I’m no fan of state sponsored gambling but…

When I first moved to Georgia, I was surprised to find they had a deal where kids with a B-average (3.0) could get a free ride through college. Now that I live in Tennessee, I see they have taken up state sponsored gambling (lottery) and are offering the same. All kids need to do once in college is keep that B-average in order to keep the full scholarship ride going. This is all still a bit shocking to me, because when I was in college in Maryland we never had such. We actually had to work to pay for tuition, if we didn’t have money for college. Imagine that! Which instilled discipline and a great respect for the education we were working for. (Yes I worked while in undergrad and graduate school too.) The free ride in Tennessee has obviously failed to inspire many students to work hard to keep their grades up.

I agree with Ms. Thomas 100%. My word, they’ve already received a free ride and most of them can’t even keep their grades up as it is. Lowering the bar is not going to inspire them to work harder, to raise the overall level of intelligence in this state. This is the kind of proposal that will unfortunately put TN behind instead of ahead.

While I was in undergrad, I earned academic scholarships and had to keep my grades up to keep getting them. Given I was working to pay my way, the partial scholarships helped and the fact the bar was never lowered inspired me to keep my grades up. Not getting a full free ride, I had to contribute from money made off the sweat of my own brow, so I knew how to work for the money and appreciate any given. (And yes I finished undergrad and graduate school with greater than a B-average.)

Instead of lowering the bar, why don’t the lame legislators use the money to give vouchers to parents of children in grade school? Oh but you won’t see the narrow minded legislators pushing for that. And such an idea certainly won’t come from the Democratic governor.

One of the reasons kids keep losing their scholarships, is because the bar is already too low to begin with. Look at the requirements to get the scholarship in the first place. A B-average (3.0) is not mandatory to begin with, it’s optional. If they don’t have a B-average, all they need is a 21 ACT or 980 SAT score. I can’t speak about the ACT because I don’t know much about it, but I do know that a 980 SAT score is a piece of cake! So you have kids, who in some cases are not even B-average students to begin with getting a scholarship that is above their proven level of aptitude. Then everyone cries when they can’t keep up a good average in college.

It would have made more sense for the B-average to be mandatory, with an even higher SAT requirement. Assuming an ACT score of 21 is the equivalent to an SAT 980, the ACT requirement should also be raised. The scholarship money should go to those who have proven they are ready to excel at the college level. Let everyone else WORK to make money to pay for their education.

Instead of lowering the bar, the state should be working to keep the bar high and use the excess funds to help other children and families that could put the money to good use. Don’t go throwing good money after kids who have already failed to meet the requirements.