State Legislative Update
February 2017
Legislative news from across the SASFAA region, prepared by
your 2016-2017 SASFAA Legislative Relations Committee.
Christen Neher – SASFAA Legislative Relations Chair
Ron Gambill – TASFAA Governmental Relations ChairMary Otto – NCASFAA Legislative Advisory Chair
Vanessa Fulton – GASFAA Legislative Affairs Chair
Erin Klarer – KASFAA Legislative Chair
Jennifer Epperson – AASFAA Legislative Relations Chair
Francisco Valines – FASFAA Legislative Relation Chair
Della Bays – VASFAA Government Relations Chair
Amanda Holliday – MASFAA Legislative Chair
Joey Derrick – SCASFAA Legislative Relations Chair
Amy Berrier – SASFAA Past President
Mike O’Grady – Legislative Knowledge Expert
Alabama
Accrediting body asks for removal of Bentley from two-year
college board:
VA Scholarship Program Cost Could Impact Other Higher Ed
Funding Requests:
Georgia
REACH Scholarship Celebrates 5 Years, 3rd
Annual REACH Day at the Capitol
The Georgia House of Representatives and the Georgia State Senate
proclaimed January 25, 2017, as REACH Georgia Day at the Capitol. In its fifth
year, REACH Georgia is currently preparing 685 students in 69 participating
school systems for high school and college completion.
REACH (Realizing Educational Achievement Can Happen) is a
public-private mentorship and needs-based scholarship program, as well as a key
component of the state’s Complete College Georgia Initiative. Upon graduation
from high school, REACH Scholars are awarded up to $10,000 to attend a
HOPE-eligible two or four-year Georgia college.
Kentucky
In what is normally just a welcome back to Frankfort week,
the House and Senate rushed
through seven of their priority bills. Which, you know, with their new
supermajority in both chambers and holding the Governor’s office is certainly
their prerogative. HOWEVER, they also used the old trickeroo of giving a dog
bite bill (SB12) two
readings before swapping the language out for the codification of Governor
Bevin’s Executive Order that reorganized the UofL Board of Trustees. Somebody
must have tipped them off that this was coming: U
of L accreditation agency blames Bevin. Let’s all say a little prayer for
UofL and hope no one gets bitten by a dog.
But wait, your school may be joining in the fun too! SB 107 permits the
Governor or other appointing authority to remove and replace certain board or
council appointments. This affects all of the public colleges and universities,
the Council on Postsecondary Education and the Kentucky Department of
Education. Hearings on this one will happen in February (in theory). I don’t
think this bill will generate the ire of SACS, but who knows. Fast legislation
= sloppy legislation = lawsuits that you and I taxpayer get to pay for.
Anyway, so what financial aid bills are there? Not many.
Yet.
HB 20
– rename KEES to the Arch Gleason Kentucky Educational Excellence Scholarship.
Arch was the long-time CEO of the KY Lottery, who passed away suddenly last
year. So this is an incredibly nice gesture, but I’d like to convince the
sponsors that a simple Resolution read in his honor would be just as
meaningful.
HB 62
– KEES for apprenticeship programs. KHEAA’s wonderful Dr. Mel Letteer did quite
a bit of research on this, and while it sounds like a great idea, this is
another one of those that would require additional up front funding. So KHEAA
would either have to get a General Fund appropriation for this, cut everyone
else’s KEES award, or take the amount from CAP and KTG. AND, for the most part
it’s the employer that is paying for apprenticeship costs, not the students
(who are paid wages, mind you). So why not have a tax deduction for employers
offering apprenticeship programs?
Other items of interest: SB 106 – Requiring
Financial Literacy lessons in high school. So kids can know what interest is!
That would be nice, wouldn’t it?
Mississippi
Partnership between Mississippi Board of Trustees of Higher
Learning and the Mississippi Development Authority will help to bridge the gap
between Mississippians being overlooked for jobs. This initiative, will
help showcase Mississippi to potential employees as well as define economic strengths
of Mississippi’s public universities. A second initiative of this
partnership, an online tool for recent graduates, will help recent graduates to
find jobs within the state instead of searching outside of Mississippi.
South
Carolina
With the 122nd
Session of the South Carolina Legislative session underway, a flurry of higher
education-related bills have been introduced. Many of those bills aim to
increase accountability and transparency, as well as cost control and
oversight. In addition, with South Carolina now using a 10 point grading
scale in K-12, changes to the academic criteria for the state-supported
scholarship and grant programs are being discussed in order to address a
possible large-scale increase in students eligible for such awards.
Virginia
Virginia
public and private nonprofit institutions awarded 119,934 degrees and
certificates in 2015-16 – a state record.
That
total represents a 3.8% increase over the previous year’s total of 115,577.
Of the 119,234 awards, 73% were from public institutions (45% from
four-year and 28% from two-year). Three in four awards were for undergraduates
in the form of bachelor's and associate’s degrees or certificates.
The Virginia General Assembly is in session, and a number of
bills pertaining to higher education have been introduced. This link
provides a list of current bills, http://schev.edu/index/agency-info/legislative/legislative-bills. Of particular
interest to financial aid professionals in the Commonwealth are HB 2427 and HB
2426 both of which pertain to the VGAP grant program, HB 1916 which establishes
the Virginia Student Loan Authority, and HB 1915 which requires loan servicers
to obtain a license from the State Corporation Commission. Each of these
bills currently are in committee.
Florida
As the Florida Legislature ramps up for the session that
starts March 7th, several bills impacting Higher Education have been
filed.
SB2, is the widest ranging, included in this bill:
1. A
requirement for the State University’s to create block tuition for
Undergraduate Students (currently tuition is charged by the credit hour).
2. Requiring
the State College System and the State University System to create 2+2 pathway
programs where each State College will establish at least one such program with
a State University.
3. Restoring
funding to The Bright Futures Florida Academic Scholars program so that 100% of
tuition and mandatory fees are covered along with a $300 book stipend.
4. Some changes
to the performance metrics for Florida State College System and State
University System.
5. Changes
to the Pre-eminent and Emerging Pre-eminent program for the State University
System
6. Changing
the First Generation Matching Grant Program from $1 state for every $1 private
to $2 state for every $1 private funds raised.
7. Renaming
the Florida Resident Access Grant (FRAG) to Effective Access to Student
Education grant.
8. Changes
to the Benacquisto Scholarship Program that will allow non-Florida residents to
receive the scholarship.
There is also SB369, included in this bill:
1. Requiring
notifying students at postsecondary institutions that receive state financial
aid:
a. The
amount of loans they have borrowed.
b. Either
the total potential payoff or an estimate of a range of the total payoff.
c. Monthly
repayment amount that may be incurred including principal and interest for
loans already taken out.
d. The
percentage of the borrowing limit the student has reached.
2. The
bill specifically states that the institution will not incur liability for
providing this information.
Tennessee
The 2017 session of the 110th Tennessee General
Assembly convened on Tuesday, January 10.
No significant bills related to state financial aid programs have been
filed but a few are anticipated to be introduced in the coming weeks after a
three-week legislative recess.
The state need-based grant program is at its highest funded
level in the history of the program for the current award year. It is hoped that an additional appropriation
will be recommended in the Governor’s budget for 2017-18.
On January 30, 2017, the Governor gave his State of the
State address which included a re-connect program that would allow all adults
the opportunity to attend a community college tuition and fees free.
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