Arkansas Blog

Max, with a LOT of respect to you, I would disagree on the "poets, screw you" comment.

Given how the United States has dropped the ball on science, match and engineering compared to other nations, I think those classes SHOULD be emphasized. Who else will invent the green energy technologies? New medical procedures? And make them affordable and practical?

If I may offer an example: both my daughter and her college roommate were liberal arts' majors (yes, I pulled my hair out! (grin)) My daughter has a degree in music, but at my insistence (I paid the $$$ after all) she took some business classes and also spent a lot of time duoing charity work for her music sorority.

Her roommate was a sociology major, who planned to get into grad school and earn a phD. She sneered in a condescending way when my daughter was studying for her marketing class.

When it came time to get jobs... nobody wanted a music major. But my daughter was able to take advantage of the business classes AND her charity activities, and now she works for a charitable foundation in NWA. The company is paying her to take more classes in money management so she can be more effective in her job. She loves what she does: spends money and helps people.

Her roommate was unable to get into a grad program... too few programs, too many sociology majors. Her business skills do not exist: she barely balance a checkbook. The only job she's been able to get was working for Goodys as a stock clerk. (And we see how weel that's going...)

I do not say we should drop the fine arts courses. Even though I'm a computer geek by education (Arkansas Tech, 1986), I also play piano and drums, and I paid my way through college working for the Courier-Democrat as a photographer. I believe in the well-rounded education.

But English majors for the most part can do one thing: teach English. That's not a bad thing of course. But an engineer can invent and a small business can create new employment. I've done both!

I think that we have an opportunity here to bring Arkansas from being a poor, illiterate, technological backwater to a prime developer in green technologies. I would suggest that while NOT dropping the fine arts, we emphasise the hell out of the technologies... and let OUR state lead, let OUR state profit.

As an educator, I say Max has it exactly right. If we want to raise the number of Arkies going to college, what could be simpler than setting a minimum GPA and then saying, if you make it, you get a scholarship; maintain it, and you keep your scholarship. And as a scientist, I say again, Max has it exactly right. Let the student pick their field. Not only do we need poets and artists, but not everyone needs to be a mathematician.

I would set the GPA at 2.0

That would include people like me. Those who have no intention of going to higher ed after high school but only want to work, get a car, etc., then a couple years later realizes what a bone headed decision that was made by an 18 year-old and then try to reverse course by enrolling at an institution of higher learning. I wound up with graduate degrees and often wondered how much assistance I could have qualified for had it existed back then.

Not all of us plain joes know exactly what we want to do when we are 17,18 or even 25 years old. Sometimes a little military service pushes the buttons (as with my son who finally decided to get his degrees).

I think that if someone wants to go to college and the money is there, no matter what their GPA or test scores or even lack of a high school degree/GED should matter. If they can do the work, they should get the money. Just because someone sucked at high school does not mean they will not make it in college....sometimes all they need is a bit more maturity and a goal (decent job) to do what needs to be done. Of course studying what you have an interest in helps.
This would be very helpful to older folks who dropped out of school or may have found high school to be a total waste of time (gulity) so had a crappy GPA. It has been so long I don't even know what my SAT scores were.
I hope this money will all so be available to those who choose technical training because it does not matter if the money is there if no one is able to qualify for it.

My daughter has a BA in history. She went from college into a corporate job, then moved into the space technology field as a communications expert. She has never lacked job opportunities because she can write and speak coherently, articulate ideas, see the big picture while executing small details. In short, her snooty liberal arts education gave her skills that a science degree and some business degrees would not. It isn't the degree as much as it is what the person does with it. A college degree is education, not job training.

Yes, they need to lower the gpa and make the scholarships available to students who have been out of school for a while.

I have an 18 year old daughter who has huge dreams & does very well on her report card and has taken several college courses throughout high school. She has done well in all of her classes except math classes, but the lowest grade she's made in math on her report card was a C. She does poorly on standardized test though. So, that pretty much knocks her out of most scholarships because they are based on ACT scores. She has taken the ACT 4 times and all 4 times she has made a 23. Most big scholarships require a 25. She has a 3.7 GPA.

We have a family of 5 and our income is around $18,000 a year. Because of her not doing well on the ACT we will have to find someway to help get her through college financially, so yes, I do think that more scholarships need to be based more heavily on GPA than standardized testing. I've seen too many young people who do well on the standardized test, but yet when they enter college they flunk out. At the same time, you see many young people who did well in class work and not so well on standardized test who do well.

I don't get how Beebe's plan managed to succeed. He spoke against it and Halter did all of the work. Halter modeled it after the Georgia Hope scholarship, which is one of the most successful state run lotteries for college scholarships. Why would Beebe want to change that?

Forget the means testing with the current plan.

Just tack on a period of public service in exchange for the money. If it is worth 6 months of your life to have half you college paid by the state, go for it. If Dad makes $400,000 a year, you might decide to write a check for college.......or maybe not.

Rocker I think I know your daughter. She is Ms. Space.

Oh I got so excited about Ms. Space.

I'd be more than happy to have the GPA lowered to 2.5 or 2.00. Sometimes kids make mistakes in high school and are more than able to redeem themselves in college. I know University of Arkansas At Monticello has an open admissions policy. Sometimes a low GPA is more about family problems, illness, and other situations other than intelligence and ability.