The House Education Committee has advanced a bill providing additional college funding for lower-income students. The bill creates an endowment to fund scholarships based entirely on financial need. South Dakota Board of Regents C-E-O Jack Warner says the money could make the difference of whether someone can attend college.
As Warner explains, "These would be awarded as what we call ‘last-dollar scholarships,’ for students who have financial need. And that’s determined by a process that makes them eligible for the federal Pell Grant—so we are not inventing a way to determine financial need.
"The students with what we call the highest degree of unmet need would be first in line to receive the scholarships—once they’re allocated to the institution. So, the money would be allocated to institutions based on the number of Pell Grants they have; they need to agree to match it three-to-one, so it leverages the original investment—and that produces the 500 to two-thousand dollar range of scholarships for 800 to a thousand students."
Warner says the poorest 25 percent of students are now nine times less likely to earn a college degree than those in the top income categories. The bill received House Education approval, and advances to the Joint Appropriations Committee.