Arkansas students counting on a financial boost from lotteryfunded scholarships may not get as much help as they have been expecting.

In 2008, state voters created the lottery, which was supposed to yield a pot load of money for scholarships. It has never quite produced the amounts of money projected. The obvious result is the program must be altered unless the yield can be increased or some other revenue source found.

Resolving how to handle an increasing demand for the scholarship money and the shortfall in dollars available to fund the program will be a major challenge for the state’s lawmakers next year.

Mind you, it will be only one of many challenges for the Legislature, which may be in the throes of leadership shifts, too, after this year’s general elections.

Focus for a minute on the scholarship dilemma.

Creation of the lottery came with the promise to graduating high school seniors of signifi cant state scholarship support. Those who worked hard and applied themselves to their studies could count on help to go to college in this state.

The program has already been altered once. The fi rststudents to qualify were awarded annual scholarships of $5,000 to attend a fouryear institution of higher education or $2,500 to attend a two-year college. Those amounts were to continue for each year the student remained in school and qualified for the awards.

The promise was literally worth $20,000 to four-year students and $10,000 to twoyear students.

When the lottery yield didn’t match the cost of the program, the Legislature dropped the amounts of the annual awards. Unlike that first class of lottery scholarship recipients, the next two classes received less money. The available scholarships fell to $4,500 for four-year schools and $2,250 for two-year programs.

Students who will graduate high school next year and qualify for lottery scholarships for the 2013-14 year can’t be so sure what they might get from the lottery scholarship program.

One proposal would drop the amount available to an entering freshman to just $2,000.

That means a student who, as a eighth-grader in 2008, committed himself or herself to work hard and qualify for $5,000 in annual scholarship money upon graduation may get less than half what was initially being promised.

You only need look at college enrollments in the interim years to see that more Arkansas students have been inspired to go to college. How much directly relates to the availability and amounts of lottery scholarships might be argued, but these dollars were surely difference makers for many students.

Not all of the collegegoers were prepared for the demands of college and couldn’t hold onto their scholarships, but others certainly have done what was expected of them. So far at least, no one is talking about altering what those students who are already in the program will receive.

It is the students who will enter college next year and in subsequent years who may see a major diff erence between what was being promised when they were just entering high school and what will actually be available to them as they graduate.

The Bureau of Legislative Research is projecting shortfalls in scholarship funding for the next four fiscal years ranging from $19.9 million to $24.6 million annually. Gov. Mike Beebe has already said he can’t see putting any more general revenue into scholarships.

That means the amount to be spent must be cut either by limiting access to fewer recipients or reducing the size of the awards.

How the budget gets balanced is up to the Legislature, but the immediate discussion among lawmakers has been about changing the size of the awards, significantly reducing scholarships for entering freshmen from the current rate to $2,000 annually, regardless of whether a student attends a four-year or two-year school. Each year a student remains in college and continues to qualify, he or she would get another $1,000 annually under this plan off ered by state Sen. Johnny Key, R-Mountain Home.

Key’s won’t be the only plan offered, of course; but nothing is likely to match the promises made after the 2008 vote that created the lottery and raised the hopes of Arkansas students.

BRENDA BLAGG IS A FREELANCE COLUMNIST.

Opinion, Pages 5 on 09/26/2012