Adams Scholarship helps the smart pay college bills

Christine McCall

It was Friday the 13th, and Amber Foreman didn’t know what to expect when she and 170 other Brockton High seniors were ordered to the school’s auditorium. Once there, they received incredible news — each of them had earned a four-year scholarship to any state university.

“I was so glad,” Foreman said. “Because I didn’t have to pay for tuition.” In fact, Foreman’s entire family was glad. Shortly after she heard the good news, Foreman called her grandmother.

“I was just so happy,” recalled Helen Hughes Manifold, Foreman’s grandmother. “I just didn’t know what to do. I’m just so proud of her. She’s always been someone to be proud of. She’s always wanted something out of life.”

And that’s the point of the John and Abigail Adams Scholarship program. Unveiled during Gov. Mitt Romney’s 2004 State of the State address, the program awards free public college tuition for up to four consecutive years if a 3.0 grade point average is maintained.

“They are so thrilled,” said Robert Costrell, Romney’s education adviser and chief economist. “I’ve gone to a number of these events and made the announcements and the reaction is so unbelievable.”

To qualify for the scholarship, a student’s combined scores on English and math portions of the MCAS have to be in the top 25 percent of their district and must score at an advanced performance level on one test and advanced or proficient on the other.

The scholarship is unique in that it is awarded without consideration of financial need. Because of the recent hike in tuition prices over the past few years, attending college is becoming more difficult for lower-income families to afford.

Right from the start, however, Romney’s attempt to close the performance gap and attract the brightest students to state schools received stinging criticisms. As the argument went, students from the wealthier school districts would qualify more because they tend to score higher on the standardized tests.

A study released last week by the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University and the Center for the Study of Higher Education at Pennsylvania State University revealed just that — minority and poorer students were qualifying for the scholarship at lower rates than their affluent white counterparts.

“This is an inefficient and ineffective use of public dollars to promote college attendance in the state,” said Penn. State education professor Donald E. Heller, who conducted the study. “Massachusetts would be better off investing the money spent on this program in its existing need-based grants if it is interested in closing the gaps in college attendance in the Commonwealth.”

Heller reports in the study that white students qualify for the scholarship at a rate three times greater than African American and Hispanic students.

African Americans and Hispanics represented a combined 19 percent of 10th grade students who took the MCAS in 2005. However, these two groups represented less than 7 percent of the scholarship qualifiers.

It was also found that poorer student are less likely to qualify for the scholarship than students who come from families with higher incomes. The percentage of students who participate in the national School Lunch Program and come from families of four with an income below $35,000 who qualified for the scholarship increased from 6.5 percent in 2002 to 10.5 in 2005. However, those not eligible for the lunch program also increased in qualification rates from 19.7 percent to 25.9 percent.

The largest gap in qualification rates is found between students who are disabled or have limited English proficiency (LEP) and those who do not. In the past four years, data concludes that less than 5 percent of disabled or LEP students would have qualified for the Adams scholarship.  Students who are not disabled nor have LEP increased their qualification rates from 20.5 percent in 2002 to 26.7 percent in 2005.

Heller concludes in his study that a central problem with the scholarship is that the use of MCAS test results takes the scholarship opportunity away from students who are in desperate need of financial assistance to attend college.

Data from the past four years indicates the gaps between racial and class groups have not decreased and in some cases the gaps are getting larger.

Quite naturally, the Romney administration strongly disagrees with the premise of the study. Gov. Romney has conceded that there would be a gap in those who qualify for the scholarship. But Romney has always argued that the gap is reversed when the numbers of those who actually accept the scholarships are factored into the equation.

“You could say, ‘Boy, the rich people are all going to get this’,” Romney told reporters in 2004. But “the rich people don’t take advantage of it. The question is, who uses it? High-income families in Concord and Carlisle and Weston do not go to public institutions of higher learning.”

To prove the point, Costrell said last year’s statistics prove Romney right. The ten communities with the most participating Adams scholars were Boston (186), Brocton (75), Worcester (66), Lynn (44), Quincy (41), Westfield (41), Lowell (39), Plymouth (39), Fall River (34) and Springfield (34).

The ten wealthiest communities didn’t have nearly the same acceptance rate. None came from Weston, Carlisle, Wellesley, Harvard and Concord. Dover had one. Sherborn had two. Sudbury, Boxford and Southborough had three each.

As far as diverting money from needs based programs, Costrell said that too is wrong. The Romney administration’s proposed 2007 budget calls for spending $85 million for the Adams scholarship. In addition, Romney has called for spending an additional $5.4 million in needs-based grants.

“The logic of this program is simple,” Costrell said. “It rewards kids that achieve at the highest levels on the MCAS and it encourages those kids to attend state universities.”

And Amber Foreman is doing just that. With the four-year scholarship, Foreman plans to attend UMass Boston and study psychology.

Between school work, participating in choir, a full-time job and volunteering at a hospital, Foreman is a busy young woman. “It’s hard to juggle work and school, but you have to have priorities,” Foreman said.