Louisiana is wasting a vast amount of money on below-average students.
The Taylor Opportunity Program for Students, otherwise known as TOPS, doled out $166 million to Louisiana students last year to attend state and private universities.
While this number seems fittingly high because of the recent recession and anemic economic recovery, it’s important to note that a large amount of TOPS rewards are being misallocated.
The minimum requirement for in-state students to obtain free tuition, called the “Opportunity Award,” requires a 2.5 GPA in high school and a minimum 20 on the ACT.
This is hardly fair to out-of-state students who pay more than $12,000 per semester to attend LSU.
The national average for ACT scores is 20.9. Louisiana, of course, falls below average in every single aspect of the test.
So, again, it seems fitting that the state would reward below average students with a complimentary college education.
This is where the system needs reform.
The ballooning costs of the program will, in the coming years, become too much of a burden on taxpayers who expect attendees of the state’s universities to return their investment down the road.
There is no reason that Louisiana taxpayers should foot the bill for students who score below average on their ACT scores.
If we raised standards so that only the top students in the state received benefits, then we could start down a path to make the program affordable. That would effectively eliminate the Opportunity Award.
However, by raising standards, we could take away disadvantaged students’ opportunity to attend college. And the system already favors privileged students.
TOPS is strictly a merit-based program, and with 81 percent of state scholarship spending going to these instead of need-based programs, the problem is already before us.
Only 17 percent of financial aid beneficiaries receive money because they need it.
A 2011 Louisiana Budget Project report showed that 72 percent of all TOPS recipients came from families with incomes greater than $50,000 a year. That’s a little bit more than the average firefighter makes.
That leaves 28 percent of recipients from households that make less than $50,000 a year. However, these people account for 56 percent of the state’s population.
On the other end, a full 39 percent of TOPS recipients come from families that make more than $100,000 a year, while only 16 percent of Louisiana households make that much.
In essence, we are giving too much money to people who don’t need it.
Black students are especially disfavored, according to the report. The state’s universities are comprised of 32 percent African Americans while only 11.6 percent receive TOPS.
The system clearly does not intend to benefit lower income students.
As a solution, we could raise standards, or even eliminate the lowest rung so that students seeking free tuition would have to score higher than the national average on their ACT.
This would have two benefits.
First, we would be raising the standard for public education around the state, and students would strive harder to have scores that beat the national average.
Second, it would free up more funds to use on need-based grants that would benefit lower income families whose children do not have the same opportunities as those who would qualify for merit-based awards.
It is hard to rationalize a merit-based system that rewards students who, compared with the rest of the country, have little merit.
Forty percent of students on TOPS lose their award at some point in their college career. Why should the taxpayers be forced to pay for students who are not ready to take their work seriously, when they are given an unfair opportunity?
The system is broken, but don’t take it from me – I’m on TOPS.
Eli Haddow is a 20-year-old English and history junior from New Orleans.