The TOPS Payback Trap: Is HB 385 a Threat to Louisiana Schools and Students?

Louisiana is looking to move the goalposts for every student in the state. House Bill 385 is making its way through Baton Rouge right now, and it has a lot of people worried about the future of the TOPS program.

This legislation recently cleared the House Education Committee, and seeks to change the scholarship program into a potential debt generator. If students do not meet certain requirements, they would have to refund the state, and pay back their scholarship.

The Hidden Cost of Dropping Out

The idea is simple on paper, but dangerous in practice for the state. If a student loses their scholarship eligibility, or decides to leave school, the state wants that money paid back in full. Putting local families, and local schools, at risk with every student.

This would essentially turn a merit-based scholarship into a high-interest debt trap for many young adults. It creates an environment where one bad semester could lead to a financial burden that lasts for years to come. Which feels like its against the original intent of the TOPS program.

A Growing Divide for Louisiana Families

This proposal hits different depending on how much money a family brings home every year. For wealthy households, the threat of paying back a few semesters of tuition might not be a dealbreaker for their children.

For students coming from low-income backgrounds, the mere possibility of repayment might stop them from even applying to a university. This is a far cry from the original intent of the program which actually included a strict income cap before it was tossed out in 1997.

It makes you ask why the safety net is being pulled away from the students who need the most help to succeed. The goal of TOPS was always to give every kid in Louisiana a fair shot at a degree without the weight of massive loans. All this legislation would do is turn the state into the student loan company, and take away the positives the program delivered in the first place.

Threatening the Future of State Colleges

If you think this sounds like a major threat to the students across Louisiana, imaging how the schools are feeling? The initial intent of TOPS wasn't just to even the field between low and high income students, but it was also to keep kids inside Louisiana for college. The TOPS program works for in-school education only, meaning a lot of local school depend on these students to fill their classes.

When students are too afraid to take the scholarship money, they might just decide to leave the state for a school with a better financial offer, just stay home, or enter the workforce early. State universities rely on these students to keep the classrooms full and the local economy moving forward.

Could Shreveport and Bossier City Replace TOPS If It Dies?

Pushing this legislation forward could result in a massive brain drain for the Shreveport and Bossier City area. If the local cities and parishes want to keep best and brightest to stay in the area, and not flee to other states (where the rules are not being changed in the middle of the game) they might need to step up.

If the state of Louisiana can't fulfill their promise to students, maybe the local municipalities should. Caddo and Bossier Parishes, and the cities inside them, could band together to create a localized TOPS program for students inside those parishes to attend schools inside those parishes. Imagine if local students were incentivized to attend Bossier Parish Community College, Centenary College, LSU-Shreveport, Southern University at Shreveport, Northwest Louisiana Technical Community College, or any other locally based school. Keeping the brain drain from hitting this corner of Louisiana as hard.