Video: State Education Grant Cuts

SMITHVILLE, Miss.(WCBI)—The next big thing for many high school students is college.

Most High school seniors count on some form of financial aid. Scholarships. Grants. Or student loans.

But as of July 1st, the number of state grants one student can receive will be limited.

In the past, students could receive academic grants and put that with need based grants or even a third specialty state grant to cover the cost of tuition, room and books.

This is a practice known as stacking and many students count on the funding.

Not anymore. Students who qualify will now receive one state grant – the one for the most money.

Between preparing to cross the high school graduation stage to applying to a university, gearing up to leave home has never been a walk in the park. but now for Mississippi students things just got a little harder.

“The Mississippi Financial Aide Office, student financial aide, there are different grants that they provide to students. They will not be allowed to have those grants all at the same time. They will only be allowed to have one grant. There’s also an additional academic responsibility for the students. They have to keep a certain GPA and a certain number of credits but that will be checked every term and that hasn’t always been the case,”said Smithville High School Guidance Counselor Leslie Wood.

Brandon Blair is a Smithville high school senior and valedictorian for his class.

“It is very late to be receiving news like this, The last rounds of scholarships are due at the end of the month. So, there’s not a lot of time to make up for that money,”said Blair.

He says only being able to receive one state scholarship, really puts his family in a bind.

” That $500.00 book scholarship will be something that I will greatly miss. For people like myself, I have a twin brother that will be in college at the same time as me, so that’s a thousand dollars my family will be out, instead of just the five hundred,”said Blair.

Blair says by cutting funds to education, the state is saving money, but the best and brightest may not be able to stay in school. That, could hurt the state in the long run.

“Education, in my opinion, to see the state move forward, to accomplish the goals we want to have education is the key for that. I think we can look as far back as we want to and see where education, being an educated people, it takes soc much. It takes care of so much of out social problems,” said Blair.

This bill is estimated to impact 2,400 students. Students will be able to stack non-state issued grants and scholarships.
Senate Bill 2957 is estimated to save the state between 1 million and 2 million dollars.