I'd like to know when the term "Academic Scholarship" became an oxymoron. It seems that there is plenty of scholarship money for the best athletes to go to the schools that will promote their skills and, if the athlete is so motivated, get a pretty good education as an added bonus.
Take the case of Rasheed Wallace, accomplished member of the Detroit Pistons. He graduated from Simon Gratz High School in Philadelphia in 1994. Had a little trouble on his SATs, though. Once he managed to score the minimum (I believe it was 710) required to qualify for his scholarship to North Carolina (where he stayed a whopping 2 years!), a block party was held to celebrate his scholarship.
In the mean time, parents of some of best students of the area had to make decisions as to whether to go into debt beyond their means in order to place their children into Ivy League or other schools recognized for having the "best of the best" students. Alternatively, they could place these well-accomplished students into less-expensive state or community colleges.
What's wrong with this picture?
Advocates of student(?)-athletes and opponents of articles like Propositions 13 and 48, like John Cheyney (former Temple Coach) and John Thompson (former Georgetown Coach) like to point out that underprivileged inner-city kids need the same opportunities as their middle- and upper-class suburban counterparts. (As long as they can put the ball in the hole, right coach?)
I often hear of the problems with our academic system, how other countries around the world are passing us by. I hear all kinds of reasons for this. Maybe the motivation factor is part of the problem.
I believe in rewarding exceptional athletes, whether that by in the form of scholarships or other compensation in exchange for the dollars they bring to the college or other teams that they represent.
But let's not forget the people that we're going to rely on to make the world a better place over the next 50+ years while we're all being entertained by these highly talented and well-paid athletes.
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Comments: 31
Make a general scholarship fund available. For each dollar that a college or university provides (in the form of tuition, books, fees, board, etc.) to an athlete, an equal amount must be donated to the general fund. This fund could be made available to some of the top students to attend the college of their choice.
Here's another ... If someone receives a scholarship and fails to graduate due to grades or early departure (for something other than illness, e.g.), the full value of the scholarship (adjusted for inflation) must be repaid by the athlete.
And based on your understanding of available scholarship money for academic acheivement, you must not have had a kid in that situation. These scholarships are few and far between and require a great deal of time and effort for which most people don't have the time -- especially considering that actually winning the scholarships is pretty much a crap-shoot.
As for Dixon and Holden, that's great for them. What about the uncoordinated kid down the street from them that Thompson never heard of?
Yes, these students can get scholarships to go to some pretty good state universities, but to go to places like Ivy League schools, MIT, Cal Tech, Stanford, etc., there's just not enough to go around.
Should we ask these students to settle for a state or community college when the athletes get to go to the schools that offer the most opportunities to athletes?
In the competitve rush for schools to have the winning teams they completely disregard the fact that they are schools, not sports machines.
Again, you're missing the point. Georgetown (also a great academic school), Penn State, NC State, Notre Dame, USC, UCLA, etc. are among the best schools for a talented athlete to hone and showcase their athletic skills. Plenty of ATHLETIC scholarships are available for highly-talented athletes to attend these schools.
Schools like MIT, Harvard, Cal Tech, Duke, Stanford, etc. are the places that the best of the best ACADEMIC students should go to hone and showcase their skills. However, there are very few scholarship dollars available to these students.
And I never diminished public universities. I just said that if athletes can go to the best schools for athletes, then scholars should be able to go to the best schools for scholars.
...but in the meantime I would like to share part of an article with you and this is in a country where they pay the highest taxes....interesting with all the yelling and shouting about having to raise taxes next year.....
Finland Comes to Vermont
posted by joan on 03/31/2008 @ 11:36am___________________________________________________________________
On Monday night in Burlington, Vermont, Senator Bernie Sanders will host a town meeting with Finland's Ambassador to the US, Pekka Lintu.
Why? Well, how about because Finland has managed to virtually eradicate childhood poverty. Or because of the "academic prowess" of Finland's students--as recently noted by the Wall Street Journal --who receive a free education through college. Or maybe it's the free comprehensive health care, quality childcare at almost no cost, or pro-environment, pro-labor policies that support a very competitive economy.
Yes, there are significant differences between the US and Finland, as Senator Sanders noted in a conversation I had with him last week (see below). But at this moment when we face an economic tsunami, roughly 50 million Americans uninsured, nearly 20 percent of American children living in poverty, and a growing gap between the very wealthy and everyone else--it's time to take a look abroad at some alternative ways of doing things. Senator Sanders gets that. His openness to learning and engaging is an example America sorely needs right now, as we attempt to regain some humility and re-engage with the world post-Bush.
TheNation.com's Greg Kauffman will be at the meeting Monday night--to hear what the Ambassador has to say and to listen to the questions being asked by Vermonters in attendance. Here is the conversation the Senator and I had about the event.
How did the initial connection with the Finnish Ambassador happen?
A number of months ago we brought him into the office in DC--just wanted to chat with him . . . . . . . . . .
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/edcut/304947/finland_comes_to_vermont