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Kentucky House Approves House Bill 626, Bill Would Allow Students To Attend Community College For Free

By Lindsay McCane
Published on: 11:25 PST, Mar 18, 2016

Students who graduate from Kentucky high schools and home schools, or receive their GED, may soon be able to go to community college for free.

According to the Courier Journal, the Kentucky House voted 86-11 Thursday on House Bill 626, which would allow students to attend community college without paying any money out of pocket as long as they meet certain requirements.

“AN ACT relating to postsecondary financial aid and making an appropriation therefor.
Create a new section of KRS Chapter 164 to establish the Work Ready Kentucky Scholarship Program; direct the Kentucky Higher Education Assistance Authority to administer the program; define student eligibility for the scholarship; prescribe the calculation of the scholarship amount; require the Kentucky Community and Technical College System to submit information to the authority required for the administration of the program; APPROPRIATION.”

The students would be required to apply for federal student aid, and then the state would pay the difference between that and their tuition for up to two years. During those two years, the students must also take 12 credit hours per semester, and must maintain a 2.0 grade point average (GPA).

House Bill 626, which is also being called the “Work Ready” scholarship bill, will require the state of Kentucky to pay for up to six semesters in the Kentucky Community and Technical College System for all new students. The program will be costly, averaging around $20 million per year, however House Speaker Greg Stumbo, a Democrat from Prestonsburg and supporter of the bill, said it will be worth it in the long run; 15,000 to 18,000 students could receive free education with the passing of the bill.

“It’s a lot of money but think of the bang you get for the dollar,” Stumbo said.

Represtentative Tommy Thompson, a Democrat from Owensboro, is praising the legislation that will ultimately bring in more money for the state with more educated people.

“They’re going to start generating economic activity in our state because we invested in them,” Thompson said.

Although the other members of the House supported the bill, some felt that the GPA standard should be increased to at least 2.5.

“If we have low expectations, our children will rise to where we expect them to,” said Representative Jim DuPlessis, a Republican from Elizabethtown.

WLWT 5 spoke to a student who is currently attending a community college in Kentucky. Lyndsey McNabb, a student at Gateway Community College, says House Bill 626 is exactly what Kentucky needs.

“Being single parent and having a child, that’s one thing you always worry about, additional debt when you already have a one-person income, anyway,” McNabb said. “If I had the opportunity, I would have jumped at it.”

Gateway president Keith Bird said he thinks the bill will allow more students to not only attend community college, but realize that a four-year degree is possible.

“It’s just a wonderful, wonderful opportunity to do that and is also going to mean that our colleges are going to have to work even harder to make sure that students come, they’re successful,” Bird said. “Our mission is really to promote education. So that’s where it has the support of myself and my colleagues from the standpoint of what it can do to really build the workforce and essentially building the workforce is called economic development.”

Kentucky House Bill 626 entered the Senate on Friday, March 18.

[Photo via Shutterstock]

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