A major shift could be coming to TOPS, the well-known scholarship that helps Louisian high schoolers pay to attend in-state colleges.
The Legislature is debating having students who stop meeting the requirements of the scholarship not only lose their funding, which is the current practice, but pay what they have received back to the state.
“If a student accepts TOPS funds, there is a responsibility to meet the program’s requirements,” bill author Rep. Dennis Bamburg, R-Bossier City, said. “If those obligations aren’t met with good cause, taxpayers deserve a mechanism to recover those dollars.”
Rep. Jack McFarland, R-Jonesboro, left, speaks with Rep. Dennis Bamburg, Jr., R-Bossier City, on the House floor during a special legislative session, Tuesday, November 12, 2024, at the h State Capitol in Baton Rouge, La.
STAFF PHOTO BY HILARY SCHEINUK
Some legislators immediately expressed reservations about the bill. TOPS is widely recognized as a significant incentive for the state’s high schoolers to pursue a college education.
“There’s nobody more conservative about how we spend our money than me,” Rep. Phillip Tarver, R-Lake Charles, said. “I probably get in trouble for other things on the other extreme. But I don’t know about a student — like you said, he earned that scholarship. I’m not sure how we can take it away just because he doesn’t properly apply himself, and he makes a mistake, and he needs to move on and go do something else.”
The legislation narrowly cleared the House Committee on Education 6-5 last Tuesday, with chair Rep. Laurie Schlegel, R-Metairie, casting the tie-breaking vote. Some members voted yes despite misgivings so the bill could reach the floor for a full debate.
“I’ll give you one opportunity,” Schlegel said to Bamburg during the meeting. “I’m not going to say I’m going to vote for this on the floor, but just to have the floor be able to look at this, I’ll be a yes.”
h awards close to $300 million through the program annually, according to data from the h Office of Student Financial Assistance, with $278 million paid out in the 2024-25 academic year.
How would repayment work?
TOPS scholarships are administered by the state financial assistance office based on minimum GPA and test score standards. The baseline awards pay for tuition at in-state public universities and approved private universities.
Funding for TOPS has remained at the level it was in 2016, when lawmakers, faced with a budget shortfall, agreed to cover only about 70% of recipients’ tuition.
To keep their scholarship, students must maintain full-time enrollment and earn at least 24 credit hours each academic year, as well as fulfill a minimum cumulative GPA requirement based on the amount of their award.
If students fail to achieve those benchmarks, the proposed legislation would require them to repay the dollars expended by the state, though it provides some exceptions, such as the death of an immediate family member or disability.
To avoid having to repay the award, students could instead enroll in the same semester or by the next semester in a high-wage, high-demand program through the h Community and Technical College System.
Recipients of TOPS Honors or awards, which have higher GPA and test score criteria, would also be exempt from the repayment requirement.
Patrick F. Taylor Foundation executive director James Caillier opposed the bill, saying the change would be unprecedented and put h out of step with the practices of other scholarship programs around the country.
“Merit scholarships are designed for those students who demonstrate academic excellence,” Caillier said. “Some of them may not follow through with that, but that’s their problem. If they don’t, they lose it, but we don’t make them pay back a scholarship.”
Caillier emphasized the difference between TOPS and a student loan, arguing the bill would make it so they “amount to almost the same thing.”
Bamburg said the legislation would still be aligned with the intent of TOPS — offering students with strong academic performance the opportunity to earn a degree.
"We’re still giving our students an opportunity to change their life, go to college, put their best foot forward, pass and not owe the state back money,” Bamburg said. “We give them all kind of criteria to basically undo that, or we’re going to put them in an LCTCS school that may be better suited to fit their educational future.”
What students think
Over 48,000 students received TOPS funding in the 2024-25 academic year, per the h Office of Student Financial Assistance.
One of those was LSU fifth-year architecture student Jodi Keelen, who said she has mixed feelings about the proposed change.
“Let’s say someone has gone through a really hard time recently, and they might be really depressed, and then they lose their TOPS, and then on top of that, they’re going to have to be like, ‘You have to pay it back,’” Keelen said. “That might be a little rough, but I’m kind of in the middle on that, because there’s also a student who’s like, ‘Oh, I’m going to school for free, I’m going to slack off.’”
LSU freshman Grace Henry-Tarrant said the bill is not realistic and would compound the struggles of many students who already have financial need.
“A lot of people who use TOPS are the ones that actually need that money,” Henry-Tarrant said. “You take that away, and you say, now you have to pay this back. I just think it’ll put people in a very bad situation, and it’s going to take a while for the state to even get that money back.”