Louisiana’s First Political Commandment: Taketh away TOPS and thou shalt perish.
It is Louisiana’s most valuable entitlement program, and, according to data from Louisiana Transparency and Accountability, legislators might have to sell the sacred cow to the butcher within the next few years.
TOPS is the largest source of state spending within higher education. Next year, it will likely transform from the largest source of state spending on higher education to nearly the only source.
We’ve milked the proverbial cow as much as we could under the current revenue structure. The cost of maintaining TOPS has gone from $87 million in its inaugural year, when adjusted for inflation, to more than $250 million during the 2014 fiscal year. The legislature predicts the program will reach $387 million by 2018.
If our elected officials fail to find long-term funding solutions for higher education during this legislative session, TOPS will eventually find itself
under threat of severe cuts.
Even if the bill of state Sen. Jack Donahue, R-Mandeville, becomes law and caps the amount of money given to students, the program will still end up on the next governor’s dinner plate with the state constitution force feeding it down his mouth.
Louisiana’s constitution stops legislators from cutting two-thirds of the state budget, leaving higher education and health care in the sacrificial final third.
The first step in cementing long-term viability for TOPS is to clearly define the program’s goals.
The Louisiana Board of Regents lists one of the program’s goals as keeping Louisiana students in state for college.
In 1996, prior to TOPS, 87 percent of Louisiana students remained in state for college. $2.2 billion in TOPS scholarships later, the statistics haven’t changed.
To keep the highest achieving students in state and prevent a brain drain in the sportsman’s paradise, TOPS would need to match or increase the amount of any scholarship offered by out-of-state universities — which will never happen.
Rather than simply keeping students in state for college alone, legislators could implement policies that keep TOPS recipients in state post-graduation. They could theoretically tie scholarships to contracts that have recipients work in Louisiana for a minimum amount of time or pay a percentage of the scholarships back.
Granted, that wouldn’t account for out-of-state graduate school or law school, but it’s a possible method ensuring the completion of one of TOPS’ goals.
If the goal of TOPS is to help “children of need,” as Phyllis Taylor, the widow of the program’s founder, Patrick F. Taylor, said in an interview with The Advocate last summer, then means testing TOPS would satisfy the founder’s intentions.
The issue with means testing (determining imbursements by income) is that once the state creates income-based scholarships, people begin to see the program as welfare, the program becomes easier to cut and in no time, TOPS is in the slaughterhouse.
The third and most realistic goal in Louisiana’s political climate is using TOPS as a college affordability program. Donahue’s bill can fulfill this goal.
Students from lower income families would suffer the most under a scholarship cap that puts the burden of increasing tuition on students rather than the state. However, the upside is that college would still be more affordable than out of state for most students, despite the cap.
These possible solutions in satisfying TOPS’ various goals are worthless if the state’s revenue structure remains the same.
In 2014, Louisiana gave away $1.08 billion in tax incentives to big businesses, according to The Advocate’s in-depth review of the state’s revenue system.
Wal-mart does not pay income taxes in Louisiana. The cash cow corporation also receives tax credits from the Enterprise Zone designation program and 10-year property tax exemptions in that state.
Taxpayers pay 30 percent of all local costs for movies made in Louisiana. The state paid $35 million to help make “Green Lantern.” The taxpayers only saw $8 million after the film crashed in the box office, losing $27 million.
Ryan Reynolds’ unspectacular “Green Lantern” in 2011 received more money than UNO did in 2014.
TOPS consists of approximately 1.7 percent of the state budget, yet because of our lack of tax revenues from giant corporations and the movie industry, legislators feel the need to curb TOPS’ rising costs.
Reform the tax incentive program and amend the state constitution to unprotect certain budget dedications and legislators could save TOPS and higher education from becoming the sacrificial lamb of Louisiana politics.
Justin DiCharia is a 21-year-old mass communication junior from Slidell, Louisiana. You can reach him on Twitter @JDiCharia.