Making the case for tuition-adjusted academic achievement scholarships

When students are admitted into CSB+SJU, they receive their offer of admission enclosed inside a red box, or as it’s famously known, “the Big Red Box.” Alongside the “Bennie” or “Johnnie” T-shirt, sticker and acceptance letter, there’s also a document that outlines the recipient’s Academic Achievement Scholarship. Once accepted for admission, all prospective first-year students are automatically considered for the scholarship. As the CSB+SJU Admissions website outlines, “nearly all incoming freshman students receive one of these scholarships.”

However, the amount varies, based on–you guessed it–academic achievement, along with “contributions made to a student’s [high] school and community.” Ignoring that last loosely defined and ambiguous statement, the CSB+SJU Admissions website provides a helpful table for determining the range of money that each student is eligible for.

As you can see above, for the current year, a student with a 4.0 high school GPA and an ACT score greater than 32 receives an award of $33,000, a student that has a 4.0 GPA or a 30+ ACT is eligible for an award of $29,000-31,000 and so on and so forth. You might notice that those numbers have changed since you received your award, quite significantly if you’re a junior or senior. That makes sense because in the time you’ve been here, the price of college has gone up. Since 2015, tuition and fees have typically gone up 3.4-3.9% each year.

To accommodate the rising cost of a college education and to keep the Academic Achievement Scholarships competitive with other colleges offering scholarships, CSB+SJU has raised them. For example, many current juniors were given an Academic Achievement scholarship of $24,000 per year as incoming first-year students. Those same students would be eligible for a $29,000-$31,000 scholarship today, using the same high school stats. This begs the question: why is the Academic Achievement Scholarship most valuable in that first year of college and then progressively decreases in value in relation to tuition every year of college after that?

The answer may be as simple as, “things are traditionally done that way,” which makes sense. If that’s how things have been operating here for many years, and if similar Minnesota schools like Gustavus and St. Thomas are also offering fixed rate scholarships, then CSB+SJU isn’t out of the ordinary. But, that only makes the argument for a tuition-adjusted Academic Achievement Scholarship model more enticing. Imagine that instead of the document inside of your Big Red Box saying that you’ll be receiving an Academic Achievement Scholarship of $25,000 per year, worth $100,000 over the course of 4 years, your letter said that you’ll be receiving an Academic Achievement Scholarship worth $25,000 in your first year of college, and that it will increase at the same rate as tuition every year after that.

Even better, if the schools are determined to reward academic achievement and attract students with an exceptional work ethic, instead, the Admissions office should develop a system where students can “earn” scholarships that are prorated if they achieve a certain academic benchmark. If the institutions reward students for high school achievement, reward students for their college achievements, too. Particularly since the colleges use these achievements to prove how successful their students can be, they have an incentive to reward their most high-performing students. If tuition goes up 3.5%, your Academic Achievement Scholarship should increase by the same amount, particularly if you’ve proven that you’re capable of continuing consistent, quality academic performance in college. It would show that CSB+SJU is committed to offering a quality education at a fair price for all four years of a student’s education.

The feasibility of this plan may be called into question because of the school’s current financial situation. This said, developing prorated academic scholarships would add another metric distinguishing the colleges from their competition. Incentivizing success in classes will yield higher standards of achievement, more competitive job placement and greater donation totals to CSB+SJU. Help us help you.