One of my faithful officers has just received their letter of award for Financial aid. They come from a family of 6 that makes less than 30,000 dollars a year. From DBU they were only awarded 2,500 dollars for each semester. That my dear snipe is a tragedy! Think about it!
I know of several loyal patriots who will remain nameless, who come from families of smaller numbers and more revenue who receive enough to cover not only their tuition but books with some left over. How can this happen in a Christian institution? Shouldn't financial aid go firstly to those who need it the most rather than who's been here the longest? I may lose a faithful officer because of the lack of aid given by this institution. This fuels our rage against the DBU machine even more!
This is an outrage and a crime. If DBU did not have the funds to support this many students then the campus should have quit accepting students for this semester. It's called a CAP! Do the faculty and staff of DBU not understand or realize the position they are putting DBU 'patriots' in? It's just bad manners! You don't invite people to a party unless you have enough to entertain, feed, and house. Can we as the student body, allow these crimes and injustices to continue as we placidly watch? No! It is time for a revolution. It is time to take a stand against what corruption is coming.
You have been warned....
Benedict Arnold
Head Snipe responds:
Dear Mr./Mrs./Ms./whatever-you-are Arnold,
I appreciate any email. I am delighted, of course, that other students are using the free speech gifted to us by the wonderful internet to be . . . critical of . . . stuff. However, we need to be as nice as possible while we're at it. I assume you're aware of the following disclaimers...
--In America pretty much everyone's rich anyways.
--None of us are forced to come here. Well, maybe by our parents, but no FAMILY is actually forced to have anybody here.
--There's nothing wrong with helping out one's own group. EG, there's nothing technically wrong with helping out Baptists, or pastors' kids or missionary kids or Baptist missionary kids.
Although it does seem to be unfair if someone from a larger and poorer family and is just as good a student or better than anyone else, gets a ten percent scholarship, and a baseball team member or missionary kid or daughter/son of an alumni, gets one hundred percent. I certainly agree that scholarships should be doled out based partially on need. Incidentally, I do know of a guy who didn't get some scholarships because he didn't need them.
But yes, I certainly agree that the situation you described in detail seems rather tragic and probably unfair. Maybe a hundred-percent scholarship for some person (sports people? Glowing Heart? I don't know who, if anyone, coming into DBU these days gets that) could be dropped (just by ten percent would help!), and maybe there could be a ten percent scholarship just for people who come from families earning under 30,000 a year.
Whatever. I don't know. This is dragging on. Two comments more are needed. FIRST, maybe the school's funding is all being spent on ok things like fountains but maybe scholarships or expanded library facilities would be better than just ok. Maybe most funds are from donations, but why are the donors ever told what precisely students need? (are they? I don't know.). And would it be so bad if Dr. Cook told some rich old Dallas Baptist lady, "I'm not taking your hundreds of thousands of dollars. We need library books and scholarship money. You put a second fountain or a third duck pond on the memo, I'm shredding your check. God bless you."
SECOND. If advertising to prospective students is at all geared towards bringing in lots of people who hear a ton of Glowing Heart concerts but don't get to spend just ten minutes (BEFORE THEY MAKE A DECISION ABOUT WHETHER TO ATTEND) to talk to financial aid people about how hard it will be . . . if that, then . . . that is certainly a BAD thing.
Sincerely,
Head Snipe