College Aid/High School Reform

[George Sheridan <learn@jps.net>]

College aid qualifications to get stiffer

By Ben Feller, AP Education Writer  |  May 2, 2006

WASHINGTON --In a rare venture into curriculum, the Bush administration on 
Tuesday declared which high school programs are "rigorous" enough to 
qualify students for college aid.

The designation is important because only college freshmen and sophomores 
who complete a rigorous high school course of study can receive certain new 
grants approved by Congress.

The Education Department typically avoids endorsing or rating coursework, a 
politically sensitive area that states control.

But in creating the math and science grants for poorer students, Congress 
ordered Education Secretary Margaret Spellings to judge which high school 
programs are challenging.

Spellings, under pressure to get the program running in every state by the 
fall, announced a range of ways for students to be eligible for grants over 
the next two years.

She deferred for now to programs that states themselves already consider 
rigorous, either based on the nature of the coursework or the sheer number 
of courses that students must take.

But in future years, the criteria will get tougher to better reflect what 
colleges demand of students, Spellings said in a letter to governors and 
state school officers.

The grants are open only to students who already qualify for low-income 
Pell Grants. Some students may be shut out simply because their schools 
don't have sufficient offerings.

"We can't know that every single student will have had the opportunity to 
take these courses," said assistant education secretary Tom Luce. "But we 
believe we set up enough options that it's likely that a vast number of 
students would have had the opportunity."

The grant program is also open to college juniors and seniors who maintain 
good grades and are pursuing a degree in math, science, engineering or 
foreign languages in high demand.

In total, an estimated 500,000 students will be eligible this fall.

Students will qualify if they:

--Have an advanced or honors high school diploma, as offered in at least 19 
states.

--Completed the courses of the State Scholars Initiative, a congressionally 
backed program. It requires students to take four years of English, three 
years of math, three years of lab science, three and a half years of social 
studies, and two years of a language other than English. Fourteen states 
have the program now, and eight more are starting soon.

--Finished a set of courses "similar" to the State Scholars curriculum.

--Taken at least two Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate 
courses and passed the tests in both subjects.

Beyond those four options, states may also submit their own idea of what a 
rigorous course of study means, for review by Spellings. Those are due by 
June 1.

Starting this fall, grants of $750 will be available for college freshmen 
and $1,300 for sophomores. Juniors and seniors can receive up to $4,000 a year.

Congress has approved up to $4.5 billion for the program over the next five 
years.

Republican lawmakers approved the program in December as part of a bill 
that otherwise slashed almost $13 billion in college spending.

When Spellings was directed to rate high school rigor nationwide, educators 
complained the federal government was poised to tell high schools what to 
teach.

In response, Republican leaders of the House and Senate education 
committees sent Spellings a letter to remind her that she had no authority 
to set high school curricula.

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George Sheridan