The Department of Silly Euphemisms

When people find out these kids have accepted grants and loans through these programs, they can get the impression the kids have accepted, you know … grants and loans. Or something. We’re still trying to figure it out.

Norm Bedford, director of financial aid and scholarships at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, tries to explain:

“When I was a student back in 1985, I think there were some negative connotations that, ‘Oh, you’re receiving financial aid, maybe you come from a lower socioeconomic status,’ ” Mr. Bedford explains.

Because some students and their parents find there’s a stigma attached to the words “financial aid,” Ms. Wurm and associates have now recommended that the Board of Regents consider calling it something else. Maybe a “Nevada Access Award,” or a “Silver State Award.”

“The general opinion is if you call something an ‘award,’ it might be perceived as having a higher status than something being called a ‘grant,’ ” Ms. Wurm says.

The First of April — All Fools’ Day — having just come and gone, we checked to make sure there wasn’t a “Gotcha” waiting in the wings, here. But it appears if there are fools here, it’s not those of us going, “What?”

Now, self-sufficiency and a reluctance to accept “handouts” are admirable qualities. No one is proposing such programs be labeled in ways that are gratuitously offensive. Family savings can be depleted by any number of causes, including illness and natural disaster.

Just because a student needs help covering tuition is no evidence of laziness or bad character. In fact, given that students receiving financial aid frequently hold down a part-time job while attending school, they’re usually to be commended for the extra effort they put forth. No one is saying any recipient of financial aid should have to wear a funny conical hat that says “Poor kid” or “Welfare brat.”

But frankly, we’re puzzled to learn any such stigma persists. It’s long been understood that most institutions of higher learning charge the wealthy slightly more so that gifted students of limited means can be provided a place, on the assumption their later productivity will more than compensate all involved. If anything, it’s the “legacy” students, who can appear to skate through their years of college on the strength of their parents’ wealth and prestige, who were sometimes the objects of sneers or chuckles.

Besides, if Nevada college campuses are replete with fancy old brick-and-brownstone private clubs where only the rich kids in their raccoon coats are welcome to pull up in their Pierce Arrows after the big game, there to be served tea and crumpets off silver trays by liveried gentlemen’s gentlemen while the poor scholarship kids stand outside in the snow, peering longingly in through the windows, we must have missed them on our tour.

What ever happened to simply calling things what they are?

We lose many of the advantages of our wonderfully nuanced language if we set about purposely creating a code language that requires a “politically correct” dictionary to decipher.

Merchants may have commercial reasons to flatter their customers that the dress in question is “a woman’s size,” rather than “extra large,” that this discount jalopy is “previously owned,” rather than merely “used.” But those dispensing taxpayer funds have some obligation to speak plainly about what they’re up to.

There is no “Social Security Trust Fund,” prison is not “a residential reorientation retreat,” and if — as Mr. Bedford says — “Bill Gates could apply with FAFSA and get a federal student loan,” then a decision that the taxpayers will help subsidize these kids’ college educations does not mean these young people have “won the Silver State Award.”

Heck, if we’re going that far, why stop there? Call it “The Rhodes Scholarship” or “The Pulitzer Prize.” That’ll really look good on the resume.