<p>This sucks big time! In mid-April, Congress did not appropriate money for either new students or returning students for the Robert C. Byrd Scholarship. See:</p>
<p>"There will be no 2011 competition for the Robert. C. Byrd Honors Scholarships Program. The FY11 federal budget indicates that no new funds will be awarded by the federal government for this scholarship."</p>
<p>"Statutory authority for the Robert C. Byrd (Byrd) Scholarship ended on April 15, 2011. As a result, no new awards for the 2011-12 academic year will be given. Byrd Scholarship payments for returning students will not be paid."</p>
<p>Two of those states said they are still waiting to hear if funding will continue for current recipients. I am not hopeful since it is renewable for four years subject to funding. This was not a particularly large expenditure recognizing academic excellence and doesn’t speak well of congressional funding priorities.</p>
<p>My daughter would have received the scholarship, tied in our state to recognition from the state DPI. No scholarship but she still got her picture, along with those of the other 100-plus honorees, in the newspaper.</p>
<p>Awww one of the few scholarships that I was actually eligible, after searching through lists of hundreds of them. Oh well. Thanks for letting us know. Good luck to the returning students - I hope your scholarship continues next year.</p>
<p>I only heard about this through gibby’s alert, and the media has been almost mum. The only articles I found when I searched were from newspapers in West Virginia, which was scholarship-founder Byrd’s home state.</p>
<p>Recently, the state of Maryland pulled the plug on their Distinguished Scholars award AFTER students (high school seniors) had been told they would get the money (about $3K). This happened just after May 1st, when the students had committed to their colleges with the assumption that they’d have that extra $3K. So parents, students, and the media raised a ruckus (especially about the timing of the demise of the program … students should have been told about it before the May 1 enrollment deadline). The upshot is that current seniors WILL get the money they were promised after all. </p>
<p>Perhaps current seniors who were counting on Byrd funds should create a media uproar, too.</p>
<p>This is very, very disheartening. Somehow, policymakers can’t seem to get straight that there are top-flight students who work extremely hard to qualify for this small amount of money, and aren’t impoverished enough to qualify for federal aid such as Pell grants.</p>
<p>Congress should, at a minimum, provide funding to finish out those current recipients now in college who thought they would be covered for four years. It is a dirty trick for students to lose funding mid-stream.</p>
<p>Sorry, but all the billions are being shoveled instead to Pell grants for sleazy on-line for-profit colleges. There’s not $30 million left for this merit program. They are busy signing up homeless street people for Federal grants.</p>
<p>i was pretty bummed about this, not only as someone who was designated to get this award, but as a west virginia native. senator byrd would not be happy to learn that this scholarship has been discontinued, im sure.</p>
<p>tsdad: Yes, it is a surprise! The Robert C. Byrd Scholarship began in 1985, and for the last 25 years, through Republican and Democratic Congresses, through President’s Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, and Obama it has been funded . . . that is, up until this past April. As Sally Rubenstone suggested, if enough senior parents start writing to their local newspapers about their dissillusionment, maybe the media coverage will help to get the money re-instated.</p>
<p>It’s particularly revolting to learn about this at the same moment that the Senate refused to reign-in taxpayer handouts to the Oil companies. Those who want to continue sending taxpayer funds to Big Oil argue that it can be a cyclical business and needs this encouragement to find new wells, those who oppose this lobbyist-induced corruption point to the recipients’ enormous profits. Whether you agree or not, I think every CC parent should think seriously about writing your local newspaper - as Gibby suggests - and also your local Congressperson about the killing of the Byrd Scholarships. This program is one of the best merit-based investments we can make for America’s future. Even if you think oil subsidies and weapons systems the Pentagon does not want deserve funding, why does not a small slice of support for the education of our brightest kids make even stronger sense?</p>
<p>That’s bcos most, if not nearly all, of the “winners” are middle-upper class students, much like NM. The press is generally liberal, and giving money to upper middle class folks goes against their grain. There is no story, here.</p>
<p>And no, there are not enough interested folks to write enough letters to their representatives. In California, for example, to be competitive for a Byrd, one needs a 2400/36. Since there are only more than a handful that score such numbers, the masses of 33 million residents have not even heard of the Byrd nor have an interest in it.</p>
<p>So essentially, I applied for it for no reason… Finally, a scholarship with no financial requirement that I could possibly get…and they decide to cut it. That’s completely upsetting. When will people realize that middle-upper class students have financial need too?</p>