Incentives For Study of Science A Benefit to Society

To the editors:

I thoroughly and wholeheartedly reject the reasoning of the comment in Tuesday’s Crimson entitled “The SMART Grants Are Stupid” (Feb. 7). I would like to specifically address the criticism of science-oriented scholarship programs for low-income students, leaving aside considerations of politics.

The government is not passing judgment on what fields of study are best; it is simply responding to the realities of the modern economy and America’s widening income gap. Even a generation ago, someone with a high school diploma could find a good-paying job which placed him or her solidly in the middle class. These jobs, typically in manufacturing, are rapidly heading overseas to countries with lower costs. The comparative advantage of the U.S. economy is now in technology, and those without technology education have much more difficulty finding well-paying jobs as a result. A math, science, or engineering degree offers a low-income student earning potential and a ticket up in society that a degree in literature or history simply cannot. This does not mean that the humanities and social sciences are unimportant or unnecessary. If the goal is to bring lower-income Americans into the middle class, and to keep American industry competitive and strong, the government is simply getting the most bang for its buck.

Society at large also benefits from such a program. Students who never make it to college represent a great untapped wealth of intelligence. If America is to maintain its position as the world leader in science and technology, it will need all the help it can muster, and these overlooked students can play a vital role. By enlarging the available talent pool for high-tech jobs and increasing the brain power working to solve important problems like global warming, the proposed scholarships help to improve life for all and to keep the economy strong. A vibrant economy and a healthy middle class are essential to funding for the arts and humanities, general scholarship programs like Pell grants, and social programs for the poor and elderly. Inventions created by government-funded scientists, such as the laser, the MRI, and the Internet, have beneficial effects on wide-ranging parts of society. To say that science scholarships will have no positive societal impact is ludicrous.

The rising tide of science and technology will lift all boats, but we must be sure everyone has a chance to get aboard. The SMART grants may not be the perfect solution, but they certainly deserve better than their treatment in Reva P. Minkoff and Ramya Parthasarathy’s piece.

DANIEL H. SLICHTER ’04
Berkeley, Calif.
February 8, 2006