Education board plans united front on financial aid

BOISE – Lawmakers took a scattershot approach to financial aid in this year’s legislative session, introducing bills that proposed aid for future math and science teachers, top students, or students who steered clear of drinking and drugs.

All failed to pass. So next year, the state Board of Education wants a unified proposal for financial aid.

Exactly what the proposal will contain hasn’t been decided.

“We’ll be getting together legislators, financial aid directors, and stakeholders over the summer to get a package we believe can pass the Legislature,” said Luci Willits, a spokeswoman for the board.

Idaho, like many Western states, has long offered graduating high school seniors relatively cheap college tuition at home, but relatively low financial aid.

Other Western states have increased that aid, including Montana, Alaska and Wyoming in the last year or so, said David Longanecker, executive director of the Western Interstate Compact for Higher Education in Boulder, Colo. Longanecker said Washington and California now have the best financial aid packages in the West, and Idaho has among the worst. Idaho offers some merit-based aid, but no need-based aid.

Longanecker’s group, which has members from Idaho, has been trying to change that.

“The research is pretty clear that low tuition is not a very effective mechanism to providing access to financial affordability,” he said.

The education board wants to change that. Scholarships would help more Idaho students go to college, and help Idaho schools attract the state’s best students, said Willits. Some students now decline Idaho’s merit-based Promise scholarship “because they’ve gotten a better overall package from another school outside of Idaho,” she said.

Education was a hot topic in the Legislature this year, and lawmakers heard many statistics about Idaho’s low rate of college attendance and college graduation as they considered bills on high school curriculum requirements and other matters.

Sen. Gary Schroeder, R-Moscow, proposed giving full tuition, room and board to the nation’s top math, science and engineering students if they agreed to stay in Idaho for at least two years after completing their studies. Before they voted to reject the bill, many of Schroeder’s colleagues said they thought it was a good idea, but they didn’t want to spend the money.

Rep. Tom Trail, R-Moscow, heard the same support for his three bills, which aimed to use from $5 to $10 million in state money for permanent loan or need-based scholarship programs. His colleagues praised the idea, but were wary of the cost.

“There’s a definite need out there,” said Rep. Ann Rydalch, R-Idaho Falls, whose proposal to encourage study in math, science and engineering through a scholarship was also rejected. “I hear people talking about it.”

A pair of lawmakers called for scholarships for students who avoid drugs, alcohol and tobacco; another proposed a $20 million fund for scholarships for students who agreed to become math or science teachers and to teach in Idaho schools for at least four years.

Rep. Joe Cannon, R-Blackfoot, tried to set aside $31.5 million to establish scholarship endowments at school districts. The districts would have to have come up with matching donations from local businesses and individuals.

His bill and others were debated after legislative budget-writers had set the education budget, “and that kind of was a kiss of death for them,” said Cannon. Also, he said, “one got rejected and then they kind of took the attitude, ‘We rejected one, let’s be consistent and reject them all.’ “

Sen. John Goedde, R-Coeur d’Alene and chairman of the Senate Education Committee, saw his scholarship proposal voted down on the Senate floor. Now he’s planning to ask Idaho companies to donate money for a scholarship endowment that would be administered by the education board.

“It’s to the benefit of private industry, particularly science and technology companies that have to rely on strong math and science students to create their future workforce,” said Goedde, who wants to raise $100,000.

Willits said all the talk about scholarships this winter will help the board get its financial aid package approved next year.

“This session has been unique in the attention that was given to scholarships; it hasn’t been a focus in the past,” she said.