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New Grading System Means Competition for Student Aid

Grades and Aid

Oana Trifan

Students who score high on their yearend grades can now earn free tuition in state universities – and those who don’t may lose their financial aid.

Under the new incentive plan, the top 30 freshmen from each school will qualify for free tuition next year.

Students check grades

The amount of financial support can be worth as much as 500 euros, although it varies from school to school. Since it goes directly to tuition costs, students don’t actually get the money.

The change, which so far applies only to first-year students, was introduced to improve the quality of Romanian education and make the subsidy system fairer for everyone, said Prof. Dr. Ioan Mihailescu, president of the National Council for Academic Evaluation and Accreditation.

It will be implemented in yearly phases as each new class is admitted. While it isn’t part of the Bologna process for standardizing higher education in Europe, it’s a good tool for helping Romania meet the new standards, Mihailescu said in an interview.

The new system is temporary, he said. It will be discontinued when Romania’s schools are fully integrated with those of their European neighbors.

In past years, students who qualified for free tuition at the beginning of their university career could look forward to keeping their scholarships until graduation. Some students won the entitlement by getting high scores on their entrance exams; others qualified on the basis of high school graduation marks.

Such one-time admission scores don’t say much about a student’s ongoing academic performance, Mihailescu pointed out. And if rewards are needed, so are penalties. Failure to achieve a high score at the end of each year will be grounds for losing a scholarship, he said.

And freshmen who earn their tuition this year will have to keep earning it. The yearend evaluations will apply next year to sophomores and will continue until the final year of school.

Mihailescu noted, however, that the new system doesn’t affect students who qualify for aid on the basis of need.

While some students worried about the prospect of losing their tuition money, others welcomed the idea. Violeta Dobromir, a first-year student at Bucharest University’s School of Sociology and Social Assistance, said it put students on a more equal footing and offered motivation to get higher grades.

Another sociology freshman, Tabita Cosmiuc, narrowly missed qualifying for paid tuition.

“This is why I’m doing my best now,” she said. “I have the opportunity to get a high grade in order to get the financial aid, which is great. That’s why I sort of like this system. After all, it gives me the chance to change some things.”

As officials prepared the change early in 2005, Mircea Miclea, who was then education minister, complained that college degrees don’t always translate into jobs for Romanian students. The situation could get even worse as graduates faced together competition in the pan

Ultimul număr tipărit (mai 2007, format PDF):