<p>I am glad my D1 graduated last May. She was selected for this scholarship in our state based on her gpa and sat. She never, and did not need to, apply. It was earned based on her record.</p>
<p>My D1 earned more scholarships than any other of her fellow students at her HS graduation. I was especially proud of the Byrd because our state only gave it to two students within a certain region. I know my D1’s region included many high schools.</p>
<p>High achievers usually do not qualify for merit at their college choices because the top colleges often do not give merit awards. High achievers that are low income often get a very good financial aid package. High achievers that come from wealthy families can afford the price of a top school. It is the middle income folks that seem to have to pay the most. The Byrd scholarship helped folks like us. </p>
<p>Thank-you taxpayers for helping my very high achieving D1. She will hopefully repay you. </p>
<p>Uh-oh. She is now one of those bad Wall St. traders. She will just make lots of money and give nothing back-right?. Because Wall St. and banking and finance have nothing to do with the rest of our economic prosperity?</p>
<p>HaHa. My D1 pays a ton in taxes and is also a fund raiser for multiple charitable events including her firms events.</p>
So your rationale is that the taxpayer should help Susie go to Harvard despite the fact that she could get generous scholarships at many other fine schools. But why? Anyone with that record of achievement will be successful wherever they go to college. It’s not in the nation’s best interests that she attend any particular school. My D is benefiting from a generous merit award at her college because she was a very attractive applicant to that institution. I didn’t expect the government to pick up the slack so she could instead go to a school closer to “the top”. We’ll be seeing cuts in hundreds (if not thousands) of government programs over the next decade. The Byrd scholarships are far down the list of those to weep over.</p>
<p>California’s not exactly the example you want to be pointing at, considering its continued financial troubles.</p>
<p>I was a recipient of this scholarship, and this probably means that I’m going to be taking out that extra money in loans. I’m sad to see the money go, but I will be fine. Then again, I’m probably losing money from other sources too, and every bit counts…</p>
<p>My younger son had this scholarship for the past four years. He has just graduated. The money was very helpful. I think it is short sighted to not fund top scholars, for what is really a miniscule portion of the federal budget. There is probably more waste and overbuying/overcharging in one week than this scholarship’s yearly funding.
I have always backed educational encouragement and consider it to be a good investment in the future.</p>
<p>Whoa, wait a minute! When are they going to notify current Byrd scholars of this? Son was a recipient in Louisiana, and this scholarship was very helpful in covering his very expensive engineering/science books. He just finished his first year, so we were counting on this for the next three years.</p>
<p>i emailed the dept contact in our state…they dont know yet about current recipients…but above is the link for contacts in all states…might want to contact them</p>
<p>Indeed, kids can be successful and happy at a wide range of schools that offer merit scholarships. But some kids really thrive on being challenged and on having to struggle and on <em>not</em> being at the top of the class, and to get that, they have to go beyond the ranks of those schools that will offer them merit money. </p>
<p>I don’t know if it’s provable, but I’d venture a guess that the top contributors to society in terms of scientific discoveries, engineering innovations, etc. graduate in disproportionate numbers from “tippy top” schools that do not offer merit aid. If that’s true, then it may very well be in the nation’s best interest to support sending the very brightest kids to the very best schools, in the hopes that they will eventually discover/create/cure/invent/etc. something important for society. </p>
<p>It’s a huge stretch, if it’s possible at all, for many middle-class kids to attend a school that offers only need-based aid. So if they can qualify for some “portable” merit money based on extremly high achievement, and this enables them to go to a “better” school where they are more challenged, do you really think that on average society loses that bet and gets no benefit from these top achievers being pushed to their limits?</p>
<p>My son was a recipient of the Byrd scholarship, and he is a great example of the need this scholarship fills.</p>
<p>He was a good student, but not the tippy top student. He was active in extracurriculars and community service, but was not the captain of the varsity team or president of the student council. So, while a stellar student, he was not offered the full ride scholarships and was not admitted into so called reach schools.</p>
<p>He is also a white male whose parents both graduated from college. So, the scholarships that are available to first generation students, minority students, were not available to him. Any scholarships he got were on his merit alone, not his genetics, and as a middle class child, he was not going to qualify for need aid other than loans.</p>
<p>Here is where the Byrd scholarship kicked in. It was not enough for him to go to his first choice school, that gave him a half scholarship and still required a 25K/year loan. But it did allow him to buy his books freshman year, pay for his meal plan, and live on campus, without having to take on substantial loans. It allowed him to choose a school that was a good fit, not just the cheapest, as he had a little bit of a cushion there.</p>
<p>It angers me that people view the Byrd as a scholarship that gave rich white kids a chance to go to an Ivy league school on the taxpayer’s dime. Instead, it gave regular middle class kids an opportunity to go to a school outside of their local community college or state flagship and actually make something out of their life, rather than stay in the same old rut others in their community were stuck in.</p>
<p>well said montegut!! and congrats to your son for receiving the byrd scholarship. i hope your state may be able to continue some funding for current recipients.</p>
<p>agree that i also am amazed that people begrudge a 1500/yr scholarship to hard working students (regardless of their parents income…need was not part of the criteria…this was hard work, merit and recommendation based)</p>
<p>Let me add my voice to Montegut’s. It makes me sad to get caught up in the swell of bitter diatribes nowadays against tax money going to support practically anything. My family makes just enough, I guess, to not qualify for anything but loans and student employment. Even though that is the case, we have to work very hard to scrape up every available penny to allow my son to attend his college of choice. Like other recipients of the Byrd scholarship, this is a smart kid who really worked hard all through school, and will contribute something to our society. What, this behavior doesn’t deserve a small reward? </p>
<p>I hear complaints in the press all the time about the need for better test scores, need for more engineers, scientists, etc., etc. Well, maybe we should think about rewarding students for the behavior we want to see. Duh.</p>
<p>And, to continue my rant, I think it was ESPECIALLY unfair to withdraw funding for the students who are already in the pipeline (college sophomores, juniors and seniors). These kids made college decisions thinking this money was a solid part of their budget. Now they are left to scramble for another $1500 per year. That hurts when every penny counts. Couldn’t they phase out the program and continue the kids who are already in college???</p>
<p>So if I interpret correctly, are you saying that one high test score should enable students more free money, at taxpayer expense? All others – including mostly the poor, who have lower test scorers – have to borrow more to attend college? Thus, the “middle class” kid with a high test score can afford to attend an OOS public, but the inner city kid has to borrow more to attend in the instate public? </p>
<p>byrd is not based on ONE test score (but if you use that…then NMF full ride scholarships make no sense!) byrd is based on entire high school performance, ec’s and requires recommendation by school…it is a selective process once submitted.</p>
<p>if the inner city school has a large financial need, there is a chance that child could get great need based aid…vs the middle class kid that may not qualify.</p>
<p>There is lots of need-based aid available to the low-income kids, including the Pell grant federal program that is MUCH bigger than the Byrd program ever was. It is good public policy to help <em>both</em> the low-income kids and the extremely-high-achieving kids have more options in where they attend.</p>
<p>And yes, if we want to encourage excellence in American students, a small financial reward for those who work hard and achieve at the very top seems to make a lot of sense.</p>
<p>Mom of another low-income, white male who has benefited from the Byrd Scholarship. He qualified for several scholarships his first year out of high school but they were not renewable. I’m sorry for others who struggle, but as a society our taxes should fund the ideals we collectively support. I think education is one such ideal and pulling the plug on a completely merit-based, and seemingly fairly distributed program does not make sense to me.</p>
<p>The Byrd recipients in Indiana are selected by highest test scores. Well, this was true in 2007; I don’t know if that statement is accurate for more recent years.</p>
<p>My son (almost-graduated high school senior) was nominated by his principal. We will now never know if he would’ve gotten it or not. Disappointing, but we have moved on. We are another one of those middle-class families who are stuck between not having extra money to put away for college yet “too rich” to qualify for grants, etc.</p>
<p>actually, for the vast majority of students, the only form of need-based aid is the Pell grant. The rest of it is the same loans that the rest of us are taking. There’s this myth out there of a big pot of money for poor kids; this exists at a handful of schools with large endowments, but if you’re not talented or lucky enough to get into these schools, you’re pretty much stuck in the same situation as the middle-class kid, except your parents have even less money and you have even fewer options (since even many state colleges are now unaffordable even with full Pell). Unless you’re legitimately wealthy, it’s hard out there for everyone. It’s sad that this program was cut, and middle-class people do deserve help with college costs, but let’s not pretend that low-income families are rolling in the dough either.</p>