Let the Crybabies work
I worked full-time and kept up with my kids as best as I could. Somehow, I held down full-time enrollment, and my GPA, which started out at 3.0 my first semester, rose steadily and I graduated with a 3.71 GPA and a bunch of honors.
But in spite of my full-time enrollment and my grades, I could not receive a penny of lottery money. A provision in the lottery funding requires all students to complete college in four years' time - a clause which disqualifies almost every adult (taxpaying, since most adults have jobs) student. Even those who go back and prove themselves, as I and many other older students do.
In my case, the lottery not only didn't help me, it actually hurt me when tuition increases put thousands of dollars of extra financial burden upon me. Thanks, Jim Hodges (Jimmy, I hope you're reading this ... or if you know him, pass this his way).
This story in the Rock Hill Herald made me want to laugh:
Lottery profits were $273 million in the year ending June 30, down from a peak of $320 million in 2005-2006.
Meanwhile, the cost of the college scholarship program is expected to grow by at least $10 million a year over the next three years.
Lottery profits pay for most of the scholarships, which totaled an estimated $245 million last year. However, $50 million from the state's general fund also was needed to pay for LIFE scholarships. The taxpayer share of the LIFE program is projected to rise to more than $80 million for the year that just began.
"The decline in revenue was predictable," Senate Finance Committee chairman Hugh Leatherman said. "After three to five years, every lottery experiences a decline in revenue."
Today, any S.C. student who qualifies for the LIFE scholarship receives the $5,000-a-year grant. However, Leatherman said the most likely way to control the future cost of the scholarship program would be to cut that amount. That could be done by capping the total amount to be paid out in state-financed scholarships and then dividing that money by the number of students who qualify.
If the number of students qualifying continues to grow, the amount of the individual grants would decline.
But state Sen. Larry Martin, R-Pickens, said lawmakers should honor the commitment they made to give more S.C. students a chance to get a higher education.
I've conducted polling in a number of political campaigns around the state, and anytime I asked where lottery funds should go, the overwhelming majority say the money needs to go into K-12, not college funding. I'd put the average of those responses at about four-to-one in favor of K-12 funding.
Given the dangerous condition of our school bus fleet, I'd say that should be a priority for education funding. Or maybe paying off the billion dollars in school construction bonds the state issued in the late 1990s. Not pandering to a bunch of kids who don't value a college education enough to sacrifice for it.
Now, we see that the costs for paying for the lottery will infringe upon the so called benefits of the lottery.
Let us have a forensic accounting of all the money that comes in through the lottery and lets let the people know just how much goes to so called administrative costs.
Then, we might have some justice.
Kudos to you for getting tough. Indeed, you have earned my respect over the years.
working in the construction industry, i'm a big believer that not everyone needs a bachelor's degree on the wall to pursue their career. but clearly a high school education won't cut it any more.
maybe we need to be asking ourselves if we need to reconsider what we're doing with K-12 education? but that's another discussion.
thanks for the kudos ... not sure if i know you, but thanks nonetheless, and keep on coming back.
Agree with earlier comments, and congratulations to you for sticking it out.
Overall, yes, I do think we have reached a point of diminishing returns with education spending in most areas.
But there is no disputing the immediate needs of our school bus fleet, as well as the value of improving our state's finances by paying off a sizable chunk of its bonded debt.
Your snide and prejudicial mindset aside, I think if you show most people in this state, myself included, a problem and convince us that a reasonable amount of funding can help show substantive progress, we'll support your idea.
But we've substantially increased our state's education funding, in terms of the share of the state budget and in real dollars, and are in the same position as we were back in the 60s and 70s, where nobody cared if we were last in the nation.
This being the case, doesn't this make a rational argument that there is no significant correlation between increased education funding and performance?
I'm sure you're just going to look at this and think of this as just more drivel from "another one of those skinflint Republican who want to shut down all the schools but the segregated ones" ... but that mindset is one of the biggest contributors to the current problem in clearing the policy logjam.
As a parent of children in public schools, I care enough about them to want to make sure they have the best resources at hand. I certainly care more about them than to throw money at them and hope it miraculously solves the problem.