Should the Tennessee HOPE Scholarship be expanded? This new legislation could do it.

Legislation to expand the list of eligible postsecondary institutions that nontraditional students can receive the Tennessee HOPE Scholarship for return to the Higher Education subcommittee.Yesterday, Representative Chris Hurt (R-Halls) came before the Higher Education Subcommittee proposing this expansion which would allow nontraditional students to use the HOPE Scholarship for online courses at West Governors University (WGU) Tennessee. This would add another 600 adult students to the scholarship’s teaching, nursing and IT pipeline.This is Hurt's fourth year bringing this amendment to the committee.The Tennessee HOPE Scholarship offers up to $2,250 per full-time enrollment semester as a freshman and sophomore and up to $2,850 per full-time as a junior and senior at an eligible postsecondary institution.Nontraditional students must be an independent student as determined on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) application. This is among the most underutilized scholarship programs in Tennessee. According to Hurt, only 291 students used it the previous year."Adult nontraditional learners often have little to no help with covering the cost of tuition and cost is the largest barrier of entry for students choosing to get a degree," Hurt said.This bill has met some resistance in the past, one of which is Murfreesboro Representative Charlie Baum who pointed towards a previous statement from WGU regarding receiving lottery scholarships.“Some time ago when we began developing lottery procedures, didn’t [WGU] make a pledge that they would not seek these scholarship dollars?” Baum asked.“I’ll have to look back at that video, but I’m not sure that’s under that exact context but I’ll have clarification for you when I present on the lottery calendar,” Hurt responded.More questions came from Baum who stated he had concern over the consistency of picking and choosing which online institutions would benefit from a lottery scholarship.“There’s all kind of universities, some with brick-and-mortar buildings, some online, they’re all over the country—how do we decide which ones are eligible for HOPE lottery scholarship dollars and which ones aren’t?” Baum asked. “When we have these online programs like Arizona State and Alabama [State], how do we decide which ones are eligible and which ones are not so that we can be consistent and be fair?”Hurt responded by citing the positive results online WGU graduates have seen.“Of course, that would be up to the members to decide that, but I would hope that the members would look at the graduation rates, the job placement rates, the average income, the benefits that these students who are nontraditional students [are] seeing from an online course.”This year’s bill will begin in the House Higher Education subcommittee’s lottery calendar that serves legislation related to the lottery fund.