UNC Scholarships

[wraynop at aol.com]

I'm grateful to those of you who found the statistics on median income, but I would like to point out some underlying assumptions we are missing when talking about our 'wealthy' student body.? When we directly compare the overall median and our school's medium, we are not comparing controlled samples since in that household medium are those living on their own just starting out and those who are close to retirement.? We should really be comparing this with other families that are about to have children go off to college.? A proxy for that that is easily obtainable is would be the Median Income for 4? Person Families, $58,227 <http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/income02/statemhi.html> and at guess I would say that that figure is probably low as within 4-6 years the family is likely moving out of this category (empty nest) vs likely being in this category for 16-20 years already (children's childhood).? That would cause me to peg $60,000-65,000 as a reasonable range for college time median income in NC.? This is still below NCSSM's average, but only $15,000-$20,000, not the nearly $40,000 gap that the overall median would give us.? My original opposition to the scholarships is a moot point as I was worried about changing the student culture of the school, and any damage there cannot be undone at this point.? Perhaps it is due to having a freshman roommate whose dad paid for 2 kids tuition and still bought a Porshe while attending Duke undergrad ;), but I don't see NCSSM as being a playground of the wealthy.? For those who complain that the scholarship does not influence those with rich parents, you are looking at the wrong problem.? Those that have the money not to be swayed won't change their decisions because of it, and so cost the state nothing (other than the cost of paperwork perhaps).? The issue for those who see this as needing means testing should be rather those who could easily pay and would have paid if this scholarship did not exist.? There is also the issue of coercion on the part of parents being stronger to take the free rather than the cheaper deal - I'm not sure some of my friends that talked their parents into helping them attend private liberal arts schools in my year ('02) would prevail today.? 

On a slightly related note, (I'm not sure if it was ever mentioned on here last year) the NC ARML team (American Regions Math League) won the competition last year, despite having few NCSSM students (several may still attend NCSSM since it was a young team), so there is some truth to the statement that many of the best in NC who might be "deserving" of the scholarship are not NCSSM students.? (I know that math competitions are not the best indicator of best mathematicians, but the caliber of students on the bus to ARML is usually higher than even in the Cal III or Math Modeling classrooms at NCSSM.

-Paul Wrayno
c/o '02
 
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