When Scholarships Interfere With Education

(This article was originally published on Associated Content on November 22, 2008. Since AC is now excluding most writers outside the USA, I've moved it here.)

I've come to the realization that my Trent University Board of Governors' Leadership Scholarship is decreasing the quality of my education.

There are a number of courses at Trent, where I'm in my second year as a Computer Science major, that would make my education more well-rounded and that I'd like to take, but can't afford to -- not because they have higher tuition fees or expensive books, but because I might get B's or C's in them, which could drop my GPA below 80% (GPAs are measured only on a percentage scale at Trent) and cost me my $4500 for the following year. To be financially secure, I have to avoid rocking the boat and instead stick with the narrow range of subjects I know I can do well in -- computer science, economics, math where it's required for Comp Sci, and Spanish up to second-year level -- and every semester will be more of the same, in what's supposed to be the experimentation stage of my life.

The implications are staggering. If I'm choosing my courses too cautiously for purely financial reasons, so must every other scholar from a working-class family in Ontario whose scholarship depends on maintaining a high average. Combine that with things like a requirement in Ontario that all BSc's include 14 science credits (where 20 credits is a four-year degree, and Trent's joint-major humanities require 8 non-science credits), and employers who don't respect BAs, and we get a system that punishes people for going outside their specialties. I'm trying to imagine how Leonardo Da Vinci could have contributed to anything but engineering had he been in my position in school. (His mom was a peasant.)

In Canada, we have two types of post-secondary schools: universities and colleges. Training for specific narrow occupations traditionally happens in colleges. Universities are supposed to be for a broader education with broader applications, some of which aren't in the graduate's career. Whereas college teaches a student how to wire circuits or build a wooden frame for a house, university is supposed to teach how to succeed in several different careers, how to decide how to vote, how to spend free time, how to raise a family, and what to write for Associated Content.

University scholarship committees, please stop requiring a high GPA to maintain the awards you grant. Let it be enough that we pass all our courses; if you must require more than that, require that we take a diverse range of subjects. That way, your hard-fought money will help students understand the world and how they fit into it, not just the narrow specialty required for a particular career.

When Scholarships Interfere With Education