ONE OF the great strenghts oftheAmerican university system is its competitive character. The University community worries constantly about its status as one of the nation's top public universities, and rightly so: Our position is precarious and can change at any moment in this cutthroat world of competitive admissions. With so many options for prospective college students, universities are outdoing themselves in competing forstudents in order to enhance their own reputations. These programs, which incentivize good academic performance while easing the financial burden of college, are enormously popular politically because they conform to the American ideals of competition and reward through merit.
One such politically popular program is Old Dominion University's new merit scholarship program, which promises a $6,000 scholarship towards tuition for valedictorians and salutatorians from Virginia public and private schools. It would be a mistake for the University not to take any action in response. The Old Dominion program threatens to cut into the University's domain as the best value in higher education in Virginia. The University needs to expand its merit scholarship programs in order to remain competitive as one of the nation's top universities.
The University claims that it meets the full demonstrated financial need of students through the AccessUVa program. But by putting academic criteria before financial need as a qualification, the merit-based approach has a better chance of attracting the best students across the country. Payouts from a merit-based program will be larger for middle-class students, as AccessUVa gives out money on a sliding scale based on financial need. Even the University's relatively affordable in-state rates represent a large financial burden for most families, and that does not even take into account much higher out-of-state rates.
The University's main existing merit scholarship program, the Jefferson Scholarship, is too small to be very effective in attracting top-flight talent, reaching only 30 to 35 students in each undergraduate class. This program needs to be expanded if the University is to keep pace as a national university. In an interview James Wright, president of the Jefferson Scholars foundation, confirmed that the Foundation's resource base is the main obstacle to expanding the program at the undergraduate level.
Closely tied to merit scholarships in improving student quality is the Echols Scholarship program, which gives top students priority registration and freedom from area requirements. The success of the Echols program is indicated by a survey showing that 40 percent of Echols Scholars would not have attended the University without the incentive offered by the program.
Merit scholarships also represent an attractive way to promote minority achievement. Such a model is suggested by the University of Maryland-Baltimore County's Meyerhoff Scholarship program, which attracts black students by means of a merit scholarship program. The Meyerhoff program encourages a sense of community among students and mandates strict academic standards. No scholarship program comes close to Meyerhoff in terms of results, which has led to calls for replication of this program across the country.This program could serve as a guide to attracting top minority students, a stated goal of the University.
It is often complained that high school credentials and SAT scores are not indicators of future academic success. But this is not true: Past success is the best indicator of future success. If it were otherwise, employers would not care about what an applicant put on his or her résumé.
The benefits of attracting a top student body go far beyond simply reputation and prestige, as important as these factors are. Smart students compete against each other for grades and leadership positions, improving academic performance and allowing students to learn from each other. The presence of smart students attracts top quality faculty as well. And any student here cannot help but notice that student leadership, both in the classroom and outside, is not a quality distributed randomly, but tends to inhere in the best students at the university -- the Jeffersonian "natural aristocracy...[of] virtue and talents." Jefferson scholars disproportionately win Rhodes Scholarships, graduate with honors and awards and serve in leadership positions. While statistics are not available, it is reasonable to infer the same of Echols scholars, who also come to the University with high academic achievement.
Merit scholarship programs cost money, it is true. But students, not physical facilities, are the most important aspect of the University's success.
To remain competitive, the University cannot delude itself into believing, nihilistically, that it can rest on its laurels and remain a top public university. Merit scholarships are politically popular and comport with American ideals of merit, and it is in the University's interest to expand them.
Noah Peters' column appears Mondays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at npeters@cavalierdaily.com.
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