Scholarship Discrimination

Paying for college hadn’t crossed my mind until recently when my parents were talking about how I should start looking for scholarships. When I started my research, I began to realize something; if you are a middle-class, white person, without a debilitating illness, you’re screwed.
Back in early March, a scholarship program was created for illegal immigrants in New York. A similar program was created in California last year. Although many states have not yet created legislation to create these, there are many donors who contribute to the creation of private scholarships for illegal immigrants.

Illegal immigrants are just one group of people that have had special scholarships created for them. These days there are scholarships for men taller than 6’ 2”, duck callers, people who are left-handed, people who have a last name similar to “Van Valkenburg”, and people who can supposedly predict the future. None of these scholarships have a minimum GPA and provide up to $10,000 to go toward college.

The hardest part of getting to your “dream school” used to be all about admissions and applying. Now, more and more, I’m seeing many refrain from even applying to their school because of costs. For example, my dream school would cost me $61,000 a year, so I completely ruled that school out. How is that fair?

In February 1899 poet and novelist Rudyard Kipling wrote “The White Man’s Burden.” Kipling thought that the White Man’s Burden was that they had to colonize foreign lands and provide for those less fortunate countries that they conquered. Now it seems that the white man’s burden is being too “ordinary”. I fully support scholarship programs that choose their recipients based on something that has to do with their schooling. However, choosing a recipient based on the color of their skin seems to be almost unfair and racist.

Civil Rights used to be about equality for all, but there are problems like this that make me question if we have moved forward, or backwards. In all of our history books we are taught how the fight for equality was a struggle. I feel like even today we are losing that struggle. A white person cannot meet with another group of all white people without someone making a joke that they are racist, there are special clubs dedicated to being anything but white, and money is given to those wanting to go to college who are, once again, not white.  

Back in 2011, a CNN article was published in which Charles Gallagher, a sociologist at La Salle University in Pennsylvania was quoted as saying "We went from being a privileged group to all of a sudden becoming whites, the new victims.” I couldn’t agree more. In Texas, a group was formed that provides scholarships to needy white men, because there aren’t any available for them. 

If everyone is truly striving for equality among races, why are we still focused on what race everyone is? On ballots, standardized tests, and of course scholarship applications, it is asked that you fill in which race you are. Why does that even matter? The purpose of ballots should be to pick a winner, not to see which ethnic group voted for each candidate. Standardized tests should be used to track progress of an individual, not to compare how people from different races perform on a test. Finally, is there a greater likelihood that someone will get a scholarship for marking a minority on their application? I would hope not.

My purpose of this article is not to promote scholarships for white people, but rather promote the idea that being a minority shouldn’t be a deciding factor in who gets to go to college. Scholarships should be based on a specific talent or GPA, not on the color of skin the person has.

It isn’t just my race that contributes to me being discriminated against, so does my lack of unique talents and genetic diversity. As I mentioned before, people can obtain scholarships for having a certain last name, or being tall. My last name isn’t common but it doesn’t sound like Van Valkenburg, and I stand at a perfectly average 5’ 7”, so where does this leave me?

The purpose of this editorial was not to make anyone angry by saying that their need for a scholarship is not deserved, I just want to point out the flaws of awarding money to those who were born “different” instead of awarding it based on how a person acts throughout their lifetime.

(758- originally a Torch final)