Legislature cuts Scholarship

I will say this slowly so the penny pinching Republicans in the South Dakota legislature can understand:  If you want young people to stay in South Dakota, give them scholarship money! This is from the Rapid City Journal:

Senate Appropriations Chairman Jerry Apa, R-Lead, said that under the law passed last year, scholarship winners would get about $785 apiece because 827 students qualified but lawmakers budgeted for only 650. Through the amendment added to HB1028 Thursday, an extra $177,000 would keep the scholarships at $1,000 each this year.

Senate President Lee Schoenbeck, R-Watertown, said the move more than meets the promise made to students.

"To pro-rate the money, that is the promise in (last year's) bill," Schoenbeck said. "But I think that's wrong. We have doubled our commitment, and we're doing it in a way that's fair."

Senate Majority Leader Eric Bogue, R-Faith, said that because no Opportunity Scholarship winners are close to their senior year, he doubts they would miss the extra $1,000.

"As a college student, I was barely able to plan to the end of the current term, let alone the next student year," Bogue said. "I would argue that no one would feel robbed of the $1,000 that was originally in this plan."

So let me see if I have this straight. Because we actually have more smart kids than we thought, we will cut the promised scholarships. What kind of commitment to education is that? God forbid we should actually (shudder) increase funding to meet our commitments. And according to Mr. Bogue, because college kids are frivolous, they won’t even notice that we are decreasing the promised scholarships in the senior year. Thanks for the kind words, sir. What they will notice, though, is that the total scholarship packages from schools in other states might be larger, and then choose to go there instead. This reduction in scholarship money won’t affect those who are in college now, but may influence the decision of a high school senior who sees South Dakota cutting back its commitment to higher education.