Joint education committee advances several lottery‑fund scholarship bills, amends HB1333 to drop ninth grade

A joint House‑Senate education committee on Feb. 1 advanced a package of bills that would shift how Arkansas’ lottery scholarship proceeds are used, amending one proposal to reduce cost and sending others forward with conditions for further adjustment.

Representative Lundstrom’s House Bill 13‑33, originally written to extend scholarships to ninth‑ and tenth‑grade students taking concurrent college courses, was amended on the floor to remove ninth grade and the committee voted to advance the bill as amended. Lundstrom said the change responds to concerns about younger students’ readiness and the program’s price tag; she told the committee, “We can walk before we run if the will of the body is to do the tenth grade only.”

Maria Markham, director of the Division of Higher Education, told legislators that the scholarship program already requires placement measures and a 2.5 college GPA to maintain eligibility and cautioned that accruing a college GPA as a ninth grader can jeopardize later aid: “We’ve had some instances where kids who have gotten a concurrent challenge their college GPA drops below a 2.5 while they’re still in high school,” she said.

Committee finance staff and the Division of Higher Education provided first‑year fiscal estimates for the bills. Staff cited an allocation formula used to produce a $14.5 million joint‑committee spending ceiling for new scholarship proposals this year. The initial estimate for…