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EDITORIAL: Promise Scholarship Program: Wealthy Don't Need Aid

Posted on: Tuesday, 29 November 2005, 12:00 CST

By The Charleston Gazette, W.Va.

Nov. 29--In the struggle to curb rising costs of West Virginia's Promise Scholarship program, the best solution seems obvious: limit the state-funded college assistance to families who need it.

Currently, free tuition goes to many high-bracket families, even those with half-million-dollar incomes, who could afford to send their children to elite universities. They don't need taxpayer aid. Subsidizing them contradicts the fundamental purpose of scholarships, which is to lift less-privileged youths into the well-educated class.

Promise grants should go to students who otherwise might fail to achieve their potential for good careers.

The Promise program, launched under former Gov. Bob Wise, has a noble purpose: It gives free tuition to all intelligent West Virginia students who earn at least a B average in high school and score well on national tests. Altogether, about 9,000 are attending state-owned schools through the plan.

To fund the system, legislators replaced the illicit video poker racket with revenue-generating state-regulated machines. This strategy killed two birds with one stone: eliminating illegality and putting more young people into college. But expense is climbing -- to $39 million this year, with $42 million predicted soon.

To reduce the outlay, the Promise governing board voted 9-4 to recommend capping the cash awards, which would force families or students to scrape up part of the tuition cost, along with other college expenses. But this would sabotage the original intent of Promise. Low-income families would have trouble raising the extra money.

Other state officials want to elevate standards, giving the scholarships only to students who score 21 or higher on the ACT national test. But this would hurt mostly modest-income youths, who tend to score lower because they haven't enjoyed as many educational advantages.

No -- the best answer, we think, is to limit Promise grants to modest and mainstream households. High-bracket families have plenty of promise, without taxpayer aid.

Of course, some upper-middle-class people -- say, two-career couples earning $100,000 a year -- rely on Promise to offset college costs. If their children attend state-owned schools, it's more likely they will remain in West Virginia after graduation. So the means test shouldn't be set too low.

However, if the Legislature decides to cut Promise costs, we hope it does so by ending taxpayer aid to the most privileged families.

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To see more of The Charleston Gazette, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.wvgazette.com.

Copyright (c) 2005, The Charleston Gazette, W.Va.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: The Charleston Gazette

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