Plunderbund

Well, that ought to help the white graduation rate at Ohio State, which is falling horribly.

Oh wait.

The only reason they are doing this is to make a point that they disagree with scholarships based on race only. Is it the right way to make their point? No…but it doesn’t make them any more racist than any other group that offers a scholarship based on race alone.

Financial Aid should be based on economic need. I’ll give you a quick example, why should one of my daughters receive more financial aid and scholarship opportunities than another one of my daughters? Is the mere fact that their fathers are of different races change anything? Does that make one “need” more than the other? Of course not, both have the same need because they are in the same family.

Great point.

I wasn’t seriously trying to address this complicated topic- I was only trying to poke fun at the college republicans- who tend to be way more ‘conservative’ than the party as a whole.

I tend to agree that financial aid should be based on financial need.

Do you happen to know how financial eligibility is determined in the situation you described?

It seems like it could be even more complicated than trying to prove racial eligibility.

Hey, Matthew…. feel free to post your comments right here.

I won’t block them- or you.

Joseph, from what we have personally experienced the FAFSA aspect is the same, however there are additional scholarship opportunities available to one child because of the race of her father than the others. Same household and ironically same legal father since she was adopted by the father of the other children. Take OSU as an example, the scholarship offered to the “white” child was not enough for her to attend without taking huge loans out even though she had an extremely high GPA and was her schools salutatorian versus what would have been available to the considered “non-white” child.

I understand you were doing this mainly in jest, and I 100% agree financial need should be the primary factor in most scholarships especially offered by a college. It’s a given that social organizations will always have their own standards for scholarships and realistically they play a smaller role in the larger picture. I don’t support the idea of telling organizations who they can or cannot offer scholarships too but I think colleges, especially ones that take federal and state funding should change their policies.

I thought I would add one last comment to this discussion before I leave for my week-long vacation:

Until recently, I had been losing the bar-stool debate over universal healthcare with another, more right-leaning patron.

Things quickly changed last week when, in the middle of a debate, Michelle- a former bar employee- showed up. She quickly joined the discussion and told us the story of her own family- which seems very similiar to your own.

Michelle has two sisters- one 14 and the other 16.

The 16 year old has the same father as Michelle.

Because Michelle’s father recently died on the job- her 16-year-old sister is eligible for healthcare paid for by the government.

Michelle’s 14-year-old sister, however, does receive any kind of medical assistance because her father left the family and refuses to pay child support.

I’m sure it is hard to tell from my brief, abbreviated version- but, even if only for a few drunken moments, THIS story really seemed to move my debate partner.

And it should have.

He is not a bad guy.

He is not the kind of person that would choose to deny something like healthcare or education to a child.

But the problem is: he THINKS things are allocated equally to everyone- that the system provides for everyone without bias.

I, however, am not so sure.