The Federal Squeeze

“I tremble for my country,” Thomas Jefferson once wrote, “when I reflect that God is just.” Strange things are being done in the name of justice in this long-feared year of 1984. Consider the shell game the government is playing with young lower-income Americans wishing to attend college. Let’s look at two hypothetical cases.

Mary Smith, who graduated with honors from a Detroit high school this spring, is the daughter of an autoworker and a schoolteacher. Mary wants to be a doctor, but her parents can’t afford college tuition on their own. However, Mary is eligible for a Basic Educational Opportunity Grant (BEOG), and was hoping that it would permit her to enroll at the college of her choice, little Hillsdale in southern Michigan. Mary likes Hillsdale’s excellent pre-med program, the fact that it was one of the first colleges in the country to enroll women on an equal footing with men, and the opportunities she would have on its nationally regarded women’s athletic teams. Unfortunately, Mary Smith cannot spend her federal tuition grant at Hillsdale College. An act of Congress, reaffirmed earlier this year, with one hand gives Mary a check for her college costs and, with the other, forbids her to use that check at Hillsdale, in the name of equal opportunity for women.

GR

About the Author

George Roche

Featured Tags

“I tremble for my country,” Thomas Jefferson once wrote, “when I reflect that God is just.” Strange things are being done in the name of justice in this long-feared year of 1984. Consider the shell game the government is playing with young lower-income Americans wishing to attend college. Let’s look at two hypothetical cases.

Mary Smith, who graduated with honors from a Detroit high school this spring, is the daughter of an autoworker and a schoolteacher. Mary wants to be a doctor, but her parents can’t afford college tuition on their own. However, Mary is eligible for a Basic Educational Opportunity Grant (BEOG), and was hoping that it would permit her to enroll at the college of her choice, little Hillsdale in southern Michigan. Mary likes Hillsdale’s excellent pre-med program, the fact that it was one of the first colleges in the country to enroll women on an equal footing with men, and the opportunities she would have on its nationally regarded women’s athletic teams. Unfortunately, Mary Smith cannot spend her federal tuition grant at Hillsdale College. An act of Congress, reaffirmed earlier this year, with one hand gives Mary a check for her college costs and, with the other, forbids her to use that check at Hillsdale, in the name of equal opportunity for women.