Scholarship Bond 2

There were a lot of interesting emails between my friend and I on this topic.
I think there are a couple of points though, I like to make clear about my views.

I will put it on record here that personally, I do not agree with bonded scholarships. I do recognize that scholarships represent opportunities, and personally i am grateful for my chance to go abroad for my studies. It gave me dreams, which I am still chasing to this very day. Those 4 years spent abroad, while not necessarily the absolute "best" years of my life, they were definitely the most important to me.

For my undergraduate years, I took a government scholarship and in return, I was bonded to work with the body for a number of years. For my Masters, I accepted a bond free fellowship from the university. After my Masters, I came back to Singapore to work for a number of years, before breaking my bond and going on to work for a new venture capital group in Singapore.

The experience of receiving a free education at my Masters institution, left a very deep impression on me. I was frankly very surprised how much the school went out of its way, to help me pay for the tuition and bills. They awarded me a full fellowship, and all these for absolutely no conditions, apart from wishing me the best and wanting me to do well in my research and studies. They could very easily have taken another student in my place who could afford to pay for his/her education, but they told me not to drop my place when I told them I could not afford the school fees. And I am not even American!

This contrasts so starkly against what I received for my undergraduate scholarship, which came preloaded with a whole lot of conditions. I am not necessarily saying that one is better than the other, but I cannot but help getting this impression, that my Masters institution is far more interested in developing me as a talent, than my undergraduate scholarship board, which seems far more interested in just retaining me as a future employee for them. While the intentions of my Masters instituation may not be entirely altruistic (they may really like to just have the best students as it may help improve the instition's standings), its arguably far more altruistic than my scholarship board. There is this implicit trust that they gave me, that is wholly absent in the case with the scholarship board.

It is this stark comparison, that ultimately led to my rejection that there is any semblance of morality being attached to a bonded scholarship. Ultimately, there is only contractual integrity here. The intentions of the scholarship board is devoid of altruism, but geared entirely towards selfish intentions of empowering its own organization. If its not altruistic, then there can be little more I should honour apart from the contractual paper.

Ultimately I am not criticizing one entity over another. But on a very personal level, the gratitude I have for my Masters institution far far outweighs that I have for my scholarship board.