More bad news for Idaho universities ...
... And yes, that is becoming a recurring headline.
Today, the State Board of Education will consider a plan that would take a little promise out of Idaho's Promise Scholarship program.
Faced with declining state funding, the board could cut the scholarships to $400 a year for eligible first- and second-year Idaho students, down from $500 a year. (More here from Betsy Russell at the Spokane Spokesman-Review.)
As long as Gov. Butch Otter is trying to cut 6 percent from Idaho's 2009-10 higher ed budget — despite rising enrollment — these Promise Scholarship cuts may be one more inevitability. And one more incremental cost increase for college students and their parents.
And I've got to bring up a bigger point here (and, by way of full disclosure, I'm also speaking as a tuition-paying father). Idaho deserves credit for offsetting first-and second-year costs with the Promise Scholarship. But when state and university aid gets scarce further down the road — and, take my word for it, it does — parents and students wind up paying more to complete the pursuit of a degree.
This financial aid gap is just one more factor contributing to Idaho's low percentage of college graduates. And even in better economic times, the state has never come up with a plan to address this problem.
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$400/500...buys two credits and a used book anyway-BAH!
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There is no life in Idaho...it is a mirror site on god's server. You were dreaming but it is over. Go to your residence and await our commands and THEN we will restore control...
Not unique to Idaho
"This financial aid gap is just one more factor contributing to Idaho's low percentage of college graduates."
Other states have the same problem with retention rates, and it has been this way for a very long time - at least 50 years as I can recall steps Ohio State took that long ago to weed out freshmen students who were not likely to make the grade. Today the emphasis is on accomodating academically challenged students (aka academically unprepared)instead of weeding them out early. BSU has an entire department that is responsible for coordinating the accomodation model. Yet the problem is more severe today than it was 50 years ago, and even private colleges who presumably can draw from the cream of the crop have been forced to offer remedial classes in the three R's.
I'm sorry that worthy students might lose $100 of scholarship money, but let's not doom them to dropout status just yet when there is so much evidence pointing to other factors responsible for the graduation rates.