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One of the Lottery Scholarship bills passed by the House and sent to the Senate would drastically cut the money given to students, while the other would maintain award amounts but expand the amount of time students have to enter higher education institutions.
The two bills are substitutes of two other House Bills addressing Lottery Scholarship that were defeated in the Senate.
The Lottery Scholarship, which provides tuition for eligible New Mexicans attending state universities, is slated to effectively run out of funds this July if full tuition continues to be awarded to the group of eligible students starting school this fall.
HB 27, sponsored by Rep. Sheryl Williams Stapleton (D-Albuquerque) passed the House by a vote of 49-13 and HB 309, sponsored by Rep. James P. White (R-Albuquerque) passed 46-17. The bills are slated to be heard by the Senate Education committee, hearing date to be determined.
HB 27 would give high school students two years rather than 120 days after graduation to enroll in a two-year college or a technical or vocational school, and would give military veterans two years rather than one year after an honorable or medical discharge to enroll in a four-year university. Nonmilitary students attending four-year colleges would still have 120 days.
HB 309 would increase the required number of credit hours taken per semester to receive and keep the award from 12 to 15, and decrease the number of semesters of awarded tuition from eight to seven. It also reduces the amount of tuition received by four-year university students to $1,200 per semester, but would still pay full tuition for two-year college students. In-state tuition at UNM for full-time students was $3,024 this semester.
Hearings began Monday in the House Education Committee on HB 586, co-sponsored by Rep. James E. Smith (R-Sandia Park) and Sen. Tim Keller (D-Albuquerque), and will continue throughout the week.
This bill was drafted with contributions from ASUNM President Caroline Muraida and former Student Regent Jacob Wellman.
The bill would turn the Lottery Scholarship into a need-based award. The bill would grant partial scholarships to some students based on family income. Students whose families make less than $54,000 a year would receive a full award. Students whose families have combined annual incomes between $54,000 and $100,000 would receive 85 percent of the scholarship and students whose families make more than $100,000 would receive 70 percent of the award.
The fiscal impact report released for the bill cites as an issue the fact that the bill bases the scaled award on total family income. The report suggests instead basing the award on a total family contribution, including family income and other financial assets, to the student’s education.
In the Senate, one Lottery Scholarship bill was subsumed into another and passed to the House Tuesday by a unanimous vote, and the other bill has not yet been heard.
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SB 392, sponsored by Sen. Michael S. Sanchez (D-Belen), was defeated in the Senate Education Committee. A substitute bill passed the committee and was sent to the Senate Finance Committee, but was combined with SB 113 sponsored by Sen. John Arthur Smith (D-Deming).
The provision combined into SB 113, which deals with funding state social programs with money from tobacco settlement permanent fund, would annually funnel 25 percent of the state’s tobacco fund, or about $10 million of the permanent fund’s projected $39.5 million this year, into the Lottery Scholarship, starting this July. The fund consists of money paid by tobacco companies to the state to pay back tobacco-related health care costs.
