teenybopper girls images, Education Scholarship Offerings Raise Student Economic Levels

Education Scholarship Offerings Raise Student Economic Levels

Scholarships get a lot of attention because of the money they can save students and families on college and university tuition. Scholarships can also contribute to college and university attendance and degree completion. The current administration of President Obama has set goals toward increasing the number of degrees awarded in the United States. Some of this success also depends upon students, who are as individual as the assistance that's available to them, in and outside of the schools they attend.
Scholarships are often awarded based on financial needs, such as income levels, or academic merit, such as grade point averages or standardized test scores. Needs-based scholarships can make college and university studies more accessible to students and provide them with opportunities to improve their future income potential. Merit scholarships are in part seen as a way of encouraging academic success. There are also scholarships that combine academic merit and financial needs, some of them intended to increase diversity in specific fields.
An Institute for Higher Education Policy report shows that nearly 45 percent of America's young adults ages 18 to 26 in 2008 were from families considered to be in the low-income bracket. Low-income students from Hispanic, Black and Native American backgrounds were more likely than others to leave high school early, and Hispanic and Black students working full-time while carrying out their college and university studies were more likely to quit before obtaining their degrees. White students from low-income backgrounds were more likely to obtain their degrees, but they remained in poverty nonetheless, according to the Institute for Higher Education Policy. The institute plans, with help from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, to explore such areas as academic goals, student debt and more.
In analyzing the results of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's Evergreen State Scholarships for Washington State students from low-income backgrounds, the Institute for Higher Education Policy noted that high school-based elements of it - such as reduced classroom sizes and altered curricula and styles of teaching - enhanced college readiness among students. Gates Millennium Scholarships, intended for low-income, high-achieving minority high school seniors, have been shown to improve the numbers of low-income minorities who obtain their college and university degrees - and who do so in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) subject areas, according to the Institute for Higher Education Policy.
Many states also award merit scholarships, in some instances with help from Lottery, tobacco settlement and video gambling funds. In Georgia, 48 percent of high school graduates qualifying in 1993 for HOPE (Helping Outstanding Pupils Educationally) Scholarships that require a minimum 3.0 grade point average by 1999 grew to 65 percent, according to a UCLA Civil Rights Project Report. African-American students with 3.1 grade point averages have seen their SAT scores rise by 20-plus points, the report noted.
Tennessee's HOPE scholarship program is also funded by the state Lottery. The scholarship program requires minimum grade point averages and includes a "bonus" offering in instances where students are higher achievers or from low-income families.