Taman Siswa

A new college scholarship for Missouri students in financial need has attracted more participants than expected, meaning some students will get less money than planned.

The Access Missouri scholarship was created by lawmakers this year to replace two financial needs scholarships. The state began sending out the first scholarship checks under the new program in the past week.

The Department of Higher Education projects that more than 43,000 students will receive the scholarship this school year. That’s about 20 percent more than had been anticipated when the program was developed.

As a result, the department has reduced the maximum scholarship amount available to students by 30 percent to guard against exceeding the $74 million available for the program.

The change means that a student at a public university can receive as much as $1,500 from an Access Missouri scholarship during the 2007-2008 school year, instead of the maximum $2,150 allowed under the new law.

Students at two-year colleges can get as much as $700, instead of the $1,000 maximum in the law; students at private schools can receive as much as $3,200, instead of the $4,600 allowed under the law.

The law creating the Access Missouri program requires a proportional reduction in the maximum scholarship amounts if state money falls short of demand.

The department, in a report Thursday to its governing board, said the scholarship reduction was the result of the “tremendous expansion” of the number of eligible students. It also highlights the need to push for increased funds for the program, the department said.

The $74 million available for the scholarship program this year is already about three times what was available for needs-based scholarships last year.

State officials had expected an increase in the number of students receiving college scholarships, because the new law widened the eligibility criteria. But the exact amount of that increase was uncertain.

The department said Thursday that the Access Missouri scholarship should reach about 2.5 times as many students as received aid under the disbanded Gallagher and Missouri Guarantee financial-needs scholarships during the 2006-2007 school year.

Sen. Gary Nodler, who sponsored the legislation creating the scholarship program, said its reduction in scholarship sizes was positive and negative.

“The bad news would be that the benefit is reduced,” said Nodler, a Joplin Republican. The good news is that a lot more students are going to benefit.”

He said he thought the good outweighed the bad.

“Clearly our desire to vastly increase the number of Missouri families and students who receive the benefit is being met,” he said.

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