Lawmakers redirect funds intended for financial aid

Despite rising tuition rates and a growing number of people who want to pursue higher education, Kentucky lawmakers have been taking millions of dollars away from financial aid, making it more difficult for low-income Kentuckians to attend college.

Linda Stettenbenz, a member of KFTC, is one such Kentuckian who repeatedly qualified for financial aid but has not received any. “I’m one of many in my community and in this state who has spent a lot of time looking for a job, and a lot of time trying to go back to school,” she said. “I was one of [thousands of] low-income students who qualified for, but was denied, financial aid for school because the state ran out of money.”

The Lexington Herald-Leader recently published an article about this problem. Linda Blackford writes that in 2011, 80,724 Kentucky students were denied financial aid. In 2012, the $60 million for financial aid ran out by February 7, barely more than a month after they began accepting financial aid applications on January 1.

The article describes a few of the reasons why Kentucky runs out of financial aid so quickly. One reason is that 100% of the money from the Kentucky Lottery is supposed to go toward education, but legislators have repeatedly suspended that law and used the lottery money for other programs. And even though the lottery has been producing more money than estimated, the extra money has gone toward the state’s General Fund rather than paying for financial aid.

"I want to see a Kentucky with plentiful access to good education and a thriving quality of life."

Additionally, the Kentucky Educational Excellence Scholarship (KEES) takes funding priority over need-based aid. KEES money is based on academic merit, going to any student with a GPA of 2.5 or higher. This merit-based award is fully funded, while need-based aid is not.

These factors, in addition to rising tuition and more students competing for financial aid, are contributing to the extreme lack of state funding for need-based aid.

Stettenbenz was able to complete her bachelors degree in December 2010 on loans, but is faced with difficult payments since she did not receive any grants. These payments, in addition to other bills and difficulty finding a better job, have prevented her from going to grad school.

At a hearing in support of the Kentucky Forward Plan in 2011, Stettenbenz said, “If we’re going to get serious about attracting new jobs, we have to get serious about making investments in our infrastructure. I want to see a Kentucky with plentiful access to good education and a thriving quality of life; and so do employers.”

There is a growing disparity between the amount needed in financial aid by low-income Kentuckians and the amount the state actually distributes. The emphasis on merit-based aid through the KEES program and lawmakers’ continuous effort to divert funds from financial aid has negatively impacted Kentuckians who want to pursue an education but simply cannot afford it. "With tuition at our publicly funded universities rising an average of 10% per year, we sink into personal debt just trying to find ways to stay afloat and move ahead," Stettenbenz said. She believes this revenue crisis is in part due to our unfair tax code: "People like me pay a bigger portion of our income to state and local taxes than do the state’s wealthiest. Still, year after year we are told there is no way to properly fund the services we need the most."

Stettenbenz believes it’s time for the state to invest in her and others like her so that Kentuckians can contribute more to the state’s economy and make better lives for themselves. “Our people are worth investing in. We can be the kind of smart and creative workers that businesses need,” she said.