Bill refiguring scholarships on fast track

It starts freshmen at $2,000, ticks up to $5,000 for seniors

— Legislation revamping the Arkansas Academic Challenge Scholarship sailed through an Arkansas House committee Wednesday, though a few representatives worried that the measure, House Bill 1295, would hurt students at the state’s fouryear universities.

In the coming school year, first-time recipients of the scholarship would receive $2,000 as freshmen, $3,000 as sophomores, $4,000 as juniors and $5,000 as seniors at the four-year universities.

Under the legislation, sponsored by Rep. Jeremy Gillam, R-Judsonia, new scholarship recipients enrolling in two-year colleges would get $2,000 a year for both years.

Currently, students who were first awarded the scholarships in the 2010-11 school year each receive $5,000 a year to attend universities and $2,500 a year for community and technical colleges. Those who were first awarded the scholarships in the 2011-12 or 2012-13 school years get $4,500 a year at universities and $2,250 at colleges. These amounts won’t change for students as long as they remain eligible for the scholarships.

This year, 27,088 lottery scholarship recipients are attending universities and 5,741 are enrolled in colleges, according to the state Department of Higher Education.

Gillam said his bill is the result of a lot of hard work by Sen. Johnny Key, R-Mountain Home, Arkansas State University System President Charles Welch and Arkansas Association of Two-Year Colleges Executive Director Ed Franklin.

He added that his bill will increase the cap on the amount awarded to nontraditional students who don’t attend college directly out of high school from $12 million to $16 million starting in the 2014-15 school year.

There are 2,348 of these students getting scholarships at universities and 1,294 at two-year colleges, according to the Department of Higher Education.

But Rep. Darrin Williams, D-Little Rock, said the constitutional amendment that authorized creation of a state lottery for college scholarships “was sold” to voters in 2008 as a way to increase the number of recipients of four year degrees in Arkansas.

“Do you think your tiered approach is consistent with what was sold the people when they voted [on the constitutional amendment],” he asked Gillam during the House Rules Committee’s 12-minute consideration of the bill.

Gillam replied, “Absolutely I do,” adding that his bill would increase the number of college graduates in Arkansas.

He said his bill also would ensure that the Legislature wouldn’t have to lower the scholarship amounts every two years.

But Williams said, “It appears that the hit here is being felt much more deeply by our four-year institutions.”

Gillam said the Academic Challenge Scholarship that is funded with lottery proceeds and $20 million a year in state general revenue is not the only scholarship available to students at four-year universities.

He said 90 percent of scholarship recipients at universities also receive other financial assistance.

Gillam said he doesn’t think his bill would have the effect on universities that Williams is concerned about.

Nonetheless, Rep. Mark Perry, D-Jacksonville, said, “It seems like you would be penalizing kids and almost forcing them to go to a twoyear college because of the funding [under the bill]. Is that the intention?”

Gillam replied, “No sir, not at all.

“The point of this was to put the decision back to the student as to where they went. It wasn’t about the institutions at all. It was about what the students of Arkansas deserve out of the lottery scholarship,” he said.

“This [scholarship] is just one aspect of their financial package, if they choose to go to a four-year institution, and the numbers bear that out,” Gillam said.

Gillam’s bill represents a modification of a proposal that Key unveiled in September.

In the fall, Key proposed that future first-time scholarship recipients at two- and four-year schools get $2,000 in the first year, $3,000 in the second, $4,000 as juniors and $5,000 as seniors.

At that time, former Lt. Gov. Bill Halter of North Little Rock, who led the 2008 campaign for the lottery amendment, told reporters that Key’s proposal “is in no way what was described to Arkansas voters in the campaign for the scholarship lottery.” Halter is now running for the Democratic nomination for governor in 2014.

In December, the Legislature’s lottery oversight committee recommended that the Legislature cut the amounts of scholarships for first-time recipients to $3,300 a year at the universities and $1,650 a year at the two-year colleges.

The cuts were necessary because the state had too many scholarship recipients and not enough lottery proceeds, the committee said.

Committee co-chairman Sen. Robert Thompson, DParagould, said Wednesday that he’s decided not to introduce legislation to cut the scholarship amounts like the committee recommended.

“I am supporting the compromise that was reached in the House Rules Committee,” he said.

Thompson said he’s notheard about any opposition to Gillam’s legislation in the Senate.

Key, who was co-chairman of the lottery oversight committee when it recommended the cuts in December, said, “We always recognize that’s a recommendation and is not necessarily set in stone.

“This will keep us from having to come back in a year or two years and possibly lowering [scholarship amounts] again based on leaving the structure the way it is now,” he said.

Shane Broadway, interim director of the Department of Higher Education, said department officials project that the scholarship program wouldn’t fall short of the cash needed to make the scholarship payments to students through fiscal 2018, assuming the lottery raises $90 million a year for scholarships.

Broadway, who hasn’t taken a position on the legislation, said there is no way to know whether Gillam’s bill will affect enrollment at the two-year and four-year schools unless it is implemented.

Becky Paneitz, president at Northwest Arkansas Community College, said the bill “levels the playing field for entering freshmen who may have a better opportunity for success if they begin at a community college where they can benefit from smaller class sizes and more personalized instruction.”

At the Arkansas State University System, Welch said he supports Gillam’s bill.

“While the bill is not perfect, and I would prefer higher amounts for students in the freshman and sophomore years, I am mindful of the financial limitations and realities we currently face.”

He said he’s pleased that the bill allows for a $4 million increase in scholarship funds for nontraditional students.

At the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, Chancellor G. David Gearhart understands that lawmakers had a difficult decision to make and “accepts” the compromise made under Gillam’s bill, said university spokesman John Diamond.

“The most important thing is to continue to provide financial assistance to make and keep higher education accessible to Arkansans,” Diamond said.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 02/14/2013

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