Issue date: 2/26/09 Section: Opinion

The Aggie Assurance Program is neither fair nor effective in bringing the best and brightest students to Texas A&M, regardless of income. I don't disagree with the ends that the University states it wants to achieve, but I do take issue with some of the means it uses to accomplish this goal. The requirements, in short, state that a student whose family has a gross annual income of $60,000 or less and maintains a 2.5 GPR can be exempted from tuition.

First, let's address the most important issue here, the GPR requirement. A 2.5 GPR is nowhere near the level of "best and brightest." For an aerospace engineering major such as myself, this will not even allow me to advance to the upper level of my major and start taking in-major classes. Even if one manages to advance to the upper level, an engineering major with a GPR below a 3.0 will have very difficult time finding an internship or employment in engineering, especially in our economic climate. If you look at the various merit-based scholarships offered at this University, you will see that most, if not all, have requirements of at least a 3.0 cumulative GPR. Why would a university as great as this one settle for a 2.5 GPR just because a person happens to come from a lower income-level household when there are already many need-based scholarships in place? When there are as many opportunities for free academic help as there are at A&M, there is no reason a hard-working individual can't keep a 3.0 GPR. If we are going to give out this kind of money, at least ask the individuals receiving help to earn it with a high degree of academic success.

Second, the hard $60,000 cutoff for this program (as I understand it) is absolutely absurd. Gross annual income often can have little or no correlation with the quality of life or environment someone grows up in. Also, hard cutoffs cannot hope to account for cost of living, family size and a plethora of other factors affecting a family's ability to pay for higher education. Why don't we phase these exemptions into loans as income levels approach, let's say, the national average of about $48,000 annually? Low-interest loans for educational development would do far more for these students than handouts. Because students would realize that they would be paying this money back some day, they would have an increased incentive to work hard in school to gain employment in a job that makes their education fiscally viable. It is commonly seen, to put it as one of my profs did, that "people do what is inspected rather than what is expected." If students know they are responsible for paying for their education eventually, they will do all that they can to graduate with an outstanding GPR and level of involvement on campus. Let's reform this program and make it something every Aggie can be proud of rather than a program modeled after entitlement programs that have done more harm than good for the underprivileged families in this country.

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