There are a lot of bills this legislative session dealing with TOPS and other financial aid programs for postsecondary education. All seek to make changes to the programs and many include some good ideas. But what seems to be lacking is a coherent strategy for all of these efforts, one that views them holistically and attempts to develop a vision of how they can work together to better serve the state’s citizens and help meet Louisiana’s workforce needs.
According to the Board of Regents Louisiana spends about $400 million per year on various forms of financial aid for postsecondary education. TOPS, the widely recognized program for Louisiana students who attend in-state colleges and universities, is the largest. It is funded annually at about $286 million. Needs-based aid in the form of GO Grants is the second largest program coming in at about $70 million. TOPS Tech and the M. J. Foster Promise Award Program ($25 million for next year) target students attending community and technical colleges.
This session, lawmakers are looking to make changes to all of these programs. HB 385 would require students to pay back their TOPS award if they fail to meet the continuing eligibility requirements while in college. HB 407 would change the age requirements for M. J. Foster so that it serves only adults aged 21 or older. HB 482 makes a variety of changes to expand participation in TOPS Tech.
Each of the bills is designed to address specific issues that lawmakers are increasingly raising, and they include some questions worth asking:
- Why are so many students losing their TOPS eligibility while in college? Are our requirements for earning a TOPS award too low?
- Given the changing circumstances of our student population, should students who qualify for TOPS Tech for career education be required to accept the award upon graduation, or should they be allowed to defer it for a few years?
- Should students who are working be able to attend a community or technical college part time and still receive their TOPS Tech award?
- Should the eligibility requirements for TOPS Tech be expanded to provide additional pathways for participation?
- Could TOPS Tech and M. J. Foster be better aligned, or even merged into a single program, to better serve students pursuing technical credentials?
Embedded in these questions is the recognition that our financial aid programs have different rules, different application systems, and different timelines. They can be hard to navigate, particularly for first-generation students, adult learners, and working students.
As part of that, we should also note that the needs of our economy have changed over the years. When TOPS was created nearly 30 years ago, the primary focus was to retain our students in Louisiana, by increasing traditional college attendance and graduation. That’s still important, but today’s economy is placing greater value than it used to on short-term credentials, industry certifications, and increasing the skills of adults to meet growing workforce needs.
The point is that a number of bills this session are aimed at addressing some of these very issues. That’s good, but right now they are doing it mostly on an individual basis rather than an integrated approach. The question we should ask ourselves is if we had the same resources that we do now, and we were charged with developing a financial aid structure to meet the needs of today’s students and today’s workforce, what would it look like?
It would probably retain many of the things we have now, but we know it would also have some different features. Our programs would be more aligned, better integrated, and provide more seamless pathways for students to access them. And we would have more data on their outcomes which would allow us to invest in what works
Better Louisiana strongly supports HR 17 which will lead to a comprehensive review of the TOPS program, looking at things like workforce participation, in-state employment retention, and average earnings for TOPS recipients over the years. It will include recommendations for policy adjustments to ensure TOPS funding is aligned to economic competitiveness, workforce needs, and the prosperity of our citizens.
This will provide good and useful information to help us more fully understand the areas where TOPS brings value. But we also need to look more completely at all of our state-funded financial aid programs and determine if there might be more effective ways to align them to the education, training, and workforce needs of 2026 and beyond.
It goes without saying that effort can be politically fraught. But revisiting some aspects of these programs doesn’t mean gutting them or retreating from the core values of things like TOPS. It’s simply an acknowledgement that times change and so do the needs of our people and the economy. That’s why Better Louisiana is working with others to develop a structure to study these programs, review their goals, and understand their outcomes.
Our diverse portfolio of scholarship and financial aid programs has benefited thousands of students over many years. If giving them all a fresh look might allow us to serve their needs and those of the state even better, it’s an opportunity we should not hesitate to take.