House votes small increases to financial aid, postsecondary institutions

| Post by Perry Papka |

Under the budget bill passed by the House last week, state funding for higher education will increase modestly over the next two years, with growth both in financial aid resources and institutional funding.

Financial Aid
The proposed House budget would increase state financial aid $71,700 in FY 2019 and add a further $8.2 million for FY 2020. Key steps include:

• $1 million more for Kentucky Educational Excellence Scholarships (KEES) merit-based funding increased in FY 2019,  with another $2.3 million added for FY 2020
• $7.7 million more for College Access Program (CAP) needs-based aid in FY 2019, with another $4.2 million added for FY 2020.
• $2.5 million more for Kentucky Tuition Grant (KTG) needs-based aid in FY 2019, with another $1.8 million added for FY 2020.

• Unchanged funding for Work Ready scholarships, Dual Credit scholarships, and National Guard Tuition Assistance awards.

• No funding for two lottery-funded programs: the Teacher Scholarship Program and Coal County College Completion Scholarships
• No funding for four non-lottery programs: Early Childhood, Work Study, Pharmacy, and Osteopathic Medicine.

100% of net lottery revenue would go to financial aid, with needs-based CAP and KTG receiving only 43% of the total, as compared to the 55% required by statute. 

Institutional Funding

The proposed House budget would also increase overall state funding to public postsecondary institutions by $11.3 million for 2019. For 2020, no additional funding would be added, and part of the total would be allocated among institutions as performance-based funding based on their success at meeting goals.

Looking at individual institutions, the plan for FY 2019 would provide:

• $2.8 million less for KCTCS than the FY 2017 budget
• $0.3 million less for Morehead than FY 2017
• $0.1 million less for Eastern

• $1.2 million more for Kentucky State
• $2.6 million more for University of Louisville
• $2.6 million more for Western
• $3.9 million more for Northern
• $4.5 million more for Murray
• $7.3 million more for University of Kentucky

Want Further Detail?
We’ve created a PrichBlog summary with one page to show financial aid changes and a second to show the institutional budgets. You can download that here, or view the complete budget bill as approved by the House here.