Readers may wonder why a group of students working with a scholarship organization would oppose expanding a scholarship. That just doesn’t sound right. However, not all scholarships are created equal and not all have the same impact. We oppose the expansion of Bright Flight.
In a year when Missouri faces major budget shortfalls and fiscal conservativism is the watchword; the push to increase Bright Flight makes no sense. Bright Flight is the state’s most ineffective scholarship program.
The Bright Flight scholarship is given to students who score in the top 3 percent on the ACT. This is the single measure that determines who is the “best and brightest” under the current guidelines. The award is given to students without regard for financial need. The goal of this award is to retain “talent” in Missouri (because apparently a high ACT score is thought to indicate talent). There are no requirements that students remain in the state after graduation, and the effects of the scholarship on achieving that outcome are not proven after 30-plus years of the program.
The fallout from rewarding students on the basis of test score only is damaging to Missouri. Most of the state does not benefit. Rural Missouri students account for just 11 percent of recipients, when 29 percent of Missouri’s students live outside the metropolitan areas. The only peer-reviewed study of the program showed that less than 2percent of recipients were black, though 18 percent of the state’s students are black students. While the majority of recipients come from St. Louis and Kansas City metropolitan areas, the students primarily graduate from the wealthier suburbs or private high schools.
The Bright Flight Scholarship provides scarce Missouri public funds to students who largely do not need them. We have heard arguments that when Bright Flight was created (over 30 years ago), it was not intended to be a need-based program (and equity was not a goal). In times of severe scarcity, public dollars should be directed where public need is greatest.
The students of our coalition assert that no increase should be afforded to Bright Flight, but rather that the $4 million proposed by Governor Greitens be instead directed to Access Missouri, the state’s need-based scholarship. Access Missouri serves more than 50,000 students across the state, and the program has consistently struggled to meet statutory minimums because the need is so great.
Funding access to higher education is the obvious answer to making sure we have a stronger work force. We cannot afford economically, morally, or otherwise to be funding programs that favor the wealthy while underfunding everything else.
Karissa Anderson is the manager of Advocacy & Policy Research at The Scholarship Foundation of St. Louis & St. Louis Graduates. She oversees The Active Advocacy Coalition.
Chris Walter is a student at the University of Missouri-St. Louis and an Education Policy intern with The Scholarship Foundation of St. Louis.
