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The Tennessee Conservative [By Jason Vaughn] –
A college student and her professor are teaming up with a proposal to amend the Tennessee Promise Scholarship to allow students greater access to the program.
The Tennessee Promise scholarship is a last dollar scholarship that provides full tuition and mandatory fees for high school seniors who attend any of the 13 community colleges or 27 TCAT facilities across the state. This allows the students to graduate without any outstanding debt.
Anika Schultz is a student at Pellissippi State Community College in Knox County. She, along with political science professor Jesse Cragwall, are proposing that students be given a second chance at the scholarship, even after missing a deadline or losing the scholarship.
“I know a lot of people who have both utilized it and have lost it,” Schultz said.
The Tennessee Promise requires that a student take 12 credit hours to receive the scholarship. If a student takes fewer hours than that, they lose the scholarship and are unable to regain it.
Schultz sees this as a problem for many students.
“A lot of students have to work or, you know, they’re a mom and they have to provide for their children, and they have responsibilities outside of school,” Schultz said. “To expect someone to be able to maintain, you know, full-time credit hours for their entire two years of community college, sometimes that’s just not reasonable.”
The proposed bill would institute a probationary semester, giving students a chance to regain the scholarship after working back up to full-time student status.
It would also allow for a gap year, meaning students could wait one year after high school before applying and enrolling in college.
The current guidelines require students to apply for the scholarships during the fall semester of their senior year of high school. Students who miss that deadline or who have not decided exactly what their post-secondary school plans are do not have a chance to apply for that scholarship later.
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According to Russ Deaton, executive vice chancellor for policy and strategy at the Tennessee Board of Regents, enrollment in Tennessee community colleges dropped almost 10% this past year.
“If there are practical ways we can address that locally, this is one practical way to do that – to open the door to some of those individuals who were removed or prohibited from pursuing community college because they didn’t address that after their senior year of high school,” Cragwall said.
Both Schultz and Cragwall realize that the amendment will require additional funding for the program.
Schultz’s bill was selected by the Tennessee Intercollegiate State Legislature as one of ten to be named Priority Legislation and to be presented to the Tennessee General Assembly. Now, they are looking for a legislator to carry the bill through the process after it is presented by the TISL.
Representative Justin Lafferty of Knoxville is the chair of the House Higher Education Subcommittee. The pair would like for him to consider taking it on.
“This is the kind of stuff that his committee can and should be dealing with,” Cragwall said. “And I would think that because this is an issue that has come about within his district, it may be of significant interest to him.”
If no one sponsors the bill, it will likely not make it far, but Schultz and Cragwall are hopeful that the bill will bring about changes to help more students qualify for the scholarship.
About the Author: Jason Vaughn, Media Coordinator for The Tennessee Conservative ~ Jason previously worked for a legacy publishing company based in Crossville, TN in a variety of roles through his career. Most recently, he served as Deputy Directory for their flagship publication. Prior, he was a freelance journalist writing articles that appeared in the Herald Citizen, the Crossville Chronicle and The Oracle among others. He graduated from Tennessee Technological University with a Bachelor’s in English-Journalism, with minors in Broadcast Journalism and History. Contact Jason at news@TennesseeConservativeNews.com
One Response
This is just another lack of responsibility. Rules are rules. Young people need to learn that they need to follow the rules not change them. I guess they need to be retrained or trained. They probably weren’t trained in the first place. GROW UP!!