alumni Digest, Vol 39, Issue 11

[Nick Gorton]

"but I simply don't think that every single grant and scholarship
needs to have a means-based component, and this is one instance where
I don't think it's necessary."

Scott, I don't think that either and that's a straw man. You and I can
burn it together.

However what I do think is that when you are talking about a group of
kids from families making double the mean income in NC, I think that
should be a consideration. Any award in our society that is 'purely
merit based' is going to favor the affluent over the middle class and
the middle class over the poor.

And that is one of the reasons that SM has students from more affluent
families. I will admit my ignorance here, but does SM still use the
SAT (or similar standardized test) as one of the measures for
admissions? On average, for every $10,000 increase in family income,
kids score 30 points better on the SAT. So its no surprise that if you
use that as a measure you will get more affluent kids. That doesn't
mean that every single kid will come from a wealthy family. Its still
a distribution around the median..... but the median is significantly
shifted.

You can't have something that is 'merit based' without
disproportionately benefiting the more affluent when you measure
'merit' the way we do. But what you can do is question things when
they seem to exacerbate these problems rather than improve them.
That's what I am doing.

"The legislature only has two choices on the table right now: Continue
the experiment or abandon it."

Fallacy of the excluded middle, Scott.

Just googling this for all of 12 seconds I've found several people
making the suggestion of means testing it. But then that is what is
done in committee – and what we pay legislators to do: to say 'gee
this bill is good, but it would be better if it said....'

"I regard a grant intended to keep North Carolina's best and brightest
in North Carolina and a grant intended to provide a way for the poor
to pay for college to be two completely separate things and two
completely separate issues. If the point of this grant is to benefit
the state of North Carolina by keeping its best and brightest in North
Carolina, then the issue of how rich these people are is irrelevant to
me.  Therefore, any discussion about people not needing this is
unlikely to influence my opinion."

Not at all. That's like trying to separate race from class in the US.

However, I'll make this modest proposal based on your ideal that we
should do what is best for the state without regard to other
indicators and based on some of your assumptions:
1) Students who graduate college are more beneficial to the state than
students who do not graduate.
2) A tuition grant will significantly change the behavior of the vast
majority of students when selecting colleges favoring attendance at
the school where the grant is given (even those from very affluent
families – even with income >10xFPL.)
3) Students who attend NC colleges are more likely to stay in NC and
contribute to the economy. (Not sure I agree with this given the
global economy, but I will accept it for the sake of argument.)
4) A grant that ultimately benefits the state is reasonable despite
that it favors those who are more enfranchised over those who are less
enfranchised.
5) Markers that indicate students are more likely to graduate college
should be judged independently of any favor they provide to
enfranchised students.

Any problems with those so far? Ready for the baby hors d'oeuvres?

So the grant I propose then is lets take the BEST indicators that most
accurately reflect whether a kid will graduate college and use them to
determine who should get a free tuition grant at UNC. Unfortunately
this will probably be slightly less popular, because the students who
would qualify are white, wealthy, straight, and non-disabled. I mean
why give a black kid, or a gay kid, or a poor kid, or a  kid who has
to roll to class in a wheelchair a free ride when we know its a better
bet for our money to produce results in the sense of PhD's living in
NC if we just fund wealthy, straight, white, non-disabled kids who are
much more likely to graduate college if given the chance?

Of course that's the reason that race matters, and class matters, and
gender matters, and ethnicity matters, and disabilities matter, and
sexual orientation matters. But its not just to make things fair. Its
because people who come from those backgrounds – especially the
intersection of multiple disenfranchised identities – are valuable and
we waste them at the peril of our society. In a zero sum game like
this, failing to take those into account doesn't just 'help NCSSM
grads' but it hurts those who are not as enfranchised as are the kids
who attend SM.

Nick