Wrong Winners?

Able and needy students, so the story goes, are the sole beneficiaries of the nation's $100 million annual college scholarship kitty. Last week this legend got a hard bounce from John L. Holland, research "director of the National Merit Scholarship Corp., biggest dispenser of private scholarship money in the land. In College and University, Holland argues that too much money is going to conformists with little creative talent and often enough money already.

Holland and his associate, Laura Kent, say that one-third of all college scholarship money is controlled by 50 prestige colleges, which attract the nation's wealthiest students. Their "need" was made clear in a 1957 report that only 18% of Harvard's scholarship holders came from families with incomes below $4,000. Worse, such colleges' "reliance on test scores and high school grades has led to a relatively narrow kind of talent-searching--the search for good grade-getters." And grade-giving usually favors the conformist, says Holland, not the independent creator, who may have far more potential talent.

He adds: "It is imperative that we learn as quickly as possible how to identify the creative person, so that we can seek out and encourage such students. They should not be penalized for their failure to play the 'goodboy' role or to satisfy the pointless demand for 'well-roundedness' by dissipating their energies in a frenetic round of extracurricular activities and 'good works.' . . . We must re-examine the use of scholarship aid funds, the selection of students, the meaning of grades, the effectiveness of teaching practices and the impact of college training if we are to conserve and develop our intellectual and creative resources."

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