Now, when I said earlier that scholarships would always help countries an states keep their best and brightest students at home, I wasn’t talking about the extreme measures some United States districts have taken. Just look at the way Kalamazoo has played the state scholarship card. According to a recent news release, students that enroll in Kalamazoo kindergartens and remain in that district’s school system until college will be awarded full university scholarships - covering all tuition and mandatory fees.

Now, that’s really something to keep your students at home alright. I’m all for it, but there is something really nagging at me. Given that it is an anonymously-funded scholarship program, how many students can it provide scholarships for? After all, even a student that enrolls in Kalamazoo public schools by the ninth grade will receive partial scholarships.

A worse case scenario would be funding constraints when the time actually comes for students to receive their “longevity-based” college scholarships. I’d be gutted if the scholarship-givers suddenly announced that there wasn’t enough money available for all students. Let’s hope that isn’t the case here.