Recently, there has been yet another revelation brought to light by students who are pursuing the guild of higher education. This one however focuses on law schools that present merit-based scholarships to worthy students in hopes of luring said students to attend their institution. The catch being, the student must maintain certain academic standards in order to keep the scholarship for subsequent years of attendance. Not surprising, as a merit scholarship is by very definition one that should not be given arbitrarily and certain conditions should be satisfied in order to maintain that merit.
Another caveat presented to these students is that they may be passing up higher ranked institutions in exchange for the free tuition, a decision which may prove to be quite deflating should they lose the scholarship. At certain law institutions, there is a mandatory curve presented during the first year which has no resemblance to its undergraduate precursor. It is this curve that many students allege is the switch, as this curve makes it nearly impossible to maintain the required GPA to continue receiving the scholarship. So, by the end of their first year, some first years will not only lose their scholarship…they will now be paying full sticker for an institution that was not their first choice and may hinder employment opportunities down the road. The criticism is heavily being drawn on the fact that schools (and not just law schools) award merit based scholarships with the intention of only paying out a limited proportion of their total sum.
I must say that this is the first I have heard of this practice. However, it only serves to reinforce how I feel about the entire higher education system at the present. Though, I do have to wonder…why are these prospective law students not catching on to this practice? If these students plan on forging a career which requires them to analyze the substance and ambiguity of situations…shouldn’t they also be responsible for their own financial wellbeing? Hard to say, but I have a feeling that this practice will only continue.
One thing that law schools do not advertise (and the NYT missed this entirely) is that schools group scholarship students together. Law schools are divided into sections, and students are graded by section only, so if you are ranked in the middle of your particular section you are also in the middle of the whole class.
ReplyDeleteAt my school, all the scholarship students were put into the same section. We needed to grade into the top half or we would lose the money. Since everyone in the section was on scholarship, half of us lost them.
It was frustrating to see my entire section in the library on a Saturday night, furiously outlining, while students in other sections were out drinking/hooking up/having a good time.
I was in the bottom half of the class and dropped out after 1st semester. I did not want to pay 20,000 for a semester haha. I'm not too upset about it, but if you are interested in law school you should know they play dirty.