Maryland's Perennial Disgrace

LET'S SAY YOU have the good fortune to be elected a state senator in Maryland. Well, here's the first perk you need to know about: Over the course of your four-year term, you will be handed $552,000 in state scholarship money -- $138,000 a year -- which you may dole out to the college-bound children of your constituents nearly any way you like. Want to award four-year grants to the dimmest sons and daughters of your wealthy financial backers? Go right ahead! If you play your cards right and get reelected once or twice, chances are you will be able to grease the palms of a majority of the constituent families in your district. Members of the House of Delegates, too, control state scholarship funds, but in much smaller amounts than are available to senators -- about $31,000 a year.

Sound bizarre? It is. Every other state with such a program abolished it more than a quarter-century ago. From time to time, good-government crusaders have shone a spotlight on this anachronistic exercise in pork barrel spending, highlighting the pungent abuses with which it is so ripe. There was, for instance, the senator who gave scholarships to his cousins and the senator who rewarded the son of his campaign treasurer. There have also been racial inequities. In 1993, African American students received more than 25 percent of the grant money awarded by the state's general scholarship program, but they got just 20 percent of the funds awarded by senators and a mere 15 percent of the award money dispensed by delegates.

To be fair, we must note that a handful of senators (nine of 47) and delegates (17 of 141) transfer their share of the scholarship funds to the state to make awards to their constituents on the basis of financial need. Some appoint committees to dole out the money on the basis of various criteria. But the broader problem remains -- the lack of clearly defined guidelines determining student eligibility, and the primacy of political connections and geographical diversity over financial need.

The program, begun shortly after the Civil War, survives because it is the ultimate incumbent protection program. Senators have consistently beat back attempts to turn the grant money over to the state, even though the House has been willing. It takes chutzpah to defend the program, but that's no problem for the Senate president, Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert). Mr. Miller has consistently defended the indefensible, insisting -- despite evidence to the contrary -- that lawmakers do take need into account when awarding the scholarships. He intends to kill Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s proposal to shift the $11 million in legislative scholarship funds over to the state's main need-based financial aid program.

The distortions and injustices of the system are compounded by Maryland's relatively poor record of channeling state financial aid to the students who need it the most. The state earmarks just half of its relatively modest pool of financial aid for the neediest students; some other states set aside three-quarters for that purpose. Moreover, tuition at the state's public colleges and universities is among the highest in the nation. As William E. Kirwan, chancellor of the University System of Maryland, put it: "Things need to be fixed."

They do indeed. Eliminating legislative scholarships would be a constructive first step in that direction.