Reported by Brandi Grissom - El Paso Times
Fewer El Paso students would be eligible for a college grant program under recommendations in a report the state’s higher education board is set to adopt Thursday, a report some lawmakers said will hurt poor and minority students.
“The solution is to fund the program, not make it harder to get a grant,” said state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso.
The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, which oversees public universities and community colleges, will hear a report at its meeting Thursday that outlines ways the state could restructure the Toward Excellence, Access and Success, or TEXAS, Grant program.
The report recommends, among other things, increasing academic eligibility requirements for students to obtain TEXAS grants. But Shapleigh and state Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, said higher education officials should be asking lawmakers to invest more money in the program, not to shrink the pool of students eligible.
Under the recommendations, Shapleigh said, about 20 percent of the students at the University of Texas at El Paso who received the TEXAS Grant last year would have been ineligible for the program. For the rest of the story, click here.
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Filed under: Financial Aid for Students, Statehouse briefs, Students











