[Oasfaa] Update on Oklahoma's Promise legislation

[Fair, Bryce]

It appears that the Legislature has decided to make only a couple of
changes to the Oklahoma's Promise program this session.  A bill signed
out of conference committee yesterday contains no action on some of the
recommendations of the Task Force on Oklahoma's Promise that met last
fall.  The bill, SB 982, was passed on the Senate floor this afternoon
and is awaiting final action on the House floor.  As you may be aware,
the Legislature is scheduled to adjourn tomorrow, May 22.  A copy of the
text of the bill is attached.

The bill really contains only two changes:

*	Delaying the new second income limit until 2012-13 so that the
limit does not apply to any student for whom it was not a condition at
the time the student enrolled in the program in the 8th, 9th, or 10th
grade.  This was a recommendation of the OKPromise Task Force.  The Task
Force still had concerns about possible unintended consequences and the
ultimate value of eventually implementing a second income limit, even in
2012-13.  However, the most urgent issue was to make sure it was not
unfairly applied to students/parents that were not aware of it at the
time the student enrolled in the program.  Without this change, the
requirement would have inappropriately applied to about 6000 students in
2010 and another 3,000 in 2011.  While only a small percentage would
probably have actually lost the scholarship due to the second income
limit at $100,000 (maybe 3-5% of the students), the Task Force was
concerned about the credibility of the state being seen as changing the
program requirements after the students were already enrolled.  [For
example, we recently received an e-mail from an OKPromise parent of a
junior in high school who had been a single mom for seven years until
recently remarrying.  She knew that the program did not look at income a
second time when she initially enrolled her son.  However, she now
realized that she would be subject to the second income limit.  With her
new husband, their joint income is now slightly over $100,000, but her
husband also has three children of his own either in college or soon to
be.  She was very concerned that her son would now be disqualified from
receiving the OKPromise award because she had remarried.  The delay of
the second income limit in the bill will address her particular
situation.  In 2012-13, the second income limit could still deny the
award to students in this situation, but at least the parent would be
aware of the possibility from the time of initial application.]

*	Restricting the OKPromise award amount paid at state-system
four-year institutions to only the "nonguaranteed" tuition rate.
Because current law was silent on this issue, freshmen OKPromise
students entering in fall 2008 could be reimbursed for either the
higher-cost guaranteed rate (about 15% more expensive as a freshmen, but
doesn't increase if the student meets certain requirements) or the
nonguaranteed rate.  While only a small percentage of OKPromise freshmen
chose the guaranteed rate, it cost the program about an extra $100,000
in 2008-09 and would have cost about $200,000 in 2009-10.  The
guaranteed tuition option was really intended for students having to pay
their own tuition so they could choose some cost certainty during their
college career.  Paying the guaranteed rate with OKPromise was an
unnecessary cost since the program already guarantees to pay the
student's actual tuition rates as long as the student remains eligible.
This change would become effective for all enrollment periods beginning
on or after July 1, 2009.


Following are items that are not addressed by the bill:

*	There is no change in the current family income limit applied at
the time of application in the 8th, 9th, or 10th grade.  It will remain
at $50,000 (regardless of family size) and be based on total taxable and
nontaxable income.  The OKPromise Task Force had recommended that the
income limit be adjusted for family size and be based only on Adjusted
Gross Income (AGI).

*	There is no change or delay in the college GPA requirements.
Beginning with students entering college in 2010-11, the students must
attain a 2.0 cumulative GPA for courses taken through the sophomore year
and a 2.5 GPA for courses taken during the junior year and thereafter.
The OKPromise Task Force was especially concerned about the odd GPA
calculation for the junior year and higher.  The Task Force had
unanimously recommended that this requirement be changed to require the
student to meet the academic standards of the institution in which they
were enrolled.  We anticipate that monitoring this GPA requirement may
add more administrative burden to the institutions.  The Task Force had
also found research from other states that indicated that college GPA
requirements in excess of academic retention requirements can cause
students to take fewer math and science courses or avoid majors in
science, technology, engineering and math due to fear of jeopardizing
their scholarship eligibility.

*	The bill also does not include a post-college residency
requirement for OKPromise recipients.  The Task Force acknowledged that
some legislators had interest in such a requirement, but cautioned the
Legislature to examine the issue carefully to avoid adding complexity
and administrative expense.

We will try to let you know when we are sure of the ultimate fate of the
bill.
Let me know if you have questions.

Bryce Fair

 
Bryce Fair 
Assoc. Vice Chancellor for Scholarships & Grants 
Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education 
Phone:  (405) 225-9162 
Fax:  (405) 225-9230 
E-mail:  bfair at osrhe.edu 

Mailing Address: 
P.O. Box 108850 
Oklahoma City, OK  73101-8850 

Street Address: 
655 Research Parkway, Suite 200 
Oklahoma City, OK  73104 

 <<05-21-09-SB982-CCS.RTF>> 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.onenet.net/pipermail/oasfaa/attachments/20090521/1f328bf4/attachment.html 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: 05-21-09-SB982-CCS.RTF
Type: application/rtf
Size: 273980 bytes
Desc: 05-21-09-SB982-CCS.RTF
Url : http://lists.onenet.net/pipermail/oasfaa/attachments/20090521/1f328bf4/attachment.rtf