Categorical Aid

Johnny Jones, 15 September 1991

There are scholarships for a "Left-Hander Who Plans to Attend Juniata College," the "Teetotaling Non-Athlete Who Plans to Attend Bucknell University," and the "Undergraduate Born with Surname of Gatlin or Gatling."

I call that categorical aid, because it looks at people who fit into categories rather than at merit or achievement. Categorical aid has become the mainstay of our college system. What's interesting is that categorical aid is meant to redress problems with the past: minorities, women, and disabled people used to be categorically refused college aid or even admission. Now entries like this one by AT&T Bell Laboratories abound in scholarship books: "Undergraduate scholarship to encourage minorities and women to enter engineering profession." Another, sponsored by the Electronic Industries Foundation, said, "Open to disabled students who are pursuing careers in high-tech areas through academic or technical training." The problem with categorical aid, as white middle-class males are discovering, is that with a swoop of someone's pen, the categories can change. Even if you are benefitted now, you had better watch out for tomorrow.

"Diversity" is the watch-word for colleges these days; achievement is secondary to it. What does this lead to? The very elitism we are trying to appear so careful to eliminate. The only way you can beat the category system, if you are not fortunate enough to be in the right category, is to be wealthy enough to afford college without aid.

Almost everything is need-based at the top-ranked colleges. MIT, for example, has no merit-based scholarships; everything is need-based. What that means, practically, is that only kids rich enough to afford it or very needy can go there. No middle class. This is a little crazy. I do not begrudge anyone else an opportunity. But aren't we out of perspective here? It used to be that the rich and middle-class could afford schools like MIT. Now the rich and poor can go there. Is it morally superior to disenfranchise one group rather than another?

Roughly two-fifths of kids going to college get financial aid (6 million students); but of those students starting college, less than half earn a degree, according to Robert Samuelson in the May 27th issue of Newsweek. He went on to say, "The American belief in `equality' and `fairness' makes it hard for us to create barriers that block some students. Our approach is more indirect and dishonest: first, we give them meaningless high-school degrees; then we let them drop out of colleges."

Meanwhile, we give the monies away arbitrarily, based not on achievement or excellence but on some capricious norm. "In international comparisons, our top students often fare poorly against other countries' top students," according to the Samuelson article.

Is it any wonder? With $18 billion dollars in college student aids, grants, and guaranteed loans distributed annually by the Department of Education, we could not get a penny. Bryan qualified because of academic accomplishments; hence, he got very little aid from anyone, in spite of applying for anything that moved. And Bryan's National Merit grant was reduced from $2000 per year to under $1000 per year because they said we were not needy enough. Last year I was told that if a student became recognized in the National Merit competition, he pretty much got a free ride. We learned that is incorrect these days: achievement is secondary to one's category.

Is that right?