General Debate Forum - What If: College Grants Specifically For Non-parents

I know people with kids tend to get a few grants just for proving their reproductive systems work, which are also grants that anyone without offspring can't lay a finger on.

Why not make a grant or grants available specifically to people who do not have children? This may make the teen pregnancy rates go down, and perhaps result in more students enrolling and completing their degrees. To be eligible for such financial aid, one must not have any children and must agree to not keep any pregnancies throughout the course of their college careers. Schools will decide how much of the tuition the grants will cover (so some colleges may make it so the childless grant pays for one's college education in full). Birthing and keeping any babies during the recipient's college years would mean getting the remaining grant money taken away and forcing the student to rely on other financial aid, paying out of pocket, or dropping out.

Of course, other things like the student's GPA and pre-college academic career would be factored in (because no one is going to fork over money for college for the lazy slob who crapped out a kid at 13 and who did vo-tech for five years because she was too stupid to take real classes).

Those with kids have the ability to have everything handed to them just because they have a baby, but often, those without children may get the short end of the stick...and this applies to much more than college. So, why not end the discrimination and give the childless and childfree a special grant? Having a kid doesn't necessarily mean a parent has a harder life than someone with no kids (especially when parents can get free WIC, welfare, SSI, food stamps and housing, while most non-childed people cannot).

Do you think such a grant would be successful? Do you think it may reduce the number of teen pregnancies, as well as the number of people who drop out of college because of pregnancy? Do you think it would successfully discourage the keeping of pregnancy in college, as well as encourage students to put their studies before their genitals?

And, as an added bonus, what if people who did keep babies in college were not allowed to apply for any grants geared specifically at parents because they violated the terms of the childless grant? This could be done just to prevent stupid people from having babies, dropping out, and then easily resuming their college careers ten years later. This part is not required, but just something I'm tossing around in my head.