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College Loans Texas Style

Some Texas lawmakers said they overlooked an important detail when they passed a popular student loan program.

Now, some public university students believe they could end up paying for students to attend expensive, private schools.

UT students returning this spring are digging deeper into bank accounts to pay higher tuition. Student government leaders said they expected the extra money to be used at their school.

"We want lower class sizes and more professors, and we want better grounds - and that's what people think this money is going to go to," UT student Marc Eichenbaum said.

What students have now learned is that five percent of their increase will go into a no-interest loan program that could also benefit students at dozens of private universities, including North Texas schools SMU and TCU.

"It's not fair from our perspective, because our students are paying for students at private institutions to get scholarships, and they are not paying anything," said UT student body president Brian Haley.

Lt. Governor David Dewhurst is the lawmaker who pressed hardest for the new Texas "B On Time" Loan Program. The loans pay tuition and fees for full-time college students who graduate high school in 2003 and after. Students who earn a bachelor's degree in four years with B averages or higher don't have to pay back any of their loans.

"This B On Time program was meant to help mainly the middle class that wasn't getting any financial aid," Dewhurst said.

However, Dewhurst said private school students shouldn't benefit if they don't also foot the bill. So what happened?

The B On Time bill was among several hundred that passed the Legislature in the final, frenzied hours of the most recent session. Some lawmakers said they were unaware of how the loans would eventually be paid out.

"I think there are so many things ... we don't realize what we have done sometimes until we start implementing a law," said Sen. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano.

Shapiro co-chairs a special education committee that may ask private schools to help pay for the loans. If they don't agree, Dewhurst has a promise.

"We're going to have to restrict it to the students going to our public schools," Dewhurst said.

UT students said that's how the law should have been written in the beginning.

While the tuition-supported fund is growing, the loans will be paid for with bonds, so lawmakers said none of the increased tuition money will go to private students this year. Lawmakers said they'll change the law before that happens.


— Shelley Kofler
Lawmakers: Private school student aid an oversight
Dallas Morning News
2004-01-21
http://www.dallasnews.com/localnews/education/stories/wfaa040120_am_stuloans.36355dbf.html

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