<p>These two headlines were on the front page of today's Baltimore Sun:</p>
<p>"Seniors Stunned by MD Scholarship Cuts"
"O'Malley Signs Tuition Break"</p>
<p>The Maryland Distinguished Scholars Program, which provides a $3000/year scholarship for 4 years to the top graduating seniors (in both academics and fine arts) in the state of Maryland if they enrolled in one of the Maryland state universities, was cut this week. The state savings for 2012 will be about $1 million. The award letters were mailed to winning seniors in the fall, but the letters announcing that the funding had been cut were not given to affected seniors until last week, after the May 1st college decision deadline.</p>
<p>The second headline was regarding a bill to extend in-state tuition rights to undocumented Maryland residents, which Governor O'Malley signed into law on Tuesday. The bill is scheduled to take effect July 1. Fiscal analysts estimate it will cost the state $3.5 million by 2016.</p>
<p>At 3:00 this afternoon, the online version of the Baltimore Sun printed a statement by Maryland’s Governor O’Malley stating that he didn’t intend for the cuts to impact this year’s Distinguished Scholars Recipients. The cuts will be put in place starting next year, eliminating the scholarship program in future years. “Clearly our commitment to honor existing awards was not fulfilled, and I’ve directed MHEC to immediately correct the error and restore the four-year scholarships to all seniors who were expecting their award,” O’Malley said. A spokesman for the Governor said O’Malley was “suprised and frankly a little outraged” when he learned that scholarships had been yanked from graduating seniors.</p>
<p>Somebody in either the agency or in the Executive Office (i.e. the Governor’s office) knew the likely result. I’m guessing that they rolled the dice in hopes that the cuts wouldn’t create a groundswell of ill will. The news of the discount for non-documented students was bad timing that caught the bureaucrats from the blind side.</p>
<p>But I’m not all that sorry to see the Maryland Distinguished Scholars program end. I don’t think it was accomplishing much.</p>
<p>Maryland Distinguished Scholars have credentials at roughly the NMSF level. The criteria for the two awards are not the same, but we’re talking about pretty much the same batch of kids here.</p>
<p>The goal of the Maryland Distinguished Scholars program is to keep top Maryland students in Maryland by offering an incentive for them to enroll in Maryland colleges. Something like this might work well in a large state with an abundance of good college choices, like Virginia or Pennsylvania. But Maryland is too small a state to offer sufficient good options for students of this caliber. Yes, some will choose Johns Hopkins, but I can’t see anyone who is ill-suited for Hopkins forcing themselves to go there because of a small scholarship. Some top Maryland students choose to go to UMCP because it’s a decent flagship school and the price is right, but any student who’s at the Maryland Distinguished Scholar level is almost certainly going to get at least a half-ride merit scholarship to UMCP anyway. And the only other likely in-state choice for top Maryland students is the Naval Academy, which is free.</p>
<p>I would like to see the money that was formerly spent on the Maryland Distinguished Scholars program be spent on something that does more to provide educational opportunities for Maryland students.</p>
<p>Full disclosure: My daughter was a Maryland Distinguished Scholar finalist – which means that she would have gotten the $3000-a-year scholarship if she had chosen an in-state college. But there was no in-state school that was a good match for what she wanted.</p>
<p>Agree. My older son was also a Maryland Distinguished Scholar and the $3000/year did nothing to convince him to stay in-state as there were no attractive options.</p>
<p>I’m glad to see the scholarships re-instated for this years seniors. The notice of the elimination of funding came out on May 4th - as above poster noted - after the May 1 deadline to deposit.</p>
<p>But it’s available to top arts students as well, right? It seems to me that there aren’t nearly as many arts scholarships and I could imagine those kids wouldn’t have the same options as NMSF kids.</p>
<p>But even for the arts winners, the scholarship could only be used at Maryland colleges (not necessarily state schools, but they have to be in Maryland).</p>
<p>Yes, but a lot of arts kids do not have the $ to go just anywhere and are going to end up at instate schools. Maryland also has Peabody and MICA.</p>
<p>Governor O’Malley stating that he didn’t intend for the cuts to impact this year’s Distinguished Scholars Recipients. The cuts will be put in place starting next year, eliminating the scholarship program in future years. “Clearly our commitment to honor existing awards was not fulfilled, and I’ve directed MHEC to immediately correct the error and restore the four-year scholarships to all seniors who were expecting their award,” O’Malley said</p>
<p>Certainly he was legally advised that they had to honor those offers.</p>
<p>The powers that be probably did not have a sense that college deadlines were 5/1 when they sent out the letters, which was at that point pouring salt on the wound. These cuts have been bouncing around on a couple of other listserves I’m on over the past couple of weeks. I am not surprised they backtracked on cutting the current seniors’ awards.</p>
<p>When S1 was in school, he needed a 3.7 in a select list of courses to apply, and then when he made NMSF he automatically got the MDS. UMD does not offer very many NMF awards, so this was a sweeter deal. The MDS basically covered what the B/K didn’t, up to COA. Made it a truly free ride.</p>
<p>S1 got a MDS and a full B/K, but did not choose to attend school here.</p>
<p>The arts nominees seem to be getting the short end of the stick. It’s tougher to find decent merit awards for art majors.</p>
<p>Marian, you left out St. Mary’s College, which is an option for some top students. But I agree with you that this program was unlikely to be the deciding factor for many kids.</p>
<p>One bright side of this change is that I can stop being mad at my daughter (a junior) for failing to turn in the DS paperwork on time.</p>
<p>Personally, I’m extremely upset by this turn of events. My son is a junior & that $3,000 would have gone a long way toward making UMCP the most attractive option. He did well enough on his PSATs to be a Commended Student, but I’m 99% sure he won’t be a Finalist. We don’t qualify for need-based aid, so this was an attractive scholarship that made UMCP very appealing. <em>sigh</em></p>
<p>Depending on his credentials, UMCP may still be appealing. They give out a lot of merit scholarship money to really top students.</p>
<p>But you have to be very well qualified, indeed. I know of a few kids who were not NMSF who got merit money from UMCP, but they had PSAT scores very close to the cutoff and very high grades in rigorous courses. On the other hand, my son, who was National Merit Commended but nowhere near the cutoff and who had fairly ordinary high school grades, didn’t get a dime.</p>
<p>To support Marian’s: statement about what it takes to get merit $$ at UMCP – S2 got $5k/year (President’s Scholarship, IIRC) from UMCP. Had a 218 PSAT, but that does not make NMSF in our state. Was a full IB diploma student plus 11 APs, 3.49 UW/4.24 WGPA, 2290 SAT.</p>
<p>He got into College Scholars in his selected area, but not Honors.</p>
<p>Regarding the in-state tuition for undocumented residents, that only applies to community colleges and only for students who attended HS in the same county as the CC. (I think) the instate tuition will hold-up at at state school if the student successfully completes an AA at the CC. Opponents vow to take it to referendum. </p>
<p>
Same here. But, it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. No MD college is really a fit for her.</p>
<p>Just to put my two cents in, the 3K Distinguished Scholar award made the decision for my daughter to attend UMCP an easy one to make when she was deciding between two schools. So, we are very relieved that it wasn’t cut, after all. I’m sure for some students, the amount isn’t high enough to make them choose a Maryland school if it’s a bad match, but it does help, particularly if finances are limited. Also, the arts kids DO get scholarships from schools, but they must major in that particular field in order to receive them.</p>
<p>It is my understanding that the funding for all four years of the MDS scholarship for THIS year’s seniors was reinstated. The scholarship has been eliminated starting with the class of 2012. Maryland lawmakers left untouched the legislative scholarship program wherein delegates and senators can give scholarships to anyone for any reason. That program costs the state budget $11.7 million per year, and was increased by another $200,000 for next year. Past investigations by the Baltimore Sun and other newspapers have found that those scholarships are frequently used as little more than political payoffs for friends and allies. Maryland is one of only 5 states that offer legislative scholarships.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Maryland’s need based financial aid program is funded next year at fiscal 2009 levels despite a 3.3% increase in instate tuition and fees both last year and this year.</p>
<p>My senior son’s official letter stating that his MDS scholarship would not be funded arrived in the mail a few hours AFTER the Governor reinstated it. Fortunately, he had already committed to UNC-Chapel Hill at the time.</p>