Question: When does “academic merit” automatically mean a scholarship grant to someone who doesn’t really need it?

Answer: the Cayman Islands.

An internal review of college scholarships granted by the Cayman Islands Education Council has found some of the students awarded were to families who made between $95,000 and $186,000 per year!

Worse, auditors could not locate some of the references filed on behalf of those scholarship awardees!!

The Caymanian Compass revealed these astonishing facts after a Freedom of Information request made by them was released.

The government’s Internal Audit Unit looked at a representative sample of 30 scholarship awards given to students studying abroad between July 2009 and June 2010.

“We noted that the families of five scholars earned a combined annual income ranging between $95,000 and $186,000, while the income of the families of 18 scholars was below the $95,000 range and another seven did not have documentation of their families financial means on file,” auditors noted. “However, all were awarded overseas scholarships.”

As the article pointed out Section 41 (2) of the Cayman Islands Education Law states: “The financial means of the parents or guardians of the candidate shall be taken into account in the award of any scholarship”.

According to a government committee in 2009 they found that means testing is unfair and unworkable and recommended that “students should receive funding, or not, based on academic merit.”

The original idea behind scholarships and grants within the spectrum of education funding was to allow students of academic merit to further their education at a quality university or centre of further education when, because of their financial restraints they would not have been able to do so.

These scholarships are “free money” and do not need to be paid back and how is it in all the major countries in the world they have all managed to operate a means test.

USA universities, for instance, all have a policy like this:

[The University each year] receives applications for admission from a group of gifted and talented individuals. In determining the ways in which the University will award financial assistance, a priority is placed on providing support on the basis of a student’s demonstrated financial need.

In addition to need-based financial aid, the University provides financial assistance on the basis of student’s academic achievements and their proven leadership and participation in activities outside of the classroom, in both their school and community; the University has a particular commitment to enrolling academic and civic leaders who are traditionally underrepresented on college campuses (e.g., low income, first generation and multicultural students.)

The above was taken from the Villanova University web site.

It is similar to hundreds of others. It does not seem to be a problem to them to implement a means test.

I can only hope this ridiculous recommendation from 2009 will have no place in our system as go forward in 2013 and then there are those references?

We cannot afford it but five out of those 30 scholarship awardees could.