Arkansans applying for the lottery-financed Arkansas Academic Challenge Scholarships face new eligibility requirements and, if they meet these new requirements, smaller amounts during the first year of college.
Act 1105 of 2015 -- sponsored by Sen. Jimmy Hickey, R-Texarkana -- applies to scholarship applicants and future recipients, starting with the 2016-17 school year.
The application period for state-funded financial aid opens Jan. 1, and the deadline to apply for the Academic Challenge Scholarships is June 1, said Brett Powell, director of the state Department of Higher Education.
Act 1105 requires high school graduates to have ACT scores of at least 19 or the equivalent on comparable college entrance exams to be eligible for a scholarship. The new requirement applies to future high school graduating classes, starting with the class of 2016, according to the department's website.
High school graduates previously were required to have completed the Smart Core curriculum and achieved either a high school grade-point average of at least 2.5 or a minimum score of 19 on the ACT or its equivalent.
Under Act 1105, the scholarship size for future recipients will be reduced from $2,000 to $1,000 for the freshman year at the two- and four-year colleges.
The scholarships will increase from $3,000 to $4,000 for the sophomore year at four-year colleges and from $2,000 to $3,000 for the sophomore year at two-year colleges.
Scholarship recipients will receive $4,000 as juniors and $5,000 as seniors at the four-year colleges.
Supporters of Act 1105 -- enacted by the Legislature and Gov. Asa Hutchinson earlier this year -- said it would shift scholarship money to students who completed their studies and help guard against the scholarship program running short of funds.
Critics of the measure said they worried it would hurt poor and minority-group students.
"Our analysis of the change in award criteria conducted during the legislative session indicated that approximately 1,800 students would have been eliminated if the same criteria had been applied to the fall 2014 incoming class," Powell said.
"With the first-year award moving to $1,000, that results in a $1.8 million savings in year one," he said.
"We would anticipate similar first-year savings in subsequent years. The total savings is difficult to project because we do not know how scholarship retention rates might change."
He said the department's outreach and communications coordinator conducts workshops throughout the year with high school counselors, parents and others to provide information about available financial aid.
"Those presentations have included information on the changes in Academic Challenge since they became law," Powell said.
In addition, the department's financial aid website (scholarships.adhe.edu) includes updated information on the award criteria and amounts, he said.
More than 30,000 students have received Academic Challenge Scholarships during each of the past six fiscal years.
The scholarship program is financed through the lottery's net proceeds and $20 million a year in state general revenue. There's also a $20 million lottery reserve fund that is used to counter temporary shortfalls regarding the payment of scholarships and the receipt of lottery proceeds.
Lottery revenue and net proceeds for college scholarships have declined each of the past three fiscal years, though during the first five months in fiscal 2016 they've exceeded figures for the same period in fiscal 2015. Fiscal 2016 started July 1.
Lottery Director Bishop Woosley is projecting that revenue will be $411 million and net proceeds for scholarships will be $79.5 million in fiscal 2016 -- up from revenue of $409.2 million and net proceeds of $72.4 million in fiscal 2015.
When the House approved what became Act 1105 in March of this year, Rep. Chris Richey, D-Helena-West Helena, told his colleagues that "this basically becomes the backup plan if we can't come up with something else."
Rep. Charlotte Douglas, R-Alma, also told her colleagues that "this is a fix temporarily and [its implementation] is put off for a year" until the 2016-17 school year. "In the meantime, we are going to look for other solutions," she said.
Richey said Tuesday that lawmakers, who were meeting in a regular session in March, had thought they would be convening in a fiscal session starting in February of next year.
In a subsequent special session, the Legislature changed the primary election from May 24 to March 1 to coincide with several other Southern states' presidential primaries March 1. The Legislature also moved the start of the fiscal session from Feb. 8 to April 13.
Hickey, who is co-chairman of the Legislative Council's lottery oversight committee, said Tuesday, "I am open to looking at anything as long as it makes sense," regarding the scholarship program.
Powell said he's recommended to the committee that the scholarship program's eligibility requirements be based on data analysis of success rates for past scholarship recipients. He also would allow flexibility in the amount of scholarship awards in response to fluctuations in the lottery's net proceeds and would review the program in conjunction with other state financial-aid programs to ensure that college affordability, combined with student performance, is a priority.
Richey, who also is co-chairman of the lottery oversight committee, said he has changes that he would like to make in the scholarship program, but he doesn't know whether they are possible.
"I would love to figure out how we could get a GPA. back in" to allow a high school graduate to earn the scholarship based on grade-point average, he said.
Richey said he has been advised by college officials that a high school grade-point average is the best indicator of a student's success in college.
Richey said he also would like to increase the scholarship size from $1,000 back up to $2,000 during a student's first year in college.
"Some of that is dictated by the numbers," he said, referring to lottery proceeds. "Hopefully, we can figure out a long-term solution."
Metro on 12/25/2015
Source: Lottery-scholarship cutoff set to rise
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