Views expressed in opinion columns are the author’s own.
When people ask me why I chose to attend the University of Maryland, I often give cliche answers, like “I wanted a big school,” or, “I wanted to be near D.C.” The real answer is that I was offered the Banneker/Key Scholarship, a “merit-based” scholarship that covers the complete or partial cost of attendance at this university for about 150 students each year.
The incentive of a full ride was incredibly attractive. It made me feel good about myself at the time, like my supposed hard work had paid off. As a senior at one of Montgomery County’s highest-ranked high schools, I had a high GPA and good standardized test scores. By university admissions standards, those arbitrary points on a page signified that I possessed some unique skills that made me more deserving of a college education than others.
That assumption is fundamentally discriminatory. Nothing about my grades suggested that I’m smarter or a harder worker than any of my peers. The scholarship is set up to reward those like me, who had access to money, opportunities and resources. In many ways, it’s set up to subsidize the education of the wealthy.
The criteria for the scholarship are incredibly ambiguous. The Banneker/Key website states that the scholarship seeks to identify students who have “demonstrated significant academic leadership and accomplishment in high school” and who “will enrich and benefit from the campus learning environment.” Nowhere do they clearly lay out what GPA scores they look for, which kinds of activities and leadership positions they seek. We don’t even know if the scholarship committee takes race, socioeconomic status or other factors into account to make the scholarship more equitable — they don’t provide that information publicly.
Though that kind of ambiguity could provide flexibility to evaluate candidates holistically, it fails to refute concerns about discriminating against candidates with lower test scores or fewer AP classes. The scholarship committee may also penalize candidates who participate in informal activism rather than traditional student activities. Though the Banneker/Key office did not provide me with specific data on the demographic breakdown of scholarship recipients, merit-based scholarships at universities often reward students from well-resourced schools and wealthy neighborhoods.
In the fall of 2015, when I started at this university, just 12 percent of the freshman class was black, even though black students made up 36 percent of Maryland’s high school graduates that year. Since then, black enrollment has dropped even more — black students make up only 7.3 percent of this university’s current freshman class.
There have been countless reports across the nation of schools in majority-minority districts being chronically denied the funding and investment they deserve. And black students across the country who do make it into college are disproportionately burdened with student loan debt that follows them for the rest of their lives.
Scholarship officers are lying to themselves if they believe that these students are not just as intelligent, talented or deserving as any other university student. Some of my closest friends, the most passionate and tireless leaders I know on this campus, come from minority, working-class families. Yet they have excelled in ways unnoticed and uncelebrated by the university despite the challenges in their way.
Going forward, this university should actively distribute its resources to make higher education as accessible for as many Maryland students as possible, regardless of their race or ethnicity, standardized test scores or parents’ income.
For one, students should be able to apply into substantial merit-based scholarships each year, not secretly selected on a one-time basis based on high school scores, which excludes people who transfer into this university from other colleges.
In addition, merit-based scholarships should actively reward improvement over time to encourage student growth. A scholarship committee should give just as much consideration to a student who raises their GPA from a 2.0 to a 3.0 as someone who maintains a 3.5.
To truly be equitable, merit-based scholarships can’t be need-blind or race-blind. As this university receives more state and private donations, it should devote as much of its resources as possible to provide full rides to students from low-income backgrounds and historically marginalized groups.
Whatever they choose, scholarship officers must first define scholarship criteria to ensure transparency and fairness throughout the selection process. But if it doesn’t meet these standards, the Banneker/Key scholarship would continue to primarily serve the wealthiest and most privileged students in our state.
Olivia Delaplaine is a senior government and politics major. She can be reached at odelaplaine15@gmail.com.
