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State student-aid office: fewer graduates processed, lower test/GPA drive TOPS eligibility drop
Summary
Suwan Butte, executive director of LASFA programs for the Board of Regents, told the House Education Committee that demographic shifts, falling record processing and fewer students meeting ACT/GPA thresholds together explain the recent drop in TOPS eligibility.
Suwan Butte, executive director of LASFA programs for the Board of Regents, told the House Education Committee that several interacting factors explain the recent drop in Taylor Opportunity Program for Students (TOPS) eligibility.
Butte said the decline is not the result of a single cause: “Those outgoing classes are larger than the incoming classes,” she told lawmakers, meaning a big graduating cohort is moving out of the pipeline while smaller incoming cohorts reduce the pool of eligible students.
The office identified three drivers. First, demographic shifts and a large prior cohort moving through the system reduce the share of students in the pipeline. Second, fewer graduates are processed for TOPS because of privacy and consent limits on data sharing with LOSFA. Third, a smaller share of processed graduates meet the program’s GPA and ACT thresholds; LASFA reported that “the latest 1 is 46.3 percent,” meaning fewer…
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