With higher education in a state of flux, many states are seeing the need to prioritize how much aid can be provided to students.
Georgia’s HOPE program — considered an archetype and an equivalent to Louisiana’s TOPS program — is on the chopping block, leading some to question future funding for Louisiana’s popular aid program.
Georgia is facing a $4.2 billion shortfall for fiscal year 2011 coupled with ever-increasing costs for the HOPE program.
Louisiana shares a similar situation with its own $1.6 billion shortfall. Likewise, tuition is set to increase by at least 10 percent per year in the next decade, causing the price tag for TOPS to continue upward.
While HOPE will be debated in Georgia’s current legislative session, Louisiana lawmakers have already rejected changes to TOPS for years running. The last legislative session saw three bills intended to cap TOPS fail. Sen. Butch Gautreaux, D-Morgan City, has authored a bill to cap TOPS at 90-percent tuition costs for two years running.
Gautreaux told The Daily Reveille in March he authored the bill to stem the rising cost of the program to already strained state coffers.
“The state is in real fiscal trouble. If we don’t do something to the amount of the award, we are going to lose it all together,” Gautreaux said.
As of last year, the TOPS program cost the state more than $124 million. That cost has more than doubled from $55 million in 1999, according to statistics from the Louisiana Office of Financial Aid.
Higher education has the authority to raise tuition 10 percent through most of the next decade if certain performance measures are met. The University is also seeking further authority to raise tuition, which could in turn drive the cost of TOPS higher.
University Assistant Vice Chancellor of Legislative and External Affairs Jason Droddy said the expense of rising tuition in regards to TOPS will hypothetically be offset by state efforts to shift more students into two-year institutions.
Both Droddy and Chancellor Michael Martin said they didn’t expect any major debate in the session over the program.
“There is redistricting, an election coming up and a major budget challenge,” Martin said. “I don’t think they are going to try to take on a major reform of TOPS.”
While Martin said he didn’t expect any changes to TOPS this summer, he also said it might not be a bad idea to rethink the rules of the program.
“Students have a greater incentive to stay in school and finish a degree if they get a little of their skin in the game,” Martin said.
Martin said making students repay the award if they drop out before their junior year would provide greater incentive for students to graduate and solve the problem of students “taking a flier on college.”
The 2011 Legislative Regular Session begins April 25.
 
 
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Contact Xerxes A. Wilson at [email protected]