Study Finds Massachusetts Merit Scholarship Program Not Likely to Promote College Access
A new study, by The Civil Rights Project at Harvard University and Pennsylvania State University’s Center for the Study of Higher Education finds that the newly-created John and Abigail Adams Scholarship program in Massachusetts is likely to have little impact on college access in the state.
The study, conducted by Penn State education professor Dr. Donald E. Heller, finds that few racial minority and low-income students in Massachusetts are qualifying for the scholarships. This finding is particularly important in the wake of tuition prices, which have increased an average of 78 percent at the University of Massachusetts and the state colleges over the last four years.
The Adams Scholarships are awarded based solely on students’ performance in the 10th grade English and math tests of the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS). The scholarships provide free tuition (but not fees) for up to four years at any public higher education institution in the state.
Heller analyzed four years of MCAS data from the Massachusetts Department of Education (which included over 60,000 students each year) to determine the rates at which students from different racial and class groups qualify for the scholarships. He found large gaps in the scholarship qualification rates across these groups. For example, while 25 percent of White 10th graders in 2005 attained MCAS scores necessary to qualify for a scholarship, only 8 percent of African-American and 8 percent of Hispanic students attained the necessary scores.
Heller also found that only 10 percent of students in Massachusetts who participate in the national School Lunch Program — whose family incomes were below $35,000 — qualified for Adams Scholarships. In comparison, 26 percent of students not participating in the lunch program qualified for scholarships.
“The results of this study demonstrate that the students who historically have had the lowest college going rates — minority, lower-income and educationally disadvantaged students — are those least likely to qualify for an Adams Scholarship,” says Heller.
