The newly crowned Miss America will receive a $50,000 scholarship for her title, but it will not be enough to cover the cost of her college education.  A fifty thousand dollar scholarship is indeed substantial, but because the cost of higher education has been increasing exponentially even when compared to inflation, it is just not enough.

Nina Davuluri, 24, of Syracuse New York, competed and won in America’s largest scholarship competition to become Miss America 2014. She already attended the University of Michigan, where according to their website the average cost of attending for an out of state student ranges from $53,490 to $56,328 a year. With an expected average increase of 5% each year that is well over $200,000 to finish a degree if it takes just four years.

Miss America 2014 and the other contestants are not alone.  According to the most recent data available from the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics (2011), the cost to attend (including tuition, room and board) a private not-for-profit institution was $36,300 a year, which rose 31% from ten years earlier and the cost to attend a public not-for-profit institution was $13,600 a year which increased from 42% from ten years earlier, even with adjustments for inflation.
[Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. (2012). Digest of Education Statistics, 2011 (NCES 2012-001), Chapter 3 . http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=76]

The inability to afford college is even more pronounced when you consider that three of the top five contestants are anticipating getting an advanced degree: Miss New York, Nina Davuluri won $50,000, and is looking to apply that to attending medical school; Miss Califorinia Crystal Lee who won at least $25,000 scholarship and is the runner up already attended Stanford University and is looking to go on to get an MBA; and Miss Minnesota Rebecca Yeh, who won at least $10,000 and is attending Ohio Northern University and is going to get her Pharmacy Doctorate. [Source: missamerica.org, 9/16/13]

Winning Miss America is not what it used to be, at least in terms of the scholarships.  Miss America 2001, Angela Perez Baraquio also won $50,000, but at that time the average annual cost of public higher education was $8,022, and private was $22,413 – more than a 30% increase over the last ten years.  In addition, in the 2010-11 academic year more than 2.5 million full-time, first-time students received financial aid, when more than 3.4 million students were enrolled for the first time, meaning that two-thirds of new students had some form of financial aid.  We should find more ways like Miss America to support young people with scholarships.

Photo Credit Courtesy missamerica.org