Clinton School graduate Marc Peters (’12) is working as a reporter for Campus Progress, a division of the Center for American Progress focused on improving higher education. Peters recently published a story detailing the Arkansas Challenge Scholarship program, which is funded by a state lottery.
Click here to read Peters’ story. Below is an excerpt:
The Arkansas Challenge Scholarship has distributed $2.9 million to 64,708 students since the program’s inception, providing opportunity for students like Fisher. Shane Broadway, interim director of the Arkansas Department of Higher Education, told Campus Progress that the state is making every effort to ensure that students are taking advantage of the opportunity.
“One new thing we did this year was to send a letter to every senior in Arkansas to try to ensure they are aware of the opportunity,” Broadway told Campus Progress in an email. “We also spend a great deal of time training school counselors and also speaking at schools when we have staff available to ensure all we can that students are aware.”
However, Broadway said, it is too early to tell if the scholarship actually increases college attainment overall, or just keeps more students in-state for college. And students in high-poverty areas may be less likely to access these scholarships because of the merit requirements, said Michael Crouch, a school performance evaluator for the University of Arkansas’ Office for Education Policy.
Arkansas requires a 2.5 high school GPA and a minimum of a 19 composite score on the American College Testing exam. “If minority equity is a policy concern, then a more regional distribution would be necessary,” Crouch said by email.
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