Robert Byrd
(AP photo by Susan Walsh / February 26, 2009)
Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.V.), seated in a wheelchair, arrives on Capitol Hill in Washington on Thursday.
...The scholarship provides stipends of up to $6,000 over four years to high school graduates who demonstrate outstanding academic achievement and who have been accepted for enrollment at a college or university.
The problem, however, had been that when the Byrd Scholarship was created by Congress in 1985, an “eligible student” for the scholarship was defined as “a graduate of a public or private secondary school….” Homeschool graduates in states that recognized homeschoolers as a private school were able to benefit from this scholarship, but since many homeschool graduates live in states with a homeschool statute, these hardworking homeschoolers were inadvertently excluded from this scholarship. This could be fixed by simply adding to the “eligible student” definition above “or a home school, whether treated as a home school or a private school under State law.” This language would assure that homeschool graduates could benefit from the scholarship, but also protect against any federal definitions or regulations on homeschools....
