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Hernando Today

Bright Futures Scholarships Doled Out To Lackluster Students

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By JOHN REINIERS, More Than Words

Hernando Today

Published: September 16, 2008

Florida's Board of Governors and others routinely criticize the Bright Futures scholarship program approved by Florida's voters in 1986. The issue is a political one, not educational.
Florida's educational system is underfunded, but it can't be blamed on Bright Futures. Education is the responsibility of the Legislature, not the secretary of Florida's Lottery. Bright Futures should simply be icing on the cake.
One tiresome solution always advanced to solve the perceived problem is that it should be means tested. But this is not like a Title I "free lunch" program. This is a "hard work" program. The liberal solution to everything is to penalize achievement. We should realize that it is the parent who has the assets, not the student, who hasn't even gotten into the labor market yet. When students are in their peer group, they enjoy recognition for their academic achievements — not expecting their parents to be penalized financially for their outstanding grades.
I have heard more than one high-schooler, whose parents have some money, express profound delight in his or her academic achievements and their Bright Futures scholarship award, because they finally accomplished something all by themselves that daddy didn't have to pay for. It was their first step on their way to becoming responsible adults. And I've known of not so well off students who were equally as proud because they too earned a 100 percent academic scholarship.
If legislators really want to do something positive, it would be to reinforce the definition of "bright" as used in Bright Futures. Bright means quickness of mind or comparatively high on the scale of brightness. That certainly is evident with a requirement for a 1270 SAT score or a 28 on the SAT.
It makes a mockery of Bright Futures to also offer a 75 percent scholarship for a 970 SAT and a 20 ACT — both being below the national averages — with a 3.0 GPA. (Fittingly, the antonym for bright is "lackluster.")
Set the bar high enough to challenge every student. It might also dissuade some students from going to college when they might have greater earnings potential with technical skills. We absolutely need to do much more for these kids, and this may well be a more critical societal K-12 issue that goes beyond the scope of this column. Just don't belittle an awards program that should be based solely upon a "wow" academic factor. It sends the wrong message to kids at every socio-economic level.
Since Medallion 75 percent scholarships account for about 70 percent of the total, eliminating these sham merit awards would give immediate relief. Even better, a fixed award amount not linked to a percentage of the actual tuition would take some of the heat off the Legislature, which could then deal with tuition charges separately. It could still tinker around with awards based upon the student's university grade level, or indexing by achievement scores.
Whatever, the award has to be high enough to induce students to study hard to excel on the SAT or ACT while still in high school.
Everyone trots out as a great success at the California State University with its 23 campuses, 417,000 students and "some 23,000 faculty" as reported in the CSU General Catalog — the largest university system in the U.S. and headed by Chancellor Charlie Reed, former Florida chancellor. (According to the Florida Board of Governors, Florida has 294,016 students and 25,992 full-time faculty on 11 campuses.) The bureaucracy loves to cite Reed because he was from Florida and disparages Florida's Bright Futures as the worst public policy ever, because it isn't need-based like California's. (But in California a student can get a need-based scholarship by simply having a 2.5 GPA. See "lackluster" above.)
Florida's critics seem to imply that California's public university teaching faculty is a happy, well paid lot. Not so. Last year The California Faculty Association authorized the first strike ever by CSU faculty in the history of the system — a total campus shut down. (Ninety-four percent of the union voted in favor of a walkout.) As of 2007 the average faculty salary was about $75,000. (To give you some comparisons: The averages at the University of Florida, University of Central Florida and the University of South Florida are $109,000, $112,000 and $101,800 respectively.) One academician described the CSU as "in so many ways the Rodney Dangerfield of public higher education." Reed says that California "is on the road to building world-class prisons and second-class universities."
On the other hand, the administrators in Reed's shop are rewarded quite handsomely. The Legislative Analyst's Office expressed concern because compensation varied significantly by employment classification. Over the last five fiscal years, the average compensation for management personnel increased by 25.1 percent, whereas compensation for tenure-track faculty and other faculty increased by only 5.6 percent and 6.2 percent respectively.
A strike was averted when a deal was cut with the union for a 21 percent increase over a four-year period that would raise the average salary for a tenure-track faculty member from $74,000 to $90,749. But they haven't seen this money yet because the state is in worse financial shape than Florida and remains at a budget impasse. The CSU is still struggling with a half-billion dollar cut from the budget it absorbed between 2002 and 2005. On top of this, they are facing another 10 percent cut or $312 million from the 2008-09 budget!
Oh yes, and California does not "bad mouth" lotteries. For the seventh consecutive year the Lottery contributed more than $1 billion to education. Interestingly, the state appropriated just $3 billion to CSU with student fee support at over $1.1 billion. Florida's Legislature appropriated $3.6 billion for our considerably smaller university system. So it can be seen that even with student fee support and some lottery contributions, California is not out of the woods either.
Moreover, their deficit — a $16 billion shortfall — is gargantuan compared to Florida's $1.5 billion deficit. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has declared a "fiscal emergency." As you might suspect, Democrats want to close this shortfall by raising taxes up to $11.5 billion. Republicans — being ever the idealists — are holding to a position of wiping out the entire deficit amount by reducing state spending by the entire deficit amount! Dream on. But Democrats rule California, so one has to assume more tax increases are on the way.
Of interest, spending in California has increased 40 percent since Schwarzenegger, a Republican, took office in 2003. As somebody said, he's "become so friendly with the majority of Democrats, that he's almost become one."
If Florida is having a faculty retention problem with "faculty flight" to better paying states, California surely isn't one of them.

John Reiniers, a regular columnist for Hernando Today, lives in Spring Hill.

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