end of the road

For my last paper of this class I will be analyzing the issue of scholarship money to be allocated to various graduating high school students when in their chosen college. This will entice more high school students to go to college and stay in college.
"Granholm wants to replace the current Merit Scholarship, a $2,500 award for college-bound high school seniors who passed the MEAP test, with a $4,000 scholarship paid upon completion of two years at a college or trade school."
http://www.macombdaily.com/stories/052605/loc_mcc001.shtml
I like that she wants to wait for the students to complete two years at school because this shows that the student is already interested in pursuing a degree at a college and even if they did not do so well in high school, this is the final chance to prove that they deserve this scholarship.
Now, a high school degree no longer means much. You can't obtain a career anywhere. Students must have a college degree in order to make it anywhere in life now.
There are two sides to this: students deserve scholarship money to further their education and to provide an incentive to them to stay in school longer or that is a waste of government money and that is not what the government is there, set up to do; their job is to use tax money for other purposes especially when we are in stagnant economic times. Other government programs need that money. Others may argue that only the best and brightest deserve that money or it is too much to allocate to each individual student and the scholarship should remain at $2,500 like the MEAP money students now in college received.
I can give different student's perspectives on this proposed plan. Along with information on how the MEAP plan worked and what changes will be made to alter that into this new $4,000 scholarship. Who supports it along with who opposes it.