LITTLE ROCK — A presentation to state lawmakers Tuesday on the funding formula for higher education turned into a debate over whether lottery scholarships are enticing students to four-year institutions when they would be better served at two-year schools.
Informed that the percentage of students choosing four-year colleges over two-year schools has risen from 60 percent to 80 percent since the lottery scholarships began, some lawmakers suggested reducing the scholarship amounts for freshmen and sophomores and raising them for juniors and seniors.
Shane Broadway, interim director of the state Higher Education Department, said he was surprised by the jump in students attending four-year colleges. He said he expected students to understand that four-year schools are much more expensive and that the scholarships to two-year colleges actually cover much more.
The first lottery scholarships, awarded in 2010, were $5,000 a year to attend four-year institutions and $2,500 for two-year schools. This year, the Legislature reduced the awards to $4,500 and $2,250.
Rep. Tiffany Rogers, D-Stuttgart, suggested that students who complete their first two years of college should receive higher scholarship amounts than freshmen and sophomores. The change would not only award students for achievement, but also would possibly reduce the pressure on some younger students to immediately attend a four-year school when they might be better served starting at a two-year school.
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Lawmakers attending a joint meeting of the House and Senate Committees on Education also were told that 40 percent of freshmen were unable to maintain grades good enough to retain lottery scholarships for the second year.
“I think we would be more equitable if we would award the (scholarships) to freshmen or sophomores at any school … two- or four-year, at one amount, and then if they do transfer, or if they are in a four-year school to start with, their junior and senior year (scholarships) are a higher amount,” Rogers said after the meeting.
Rogers said she hopes to file legislation for the change during the upcoming fiscal session.
“I just feel that there are some students who would be better served if they started out at a two-year school,” she said, noting many freshmen need remediation courses. “I think they mature more and then they’re more prepared to then go on to a four year school.”
Rep. Ann Clemmer, R-Benton, a political science professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, spoke against reducing the scholarship amounts for freshmen and sophomores.
She said first- and second-year classes at four-year schools, where the student-teacher ratio is sometimes 40-1 or higher, subsidize junior and senior classes, which are more specialized and often have student-teacher ratios of 10-1 or less.
“The per-student cost varies essentially between two-year colleges and four-year colleges because the income-generating classes are at the freshman and sophomore level,” she said. “The universities are paying substantially more for the smaller classes at the junior and senior year.”
Reducing the lottery scholarship amounts to drive freshmen and sophomores to two-year colleges would hurt four-year schools, which are already struggling financially, Clemmer said.
“If we take money away from the four-year colleges so that we can educate everybody at the freshmen and sophomore level somewhere else, then … if we want to increase our four-year graduation rates, we will have to turn around and fund those institutions more,” she said.
Rep. John Burris, R-Harrison, said something should be done to help the two-year schools where getting an education is much more affordable.
“It’s cheaper to educate at a two-year college but yet we’re driving (students) to … more costly education on the front end,” Burris said.