Governor John Bel Edwards released a new budget proposal on Wednesday, and it includes major cuts to Louisiana's college scholarship program.
The proposed budget - which would go into effect July 1 - slashes TOPS scholarship funding by over 60 percent. It provides only about a third of the nearly $300 million needed to fund the program.
The state could deal with this cut by making it harder to earn TOPS - raising the required ACT score from 20 to 26. Or just giving out less money to each student - partial scholarships, rather than guaranteed full tuition at public institutions.
Dr. James Dabney is with New Orleans College Track, a program that supports underserved students as they prepare for college. He says free tuition has been a major motivator.
“Here we are saying that the free tuition may not be accessible to you,” he says. “And so that kind of compromises the aspirations of some of our students. It's another example of social and government institutions having a promise that was given and then broken.”
Governor Edwards says he'd like to hold a special session this June, to raise more taxes and find more funding for TOPS.
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