For 18 years, motorists have shown support for LSU while providing funding for scholarships.Through thousands of sales, the LSU License Plate Program has raised nearly $2 million for financially needy students since it began in 1992.The funding from the custom plates, which are sold across Louisiana through the LSU Alumni Association, provides scholarship dollars for students continuing in higher education after completing terms at two-year colleges.”We try to focus this money on transfers and any type of continuing student who may need funding,” said Mary Parker, director of Undergraduate Admissions and Student Aid. “We want to utilize these funds for our Louisiana students and attract them to LSU.”The license plate funds are directed at students who have completed at least 24 credit hours and have maintained a 3.7 GPA, Parker said. The program is not intended for freshmen, she said.Applicants are also judged based on financial need, Parker said. Students aren’t considered if they already have other major LSU scholarships, she said. Parker said only a small number of students receive the scholarship because the money comes only from license plate sales.”Money doesn’t get put back into the pot unless we sell license plates,” Parker said.Louisiana LSU license plates cost $26 a year plus plate fees for the Office of Motor Vehicles. From those proceeds, LSU receives $25 and the OMV gets $1 for processing.The average scholarship is about $1,000 a year and is divided between the fall and spring semesters, Parker said.The scholarship is only guaranteed for one year before recipients are reevaluated. LSU signature plates are available in Mississippi and Texas but only sales from within Louisiana benefit the scholarship, said Brian Hommel, University director of trademarking and licensing.States generally do not allow profits from their state to benefit other state universities, Hommel said.”Out-of-state plates are a branding opportunity in areas and regions where there is room for growth for LSU fans and possible alumni,” Hommel said.The eight Texas LSU Alumni Associations are developing a bill to present to the Texas legislature to amend a state law which only allows in-state schools to receive funding from such programs, said John Pierce, membership chairman for the LSU Alumni Association Dallas Chapter.The Texas legislature won’t meet again until 2011.Pierce said Texas currently has more than 2,600 LSU signature plates on the road. He said LSU was the first out-of-state University to earn signature plates in Texas, followed by the University of Florida and pending requests from Auburn University and the University of Oklahoma.Pierce said it only took 10 months — from Aug. 1, 2008 to July 1, 2009 — to sell the 1,900 plates required by Texas to start production.Hommel said LSU Alumni Associations in other states — like Georgia and Tennessee — are also trying to pass legislation for LSU plates.”We can’t run the branding train from here,” Hommel said. “We need outside Alumni Associations to take the wheel.”LSU Alumni Association member Norm Marcocci said he is spearheading a program to get LSU plates registered as far away as Maryland and Washington D.C.”I bleed purple and gold,” Marcocci said. “Other schools have plates out here, why not LSU?”Marcocci said he’s in the first stages of registering the plates and has 15 of the 25 commitments required to start the process.He said many alumni in the area are excited about the idea and said the next step is to find the middle ground between LSU trademarking rules and Maryland laws.The program brought in $333,047 in fiscal year 2007-08, — a 112 percent increase from 2006-07.Hommel said the Louisiana Legislature changed the fees late in 2008. The $26 biannual fee was changed to an annual fee. Hommel said LSU didn’t recommend the change but also had no control over it.—-Contact Adam Duvernay at [email protected].