Contact: Erika Martinez
(505)986-4819
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 28, 2014
Last Minute Amendment Hurts New Mexico Students and Families
Lottery Scholarship Fix Needs a Fix after House Amendment Removes All Freshmen From Lottery Scholarship Program
Santa Fe, NM – Senator Michael S. Sanchez (D-29-Bernalillo, Valencia County) today revealed that the House Floor Amendment to Senate Bill 347 “Lottery Tuition Scholarship Fund Solvency,” passed in the final minutes of the 2014 legislative session, contained errors that will negatively impact incoming college and university freshmen and their families. The House Floor Amendment was described by its sponsor Representative Jason Harper (R-57-Sandoval) as “providing equal scholarship awards to all qualified students for seven semesters.” However, the Floor Amendment’s actual language requires something different.
The Floor Amendment requires that the lottery scholarship not be available for qualified students until their “second program semester.” A “program semester” means those semesters that a student may receive a tuition scholarship but does not include the first semester a student attends college. Currently, eligible incoming freshmen do not receive the lottery scholarship until the spring semester of their freshmen year. However, many students are eligible for a “bridge” scholarship during the fall semester of their freshmen year. The effect of the Floor Amendment is that freshmen beginning their college careers in the 2014 fall semester will not be eligible to receive a lottery scholarship until the 2015 fall semester.
“Senate Bill 347, as passed by the Senate, provided incoming freshmen and sophomores with 100% of their tuition covered by the Legislative Lottery Scholarship. The rationale for doing so was to encourage high school graduates to seek higher education. Ironically, the House Floor Amendment won’t just reduce the amount of scholarship for these students, it will prevent them from being eligible to receive any scholarship assistance for their first year and may ultimately discourage students from pursuing their dreams of a college education,” said Senator Sanchez.
In an attempt to provide some assurance to students and their families, Senator Sanchez sent a letter to the public post-secondary institutions requesting that affected students be allowed to defray their tuition for the spring, 2015 semester until the 2015 legislature tries to correct the errors created by Representative Harper’s Floor Amendment, as well as seek additional funding for full lottery scholarships. Many universities agreed to defray tuition for the spring, 2014 semester until the legislature appropriated money to the lottery fund in anticipation of the lottery scholarship fund’s possible insolvency. Senator Sanchez is asking for a similar response from the institutions.
“The House Floor Amendment to the lottery bill is the latest example of why important policy decisions should not be rushed. There is too much room for error. Last year’s tax package was passed so quickly that its total cost to the state’s general fund was not accurately revealed until several weeks after the legislature had adjourned. This year, the sponsor of the Amendment to the lottery bill changed important language without fully understanding the mechanics of the original bill. His Amendment has left many New Mexico families with uncertainty over how they will pay for the first year of a college education,” says Senator Sanchez. “This practice of 11th hour legislation has backfired now two years in a row and needs to stop before more negative consequences hurt more innocent New Mexicans.”
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