One by one, efforts to revamp the Taylor Opportunity Program for Students were killed in the Legislature, and usually by lopsided margins.
Toughen the rules to earn and keep TOPS?
It failed in the House 34-48.
Convert TOPS to a $4,000 per year stipend, a cut of up to 54 percent from current funding?
Latest bid to overhaul TOPS crushed in House; see who voted for, against it
It died in the Senate Education Committee despite being sponsored by the chairman of the panel.
Overhaul how TOPS is allocated when the program is underfunded?
That plan was crushed in the House 27-70, leaving the sponsor of the bill a little taken aback.
“I was surprised by it,” state Rep. Gary Carter, D-New Orleans said of the vote.
Those and other TOPS bills were killed during the 2018 regular session, which ended Friday night, for three reasons.
Push to overhaul TOPS and cut some aid rejected by Senate panel after heavy criticism
“It is such a popular program and it is kind of a sacred cow,” said House Education Committee Chairwoman Nancy Landry, R-Lafayette.
Also, neither a 10-member task force that studied the issue for months nor the full Legislature could reach any consensus on what to change and how to change it.
Finally, Louisiana’s ongoing budget crisis, including a $648 million shortfall, made lawmakers leery of any overhaul.
“I think what is driving the apprehension to reform or to adjust TOPS at the present moment is our financial uncertainity,” said Joshua Stockley, associate professor of political science at the University of Louisiana at Monroe.
No ‘fundamental change’ for Louisiana’s TOPS program as latest overhaul bid trounced in House
“No one wants to make any changes because we don’t know what the financial impact of that change might be,” Stockley said.
About 52,000 students get the assistance at a cost of $292 million this year.
Students have to earn a 2.5 grade point average on their high school core curriculum, and a 20 on the ACT, which measures college readiness, to qualify for the most common form, called TOPS Opportunity.
The aid finances most college tuition.
Whether TOPS will be fully funded for the 2018-19 school year is unclear, and depends on the outcome of a special session that begins Tuesday.
The rejection of multiple TOPS bills had little to do with whether the aim was to toughen or loosen standards or shore up financing.
They all died.
More than half of Louisiana high school graduates qualify for TOPS in 2017, a first in state history
In the final days of the session, two bills that would have allowed some students to qualify for TOPS Opportunity with a 17 on the ACT were killed not once but twice.
Those measures, Senate Bill 380 and Senate Bill 394, were first defeated in the morning by the House Appropriations Committee after earlier clearing the Senate.
A few hours later a bid to stick them on another, minor TOPS proposal failed resoundingly in the House 28-63.
Sen. Bodi White, R-Central, sponsor of one of the bills, said backers of the aid oppose change of any kind.
“But it is going to get harder and harder to fund and I am less likely to fund more and more if we can never make changes over 20 years,” a frustrated White said. “Everything evolves.”
After two plans killed in House, TOPS program to remain largely unchanged
James Caillier, executive director of the Taylor Foundation, which is named for the co-founder of TOPS, said efforts to change the program died for a simple reason. “None of the bills offered any positive solutions to some of the concerns about TOPS,” Caillier said.
“And I think people are satisfied with the way it is now,” he added. “It is highly recognized nationwide as one of the best programs in the country.”
Rep. Barry Ivey, R-Central, who sponsored the bill to make it harder to earn and keep TOPS, said the wholesale rejection of changes to the programs points up a bigger problem. “The status quo is the hardest thing to change in this building,” Ivey said, a reference to the State Capitol.
“What has come to a head in my opinion is the lack of will to prioritize funding for TOPS and the lack of will to reform TOPS,” he said. “It is a bad impasse.”
Rep. Carter’s bill was aimed at ensuring 100 percent funding for Louisiana’s best students and the same for TOPS recipients from low-income families.
Opponents said that meant some students, when TOPS is underfunded, would only get 28 percent of their customary award.
“I tried to use the best ideas from the Republican Party, the best ideas from the Democratic Party, to come up with this hybrid,” he said of his legislation.
“I was surprised by the vote, 27, 28 votes,” Carter said of the lackluster support in the House.
Eva Kemp, state director of Democrats for Education Reform/Louisiana, worked for Carter’s bill and called it a common sense approach.
“I think some legislators, not all of them, lack enough awareness or courage or fortitude to make significant changes to TOPS even in the face of the budget situation we are in,” Kemp said.
The fact a 10-member legislative task force failed to reach a consensus after months of study was a tipoff on how hard it would be for any substantive plan to clear the Legislature.
Landry said the lack of agreement stems from ongoing arguments on whether TOPS should be based on merit or financial need.
“Everybody wants to define TOPS the way their particular district wants to define it,” she said. “And so it is really hard to find consensus on anything.”
She added, “Apparently people want it to stay the way it is right now, and it is a merit-based program.”
As often happens, ongoing questions about TOPS leave students and families making college choices in the dark.
Stockely said his work email is jammed with messages from students worried about the future of the aid, and higher education in general.
“They are recognizing that the Legislature refuses to make a long term decision,” he said.
Ivey made the same point.
“The people back home deserve better, and our kids who we make commitments to for these scholarships deserve our follow through in providing for them,” he said. “It is a political hot potato, obviously.”
