award them to the
most deserving students.
My response: What you think is happening and what is really happening, are
two different things. Again, life is not fair.
This means colleges need a reasonably fair way of
determining academic ability. At one time the criterion was primarily HS
grades, but that eroded partly because of grade inflation and partly because
of too many differences from one HS to another. For the past 15-20 years
the class rank has been a fairly good indicator. But now grade inflation
has gotten so bad that even class rank doesn't work any more. Specifically,
grades are so out of control in many high schools that these schools can't
tell you which students are the top 10% because the top 25% all have
identical grades.
My response: This does make your job more difficult, doesn't it? Is this
your complaint? Your work is more demanding?
This has occurred in a short enough period of time that colleges haven't
quit using class rank yet. We still use it at Bluffton College even though
we know it is not valid. This stuff all has to go through committee,
administrative staff, etc., and it takes a while to get it changed.
My response: Then, maybe Bluffton College should catch up.
This is the aspect that makes me feel my son got "cheated." I can see the
word cheated might not be best word. What happened was he graduated at a
bad time. Grade inflation at his school made the HS GPA and class rank
pretty much worthless in terms of measuring academic ability. But colleges
have not reacted fast enough to change their scholarship policies. Hence my
son got caught in a situation in which a traditional measure of academic
ability eroded faster than the colleges adapted. Bluffton College is
considering completely dropping the HS GPA and class rank from scholarship
determination, and I know other colleges are considering the same thing.
But they haven't done it yet.
My response: Is Bluffton the only college your son has considered? Most of
my students are working their way through college. Of course, it is a
community college, more affordable, so it is possible to attend without the
high costs associated with higher priced institutions.
So what happened is my son met two of three scholarship requirements at many
colleges. He had a good GPA (a poor indicator). He had a good ACT score (a
good indicator). But he was not in the top 10% (or 20% or 25%) of his class
*as determined by GPA* (now a poor indicator, but used to be better). And I
believe the reason he did not meet the class rank requirement is because
grades are so out of control at his school, and students take so many
different programs in school, that class rank simply cannot be determined by
grades. We either need to stop using grades and class rank, or we need to
put the meaning back into them.
I believe in four years when my daughter graduates from high school her HS
GPA and class rank will not have much bearing on whether she is awarded any
scholarships, because colleges already know grade inflation has reduced
these indicators to nearly worthless. Unfortunately my son graduated at a
time when the HS GPA and class rank are pretty worthless, but still used to
determine scholarships, and because of that he has fewer options than my
daughter is likely to have, and fewer options than I had at a time when HS
grades were more reliable. >>
Final response: Somehow, our society has come to this conclusion that a good
education is a right. I do not believe this is so. If I am incorrect, then
please point me to that part of the constitution that guarantees this right.
I do believe that anyone really wanting an education can achieve one with
hard work, but there are commitments to be made. Perhaps I am wrong in this
belief. I hope not.