Scholarships Plug Drain, but at What Cost to UA?

A record number of University of Arkansas students — about 800 — are currently attending college on Chancellor’s Scholarships. That’s about nine times the number of Chancellor’s Scholars that were on campus in 1997 and about 6 percent of the entire student body.

UA officials say the scholarships are helping plug the “brain drain” by keeping some of Arkansas best students in Arkansas for college. Critics say the UA has given out too many scholarships, and tuition must be increased for all the other students to help pay for the scholarships.

Chancellor’s Scholarships — which pay for tuition, books, room and board for four years — are valued at $32,000 each ($8,000 per year), making 800 of them worth some $25.6 million over four years of college.

So far, the UA has commitments of $13.9 million to pay for those scholarships. So, another $11.7 million has to be found somewhere. Chancellor John White says part of that money will come from budget reallocations.

White greatly escalated the Chancellor’s Scholarship program after he arrived on campus in 1997. At that time, the program had been giving about 40 scholarships per year to students in each freshman class.

“I’ll never apologize for attracting too many good students,” White told the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal in 1998. “This is a time for improvement. Don’t worry about the status quo.”

White was at a meeting in Washington, D.C., when we contacted him by e-mail for comments regarding this column, but he was too busy to reply to our questions.

Chancellor’s Scholarships are awarded to students who have a 3.5 grade point average (on a 4.0 scale) in high school and score 30 or higher on the ACT, a standardized college entrance exam.

The tuition and board that wasn’t coming in from those 40 students in 1997 and before was basically written off by the university. But with the number of scholarships given to freshmen increasing to 500 in 1998 (from 700 that were offered) and 306 more in 1999, other means had to be found to finance the scholarships.

Harley Lewis, director of the Chancellor’s Scholarship program, said test scores indicate White’s program is working. ACT scores for freshmen entering the UA have increased by two points over the past two years. And grade point averages have also gone up.

Previously, the UA was losing half of the Top 10 students in most high school graduating classes to other institutions. Now, more of them are attending the UA.

“The more we can pay for these things with private funds, the better off the University of Arkansas is going to be,” Lewis said. “We have a huge way to go. Our intention in the fundraising end would be to get every community in the state of Arkansas to endow at least one scholarship from their area. … We’re trying to attract students from across the state of Arkansas.”

Kelly Carter, director of the UA’s Office of Academic Scholarships, said attrition rate for Chancellor’s Scholars in 1999 was very good. Of the 306 freshman Chancellor’s Scholars in the fall of 1999, 302 showed up for the spring 2000 semester. Lewis said he didn’t have the attrition rate for the 500 Chancellor’s Scholars in 1998 available when we talked to him.

“I think they’re finding the UA has many opportunities,” Carter said. “I think that in itself is attracting students and giving them reasons to stay.”

In addition to the Chancellor’s Scholarships, the UA offers Sturgis, Bodenhamer and Boyer Fellowships, each of which provides students with $11,000 to $12,000 per year for four years of college.

Although those fellowships provide more money than Chancellor’s Scholarships, they are awarded to fewer students. Every year, the UA gives 10 Sturgis Fellowships, seven Bodenhamer Fellowships and one Boyer Fellowship.

Also, the UA Black Alumni Society announced in November that it had pledged $85,000 for an endowment for scholarships for minority students.

The UA announced in January that private gift support to the university reached $23.3 million in the first half of the 1999-2000 fiscal year, which ended Dec. 31.

That figure represents an 18.9 percent increase over the $19.6 million raised during the same period of 1998 (if the unprecedented $50 million gift from the Walton Family Charitable Support Foundation in October 1998 is removed from the comparison).

The $23.3 million figure also doesn’t include $20 million given to the Razorback Foundation from the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation in December for the expansion and renovation of Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium.