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Derek Young

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Do school assisstance programs for the less fortunate seem to set up their users to FAIL?

I had an interesting revelation today, and it seemed as though I felt as a victim myself from this system.

At my current residence of education, there are programs that grant you money if you fulfill certain parameters. These parameters seemed to be reasonable when I didn't question it, but after I started questioning the system, my paradigm seemed shifted.

Programs for less fortunate individuals have requirements such as, at least "said" number of units (usually means a large class load for those students who have other things to deal with), maintain "said" GPA (what about those students who need extra help or have undiscovered learning disabilities?), have less than "said" income a year (what if you just work your butt off and you have a family and elderly parents to take care of or other extreme scenarios?), and there are other parameters for each separate special needs programs.

My biggest issue would have to be, what if you aren't completely free to take more than 1 class a semester or what if you have things to take care of at home that is private? What if you learn at a different pace than others?
There is just so many different possibilities, like you had a bad teacher/professor and they never gave you the time or day to help you with your problems, but I could go on and on.

Do you feel that these programs discriminate against less fortunate individuals if you aren't wealthy, extremely intelligent, or have zero external distractions, then you will most likely are destined to fail and drop out of your current education to work at some full-time middle to low wage job for the rest of your life? Or can you enlighten me with some new perspectives and/or skills?

Do we need to reform funding programs or reform everything?!

Thanks for reading my thoughts. Feel free to share your thoughts.

Update: new ted video added

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Topics: corruption economy education educational funding financial aid future reform school grants
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    Barry Miller

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    Apr 11 2012: As with most things anywhere, anything can be improved. While I agree that the system is not perfect, I do find that by having those requirements it does keep the applicants in a more select group. I do not find that to be an all together bad thing though because as you have stated there are people that have other issues to deal with and can not take the full load required. I myself feel that that is a good idea because it requires the people that have those "issues to take on only what they can do at the moment. Sure the funding is not the same if there is any at all for those students but it does require you to be creative in continuing your education. I see so many people today that use their grant money to fund not only their education but also their lifestyle items as well. They have that when my money comes in I will get my new clothes attitude vs. create my future by getting the best education I can.
    Basically there can be reforms to the programs and also to the attitudes of those that just use the system to have "funds available to them".

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