Critics: Merit-based scholarship should be needs-based

Bright Flight cuts?

A student advocacy group is lobbying to eliminate Missouri's merit-based Bright Flight scholarship because members say it's inequitable among public schools, rural schools and students of color.

Bright Flight was established 30 years ago to encourage top-ranking high school students to continue their education in Missouri.

Approximately 6,000 students with an ACT score of 31 - out of 36 - or higher can receive a maximum of $3,000 from the scholarship each year.

The number of students and individual scholarships awarded differs each year depending on the budget, said Liz Coleman, the director of communications and marketing for the Missouri Department of Higher Education. Some years students receive less.

The Active Advocacy Coalition said the requirements for receiving a Bright Flight scholarship unintentionally exclude less-fortunate students, said Amber Overton, the coalition's senior policy intern.

She said research shows students who come from wealthier families tend to score higher on the ACT, leaving a disparity among ethnic students and rural schools.

Overton presented information about Bright Flight on Wednesday to about 30 college students interested in the coalition's goal.

The coalition found that in the 2014-15 school year fewer than 2 percent of African American students were awarded the Bright Flight scholarship, while 89 percent of the recipients were white.

The volunteering students gave each state lawmaker a personalized packet with information regarding the legislator's district.

Elijah Sharpe, a sophomore at Lincoln University, attended the meeting and helped hand out packets to legislators.

"I think (the coalition) has a good case, but who's willing to support it? I think it's unfair what's happening," he said.

Overton said the coalition's goal is to eliminate Bright Flight and create a program similar to Access Missouri, which is distributed based on student need.

Approximately 50,000 Missouri students receive Access Missouri scholarships, which is a needs-based financial assistance program. On average last year, a student attending a four-year university received $1,850; a student attending a two-year, public college received $850, Coleman said.

The maximum award for the Missouri Access Program is $2,850. But because of the number of students and available funding, the state has awarded less than that for the past couple of years, she said.

The current budget for Access Missouri is $67.5 million; the current budget for Bright Flight is $17.4 million with proposed increases for both programs from Gov. Jay Nixon's budget, Coleman said.

Overton said the coalition believes the Bright Flight funds would be better spent helping Missouri's neediest students who rely on these scholarships to finance their post-secondary schooling.

Instead of using ACT scores as the sole requirement for Bright Flight, Overton said more needy"students would be served if selections were based on metrics like GPA or hours spent doing community service.

"If Bright Flight is meant to retain the best and brightest students, it makes sense to have a community service component," she said.

The coalition would also like to see students only competing against their own peers for the revised scholarship.

She said the funding would be more equitable if every school was allotted a certain amount of the scholarship. That way a variety of students had a better chance of receiving it.

Last year, Overton said, 20 schools out of 800 received one-third of the Bright Flight funding.

State Sen. David Pearce, R-Warrensburg, chairman of the Senate Education Committee, said it's important to have separate scholarship programs.

"I'd hate to cannibalize one scholarship program in favor of the other," he said.

The Associated Press contributed information to this article.