UI Leader Applies For Scholarships Legislature Urged To Help More Kids Go To College

Most Idaho high school graduates don’t go on to college, and of those who do, a quarter go out of state.

At the same time, federal labor projections show that most of the new jobs of the future will require at least some college.

University of Idaho President Robert Hoover urged legislative budget writers on Tuesday to support additional scholarships for Idaho youths, both to get more of them to go to college and to keep the best ones in Idaho.

“In this world we’re going to find ourselves in in the 21st century, knowledge is going to be king,” Hoover said. “A post-secondary experience is going to be very important.”

A study published last August said only 44 percent of Idaho’s 1996 high school graduates went on to a two-year or four-year college, down from 48 percent in 1994. The national average in 1996 was 83 percent.

“We are far behind the national average, and that has significant implications for our economic competitiveness in the future,” Hoover said.

The study, published in “Policy Indicators for Higher Education,” put Washington’s figures at 58 percent in 1994, and 63 percent in 1996.

Among 15 Western states, only Alaska and Nevada had figures lower than Idaho’s.

“Without having some post-secondary opportunity, you’re really going to be in a shrinking job market,” Hoover said. “For us to do our part, we have to focus on the group that’s leaving, going out of state, and to suggest to those who have not been interested in a higher educational opportunity the potential significance we can have for their lives.”

UI launched a new scholarship program in 1997 aimed at keeping Idaho’s best students in-state, in part because studies suggest that students who earn their degrees elsewhere are likely to stay there as they enter their careers. Under the UI Scholars program, any Idaho high school graduate who has at least a 3.5 grade point average and scores in the top 1 percent nationally on the ACT or SAT college entrance exam is offered a $3,000-a-year, four-year scholarship. This year, 75 students qualified for the scholarship, and 42 enrolled at the university.

Among high school seniors this year, Hoover said the university has identified 100 who are eligible, and has offered them the scholarships.

Hoover said unemployment rates among the college-educated are half as high. “If you’ve got the skills, you’ve got the job,” he said.

Gov. Dirk Kempthorne also is concerned about scholarships, and he has recommended a $250,000 increase in the state’s budget for student financial aid. That covers scholarships and work-study grants administered by the state Board of Education, and is more than twice the increase the board requested.

The governor also proposed spending $100,000 to pay college tuition for Idaho National Guard members.

Kempthorne didn’t recommend funding for a multimillion-dollar effort proposed by the state’s universities, community colleges and vocational education programs to create a permanently endowed scholarship program.

Hoover said UI has been relying on private donations to fund its UI Scholars program.

Idaho’s low rate of kids going to college doesn’t mean Idaho kids aren’t smart, he said. The Intermountain states traditionally have had low rates, because other skills allowed young people to make a good living in resource industries and elsewhere. But that is changing.

“What we need to do is to open up the horizons for Idaho kids, because they’re smart, hard-working, committed,” Hoover said. “We just need to encourage them to pursue great things.”