The importance of scholarships for higher education was recently highlighted at an event in London in which the Ministry of Higher Education celebrated the graduation of 34,000 Saudi students. Higher education institutions in our country are developing at an admirable pace, the ultimate aim being the full accessibility of education to all. However, to assume that students will uniformly be able to partake of post-secondary education is naive and simplistic.
There are economic barriers for many students that could prevent them from going on in school, thus entrenching social differences for the next generation.
The cost of post-secondary school tuition alone could be prohibitive for some students and their families, but that is just one facet of the barrier that finances represent with regard to education. In some families, the choice between continuing education and getting a job right away is not one that can be made freely. The family may need the extra income that the student could make and costs associated with school — including books, school supplies, transportation and tuition — all combine to make the decision clear. Being offered a scholarship could turn the tide in the other direction for such students. Even the validation that the scholarship entails might convince families to prioritize a child’s higher education.
The alternative to a robust system of scholarships, in many societies, is the provision of student loans. This has substantial advantages, of course. Loans, like scholarships and bursaries, may make schooling possible for many students. However, these students also face the less attractive prospect of starting their working lives with substantial debt. The rate of default on student loans is generally quite high and understandably so.
Having to pay off a loan in that early stage of adult life while establishing oneself in one’s career and perhaps starting a family may constitute significant hardship. If financial support is offered in the form of scholarships, on the other hand, the student has tangible support for his or her endeavors and avoids the hangover effect of having to pay off a large loan.
Scholarships benefit individuals and families, of course, but they are even more essential for our society as a whole. In fact, offering scholarships to students is a powerful way of investing in our future. And the time to do so is now; the oil production and exports that our economy depends upon so heavily are unlikely to provide substantially for us past the current generation. Oil is a non-renewable resource; once removed, there is no way to put it back into the ground. The growing demand for oil as resources start to be depleted may create an artificial boost — a bubble, so to speak — in our economy in the near future. But what comes after that?
To avoid collapse, we simply have to invest in our future. And that means investing in a highly trained and educated professional and industrial work force. It can be done, but it will not happen on its own or uniformly across the society, as long as there are financial barriers to attaining higher education for some students and their families.
There is no better investment in our country and our future than to systematically remove those barriers.
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