Merit-Based Scholarships Draw Support of Affluent

Some of the smartest kids at Beverly Hills High School want to thank Gov. Gray Davis for proposing to give them $3,000 each. They may have been born into privilege, but they figure merit should still have its rewards.

Under Davis’ program, which passed its first legislative test earlier this month, students whose performance in standardized statewide exams ranks them in the top 10% at their schools and in the top 5% statewide would receive scholarship awards of $1,000 each--as much as $3,000 over three years.

Critics suggested that the state give commendations to all students who do well but award money only to those in need, as does the National Merit Scholarship program.

But at Beverly Hills High School, a number of students applauded Davis’ plan to reward college-bound students, regardless of income, who excel on the standardized exams.

“I figure we’re all taxpayers. It’s a little unfair to discriminate” against the wealthy, said Zach Safir, 17, a junior who scored 1600 on his SATs and is ranked in the top 2% of his class.

How would he use the extra money? Safir would buy a laptop computer. (The award money itself would be placed in trust for tuition, but recipients could spend family money that had been set aside for school.)

Safir, news editor for the school paper, hopes to attend Stanford, UC Berkeley or an East Coast college, where he would pursue a degree in law or business. His parents, both of whom run their own businesses, have told him not to worry about college tuition--which runs about $30,000 a year at private colleges.

The proposed scholarship program, Safir said, would encourage “everyone to put in the extra time to do their best.”

Classmate Hunter Chen, 18, agreed.

“It’s a smart choice because it gives an incentive for people to work hard,” said Chen, a junior whose grade-point average is 4.3 and whose test scores put him in the top 10% of his class. “It’s going to people who deserve the money because they worked hard: You work hard, you should get the pay.”

Chen, who hopes to study medicine or business, said he would welcome the money, though, as he pointed out, “Compared to the $30,000 tuition, it’s almost nothing.”

Mason Sentz, 15, a junior in the top 10%, said his parents have saved for his college education since his birth. The prospect of state money would help ease their burden, said Sentz, who has played the violin since age 5 and plans to study engineering. “There are very few people for whom that kind of money would not be a help.”

The merit program would be open to any student enrolled in public school who takes the state standardized tests, said Ann Bancroft, spokeswoman for the office of the secretary for education. Would this include youths whose parents were in the country illegally? Any student, Bancroft said.

The exams measure students’ performance against a national standard. For the award, a student would have to perform well in the tests that are administered in ninth, 10th or 11th grade, receiving $1,000 for each high-scoring year.

The money would be placed in a trust in the student’s name and could be used for tuition at any college, university or accredited trade school until the student was 30 years old. The program would reward about 100,000 students each year at a cost of about $112 million, she said. Similar merit scholarships are offered to students in 14 states, including Michigan, Kentucky, Texas and New York.

“We think there ought to be a place for merit alone,” Bancroft said. “This sends a message to students that if you work hard and achieve, regardless of who your parents are and what they might earn, you’re entitled to a scholarship.”

The state also proposes to offer $2,500 scholarships for 2,400 students who attain top scores on Advanced Placement tests in math and science. The scholarships are designed for students taking Advanced Placement courses, which are more often available at affluent schools. But students could qualify with top scores on another statewide test, the Golden State Exam. Students who received these scholarships would not be eligible for the merit awards, Bancroft said.

The state already runs the CalGrant program, which disburses about $380 million a year for students with good grades who are in financial need. But because the program is underfunded, at least 70,000 qualified students are denied CalGrant money yearly. Davis has proposed adding $70 million to CalGrant, and legislators have proposed adding even more.

Some Beverly Hills students said they believed the state should do more for low-income students and questioned whether Davis’ merit program made sense.

Junior Michael Tang has always assumed, like many at Beverly Hills, that college would follow high school. Tang was 10 when he visited Harvard and MIT with his parents. He has a 4.48 grade-point average; his statewide test scores put him in the top 10% of his class. He hopes to attend MIT, Cornell, Carnegie Mellon or an Ivy League school.

How would he spend the extra money? Invest it and try to make more money, Tang said.

“The money would definitely help me but it’s not going to help me as much as someone more in need,” said Tang. “I would think it’s better to give more of the money to those in need than to those at the top.”

Willie Guo, 16, also a junior who is in the school’s top 10%, said he believed that most high-scoring students would obtain scholarship money from colleges and a variety of other sources.

“I find it surprising that the governor can’t find something better to do with this money than give it to students who’d get scholarship money anyway,” said Guo, who hopes to study environmental science at Stanford or an Ivy League school. “I don’t see tax dollars going to people who don’t need it. I certainly would appreciate the money, but for the state of California, there has to be better way to spend this money.”

Laura Karlin, 16, a junior in the top 10%, works on weekends and occasionally after school. She hopes to attend Columbia, Brown or Sarah Lawrence and will be visiting East Coast colleges during spring break. During the summer, she holds two or three jobs.

“There’s never going to be a completely fair system when it comes to economic aid,” Karlin said. “I’m all for anything that supports education.”