[Oasfaa] OHLAP article in Sunday Oklahoman

[Fair, Bryce]

For those of you that don't get the Sunday Oklahoman, I have attached below the text of an article on the Oklahoma Higher Learning Access Program (OHLAP) that ran on the front page of yesterday's paper.  The article is titled, "Free tuition program needs funds".  There were a couple of factual items that I think need clarification so you will see I have added three editorial notes in the text of the article below.  Otherwise, we are very please to see this attention for the program.  We believe the program will receive the additional funding it needs for next year's scholarships, but it is very important for everyone to realize how critical and difficult this effort is in the context of overall state budget cuts.


The article can also be viewed online at:  http://www.newsok.com/cgi-bin/show_article?ID=841721&pic=none&TP=getarticle


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Free tuition program needs funds
2002-03-31
By Mick Hinton
The Oklahoman


A highly publicized free tuition program for Oklahoma's college-bound students has been so successful that the Legislature needs to bail it out with nearly $2 million more in appropriations. 

State regents for higher education say the program has been allotted $1.9 million annually by the Legislature. But it will need nearly $4.1 million next fiscal year just to meet commitments. 

"Whatever the price tag, we're going to get the money," said state Sen. Cal Hobson, who is vice chairman of the powerful Senate budget committee and chairman of the Senate subcommittee on education. 

Despite facing a huge shortfall for the next budget year, legislative leaders say they want to exclude education from budget cuts, but other lawmakers say that will be impossible. 

To help keep it afloat, Gov. Frank Keating is proposing boosting the free-tuition program by another $500,000 for a total of $2.4 million. 

	[Editorial note #1:  The Governor's budget proposal actually was to increase funding for OHLAP by $2.4 million, not to $2.4 million.  The total funding proposed for OHLAP by the Governor was $4.3 million ($1.9 million current budget + $2.4 million increase), which is what we need.]

"The governor certainly supports this scholarship plan, but it is up to the Legislature to see how it fits with the rest of the demands," Dan Mahoney, the governor's communications director, said Friday. 

It was Hobson's bill in 1999 that raised the income ceiling to $50,000 for an Oklahoma family to be eligible for the free-tuition program. The program is officially called the Oklahoma Higher Learning Access Program (OHLAP). 

Plan a lifesaver
Cindy McCollum, who operates a drug store on the main street of Helena, says the free- tuition program has been a lifesaver for her family. 

The McCollums have two daughters, one in high school and the other in college. Cindy's husband, Merle, is a correctional officer at the James Crabtree Correctional Center in Helena. 

Some years, the drug store doesn't make a profit, said Cindy, but she wants to keep it going for the sake of the town. 

"No, our income doesn't exceed $50,000," she said, making her children eligible for the free-tuition program. 

Daughter Lindsey is a sophomore at Oklahoma State University, while daughter Kacie is a junior in high school. She attends Timberlake High School, part of a consolidated school district of 300 students. 

"If it wasn't for our counselor, Dirk Allen, we wouldn't have gotten into the program," McCollum said. 

Allen has signed up 19 of the 26 students in the sophomore class. 

Allen said in this agricultural community, everybody is usually associated with farming or operates a small business. Just about everybody makes less than $50,000, he said. 

Gradewise, students enrolled in the program must maintain a 2.5 grade point average. 

Across the state, students in the program are beating the minimum, averaging 3.5, said Bryce Fair, who administers the program for the State Regents for Higher Education. 

Tuition alone costs about $3,000 a year at OSU and the University of Oklahoma. At other four-year colleges, it is about $2,000. 

	[Editorial note #2:  The costs shown here appear to reflect tuition plus fees, rather than "tuition alone".  The OHLAP award is based only on tuition, not tuition and fees.  The amounts for "tuition alone" would be about $2,000 for OU and OSU and about $1,600 for regional four-year colleges.]

The most costly expense is room and board. Regents estimate that it costs more than $4,400 at the two biggest colleges annually, and at least $2,500 at the other colleges. 

More grads needed
"This program is doing exactly what it is supposed to do, and that is for the state to have more college graduates," said Hobson, D-Lexington. 

Regents have launched "Brain Gain 2010," intended to increase the number of college graduates in Oklahoma by 95,000 during this decade. 

Nationally, about 25 percent of adults over age 25 have college degrees. But in Oklahoma, only 20 percent have degrees. 

If high enrollment in the free tuitionprogram continues, education officials think they will reach the 2010 goal. In the Class of 2003, only 14 high schools have no students, who are now sophomores, enrolled in program. Students in the program make up 12 percent of the sophomores statewide. 

The free tuition program can do for Oklahoma what the GI Bill did for the nation, said Hans Brisch, state chancellor for higher education. 

"This program allows students to have hope and the opportunity, if they perform, much like our soldiers did. Once they were discharged, they could go to college." 

"Similarly, these students have to take 17 core units and stay out of trouble," he said. 

The stepped-up curriculum was developed because Oklahoma was not requiring enough hard courses in high school, according to a national study. 

Students were not taking rigorous courses in core academic subjects, such as math and science, Brisch said. 

Urban kids, too
Nearly half, 47 percent, of the students enrolled in the program come from five urban counties: Oklahoma, Tulsa, Cleveland, Canadian and Comanche. 

The other 53 percent come from the other 72 counties in the state. 

	[Editorial note #3:  Actually, these percentages reflect the distribution of Oklahoma's total state population, not the OHLAP students.  We contrast OHLAP enrollment in our annual report to this total state population ratio; 2001 OHLAP graduates were 27% urban (the five counties) and 73% rural (the other 72 counties).  This shows that our OHLAP urban enrollment is significantly less than it should be, proportional to the state population.]

At the outset, the program was expected to appeal to urban students in the inner city. Fair attributes success of the program to the high school counselors throughout the state. 

Donkor Khalid, counselor at Northeast Academy for science and math in Oklahoma City, was in charge of the state program for the first three years it was operating. 

He said he knew that it would work in rural areas where counselors can get to know their students very well. "They don't have as many students." 

However, Khalid has aggressively signed up students at Northeast. 

There are students such as Marcus Jernigan, who enrolled in his freshman year. The junior hopes to major in electrical engineering with a computer science minor. 

Last year, his family learned that Marcus's father had cancer. 

But Marcus said because of this program, he's pretty sure he will get to go to college. 

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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