U.S. Chess Scholarships to Foreign Students

The University of Texas/Dallas announced a partnership with the European Chess Union to award two scholarships to the winners of the boys’ and girls’ European Youth Chess Championships to be held in Croatia September 13 – 24, 2007. I’m not sure I approve. At a time when the skyrocketing cost of a college education in the U.S. is putting it out of reach of more and more families, why are we giving precious scholarship dollars to non-citizens??? Don’t we have enough young promising chessplayers in the United States to fill the bill? Somehow, saying this will increase "diversity" doesn’t seem very convincing in the face of genuine financial hardship by so many of our own young people! Arrrggggghhhhh.