Students with TOPS to pay tuition

By Samuel Carter Karlin Manship School News Service

For the first time in the history of the Taylor Opportunity Program for Students, the state’s flagship tuition-paying scholarship for in-state students who meet average academic benchmarks, lawmakers are cutting the program to help balance the budget.
Students will pay 30 percent of their tuition bills this upcoming school year — meaning a $1,000 to $1,700 increase in their bottom lines at most schools. While the Legislature moved into the night on budget negotiations, leadership said the TOPS funding will remain at 70 percent.
Gov. John Bel Edwards has urged lawmakers to raise enough money through tax hikes and rollbacks of tax giveaways to plug the entire $600 million budget hole. Senators believed raising $450 million would be enough to fund priorities like TOPS, which is wildly popular.
But many legislators, especially House Republicans who feel tapped out on revenue measures following a special session that raised more than $1 billion largely by increasing the state sales tax, refused many measures in Edwards’ package.
That means lawmakers have raised less than half the $600 million budget gap going into the fiscal year beginning July 1. And in looking for areas to cut, TOPS received a 30 percent haircut.
Many Republicans believe TOPS can be fully funded with the money the state currently has, citing a budget increase in the Department of Health and Hospitals from last year. But the department and Edwards’ administration holds that the increases came from former Gov. Bobby Jindal rolling over hospital costs into this year’s budget.
“Threats of cuts are being used to get us to raise taxes,” said House Education chair Nancy Landry, R-Lafayette. “The money is there to fund TOPS.”
Ultimately legislators were unable to find a way to fund TOPS with which the House and Senate could agree. Many departments and programs have been whittled down to the bone in recent years, many lawmakers argued.
House Republicans also pushed for front-loading the budget, which would fund TOPS fully in the fall and cut it in the spring if more money doesn’t materialize. But Edwards and the Senate were opposed to that tactic.
LSU System President F. King Alexander opposed front-loading the budget, saying it put students in a bad position going into the spring semester.
“To gamble on the state oil and gas money coming in and having students sitting on the edge of their seats creates a precarious, dangerous and unprecedented environment,” Alexander said.
With the cuts evenly distributed throughout the year, students receiving TOPS will pay 30 percent of their tuition bills in the upcoming school year, in addition to mandatory fees, room and board, books and other costs.

TOPS tuition costs
Here’s a look at the estimated amount a TOPS-recipient will have to pay in the upcoming school year in tuition and fees (which are not covered by TOPS), as well as the tuition and fees paid by an in-state student not receiving TOPS. The numbers used are subject to change if colleges change their fee rates in the upcoming school year.
University of Louisiana-Lafayette:
Tuition: $1,622
Tuition and mandatory fees: $4,482
Non-TOPS student tuition and fees: $8,266

University of Louisiana-Monroe
Tuition: $1,530
Tuition and mandatory fees: $4,087
Non-TOPS student tuition and fees: $7,658

Louisiana Tech University
Tuition: $1,666
Tuition and mandatory fees: $4576
Non-TOPS student tuition and fees: $8,463

Nicholls State University
Tuition: $1,477
Tuition and mandatory fees: $3,789
Non-TOPS student tuition and fees: $7,234

LSU-Shreveport
Tuition: $1,701
Tuition and mandatory fees: $3,095
Non-TOPS student tuition and fees: $6,780

LSU-Eunice
Tuition: $1,079
Tuition and mandatory fees: $1,401
Non-TOPS student tuition and fees: $3,918

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