(AP) — When it comes to controversy, LSU System President John Lombardi doesn’t wilt, and he’s launched an attack on one of Louisiana’s sacred political cows by pushing cuts to the free college tuition program called TOPS.The program, whose full name is the Taylor Opportunity Program for Students, named after the late oilman Pat Taylor, costs nearly $130 million and grows annually. Its price tag has topped $1.2 billion since TOPS began more than a decade ago.Lombardi argues giving free tuition on the state’s dime without regard for a student’s need or family income might have been a good idea once but should be reconsidered amid years of projected state budget shortfalls — and with higher education on the chopping block.”There’s a significant number of TOPS recipients who clearly don’t need it … I’d like to say to people making a hundred grand and above, ‘Maybe you need a TOPS certificate, but maybe you don’t need the money,'” Lombardi recently told a panel looking at ways to restructure public higher education in Louisiana.Taking on TOPS is like attacking motherhood and apple pie, and the idea of scaling back the program isn’t gaining many fans outside the university community. The Legislature has killed similar proposals in years past, and Lombardi’s arguments aren’t expected to change many minds at the Capitol, despite the state’s budget woes.High school students in Louisiana have been told if they meet certain standards and take certain courses, the state will pay their tuition, that they will be given a “scholarship.” To change the rules now, said Sen. Ben Nevers, chairman of the Senate Education Committee, “will be going back on a promise that the Legislature made, and I don’t think that we should do that.”The real rub to Lombardi — and to other university leaders who are quieter about their discontent with TOPS — is the program’s tie to any discussion of raising tuition in Louisiana.Any tuition increase causes the cost of the TOPS program in the state budget to rise, so lawmakers doggedly refuse to relinquish control over tuition hikes. Higher education officials looking to student charges to fill budget gaps are stymied in that approach, partly by TOPS.TOPS covers four years of tuition at in-state colleges for any Louisiana student who meets high school course requirements, graduates with a midlevel grade point average and reaches certain benchmarks on the college entrance exam. Additional stipends are given to students who meet higher standards.The program started in 1998. Over the years, lawmakers have questioned its disproportionate nature, that more white students get the free tuition than black students, that LSU has more TOPS students than other campuses and that some students could afford school without state help.Of the TOPS recipients claimed as dependents by their parents, nearly 38 percent come from families bringing in more than $100,000 a year, including about 6 percent whose families earn above $250,000, according to self-reported data compiled by the Louisiana Office of Student Financial Assistance.Nevers said the parents’ income doesn’t matter in the TOPS debate.”Would you say a student earned that scholarship or their parents?” he said. “Students have no control over what their parents make.”Besides modest tweaks, attempts to scale back the program — by looking at students’ needs or forcing students who drop out of college to pay back the money — have never gone anywhere in the Legislature.That reality hasn’t stopped Lombardi from taking shots at the program.—-Contact The Daily Reveille’s news staff at [email protected]