Opportunity Scholarship Impact: Better Course Performance, Unclear Influence on Choosing SD Schools

Say what you will about the Board of Regents; they at least have a sense of timing. As the Republican Legislature considers breaking another promise and cutting the Opportunity Scholarship for South Dakota high school graduates, the Regents release an impact study on the scholarship program. The Regents highlight these facts:

1. Since program inception in 2004, a smaller percentage of students in our public universities have needed remedial math and English courses.
2. More South Dakota HS grads are scoring 24 or better on the ACT.
3. Our universities are keeping more high-achieving students into their fourth year of studies.

The full report offers some specific numbers by university. We learn, for instance, that DSU draws the lowest share of Opportunity Scholars out of the pool attending public universities:

Participating Institution	BHSU	DSU	NSU	SDSMT	SDSU	USD	Total Regental
2004-05	36	23	30	64	339	201	693
2005-06	52	30	35	77	361	172	727
2006-07	56	46	45	72	387	204	810
2007-08	61	48	53	101	459	239	961
2008-09	65	36	50	97	484	228	960
2009-10	52	45	51	92	471	205	916
6 Year Total	322	228	264	503	2501	1249	5067
6 Year %	5.24%	3.71%	4.30%	8.19%	40.71%	20.33%	82.47%
6yr% of RegSys	6.35%	4.50%	5.21%	9.93%	49.36%	24.65%	100.00%

South Dakota Opportunity Scholarship
Recipients Funded Across First Five Academic Years
Source: South Dakota Board of Regents

I dug up the fall enrollment numbers and found that DSU has the second-lowest proportion of Opportunity Scholars among this year's freshmen. Only Black Hills State has a smaller percentage of Opportunity Scholars among the class of 2013.

School	2009-10
BHSU	5.0%
DSU	8.2%
NSU	9.9%
SDSMT	19.4%
SDSU	14.9%
USD	10.2%
Total Regental	11.8%

Opportunity Scholarship Recipients
as Percentage of Incoming Freshmen

In a survey of Opportunity Scholarship recipients from the first two years of the program (the ones who've had time to graduate and head for the real world), 68% of respondents said they were staying South Dakota for work or grad school. The state drawing the largest chunk (5%) of our sharpest grads is Nebraska (mostly thanks to grad school at UNL or Creighton). But 32% of our Opportunity Scholarship recipients who get South Dakota degrees go elsewhere.

Student perceptions of the impact of the Opportunity Scholarship give a mixed picture. Consider the responses to these two questions in the BOR survey:

• Receiving the Opportunity Scholarship was a critical factor in my choice to attend an institution in South Dakota.
• Disagree: 104(20%)
• Neutral: 127(26%)
• Agree: 268(54%)
• I would have attended an institution outside of South Dakota without the financial support I received from the scholarship program.
• Disagree: 254(51%)
• Neutral: 141(28%)
• Agree: 104(21%)
  

The responses seem to contradict each other. At least some students are saying the scholarship was "critical" to choosing a South Dakota institution... but that they would have attended a South Dakota school regardless. Hmm....