Scholarships ?

[Guest metamarty]

I don't want to be rude but I don't really understand the idea behind the Richard Harvey Scholarship. I'm from the Netherlands and when a student wants to become a pilot over here, he is granted a loan. After graduation he simply pays it back. After all, if you get a job as a pilot you're very likely to get large sums of money in no time. Not being able to get a loan seems to be a serious flaw in the U.S. educational system. Simply put, why would we pay for the education of a person who will quickly earn more than we will ever earn ? Maybe I just don't get it, but could somebody explain this?Marty.

[Guest]

The US (and most likely most countries) don't have a system of government sponsored student loans (and grants) like we have in the Netherlands.It is quite common for companies and charities (and even wealthy private citizens) to sponsor people to get an education (with usually a clause that the student will come to work for that company for a period of time afterwards).The most well known of those are probably the US armed forces ROTC programs.Studying is also a lot more expensive in the US than it is in the Netherlands, as university fees are not state sponsored like they are here (or if they are, to a far lesser extend).The fee of a few thousand Euro a year you pay for your Dutch university and books would not pay for a month (and on some universities not even a week) in the USA. Unless you have a sponsor, parents with a lot of money to support you, or are willing to take out hundreds of thousands in loans at high interest rates (remember as a 18 year old kid you're unlikely to have anything to mortgage, and it is far from certain the bank will be able to recover the money in the future in the current jobmarket) most people can't go to university at all.This scholarship is for people like that, talented young people with a keen interest in aviation who would not otherwise be able to get an education at all and have to spend the rest of their lives filling storeshelves in the supermarket.