Bright Futures Scholarship Program’s Web site, the scholarship was created in 1997 “to reward students for their academic achievements during high school by providing funding to attend postsecondary education in Florida.”
It’s been only 13 years since Bright Futures began funding students’ education, and already the program is running out of funds. The proposed raising of the standards for the program are both beneficial and necessary for the program to continue. The program’s original purpose was to retain the “bright” — isn’t the state clever? — students within the state, but now it’s being viewed as an umbrella scholarship for anyone staying in Florida for higher education.
It was designed to reward high-achieving students, so why would raising the standards ever be considered a bad thing?
The problem with a program like this is that it creates the feeling of entitlement. With so many students at UF on the program, the idea is created that Bright Futures is a permanent structure for a state-funded university education. But a college education is no more of a right than any material goods are. Merit as a basis for a scholarship is not just logical, it’s a reflection of every other opportunity in life that a person receives because they’re good enough, not because the state gets bullied into spending money. The higher merit standards will help states and universities get out of their economic ruts.
When a 970 SAT score, which is average for the old, 1600 point SAT test, gets about half of your college education paid for, something is wrong. Mediocrity shouldn’t be rewarded. Nothing is special about being average. When we’re talking about that state’s money, standards should be raised before we dole it out to every student who stumbles through high school.
