Excellent!

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That's my governor! THIS is what government is for, you stingy trolls. Thank you, Mike Beebe, Thank you, Bill Halter. Three cheers!

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". . . promote the general welfare . . . ."

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"Every incoming freshman who qualified for a lottery scholarship has received one, as have all current college students who have sustained enough credit hours throughout their time in school," Beebe said.

Change that to "Beebe lied." I have a current student who is entering her sophomore year with 36 credit hours and no scholarship. Ernie has her transcript. Shirley the Guv doesn't think 18 hours a semester is not "enough." Upper level classes too, since she was exempted from a bunch of classes because of high AP scores in high school. She's practically a junior after one year of college.

Hooray for Deeb and Mag's daughter. I wish my eldest had won the lottery by being born a year later.

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Whos

I'd be happy to look into your specific case.

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Making education more affordable is a strategy to maybe escape 49th out of 50 in the future.

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Whos....I hope Max does some digging on your daughter's case and finds a solution in time for this semester...in other words, now. And I congratulate you for doing everything you had to do to pay for one year of college.....it's hard to come up with an extra 5 or 10 thousand per year.

Thank you Governor Beebe for taking this step and Bill Halter for making it all possible. I'll go buy 5 Lottery tickets to celebrate! Good luck, Whoscrumdown.

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Laughed out loud this morning while reading the ArkD-G article about the lotto scholarships’ distribution that ignited such a firestorm last week. Jim Purcell, director of the Arkansas Department of Higher Ed said there had been fewer phone calls to the department from upset people Monday. “There’s less anger today,” he said. “Some are even happy. I got a cake. But nobody around here has volunteered to open it yet.”

Purcell knows what the rest of us do: It’s a dangerous world out there!

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I'm 51 years old and have 52 hours (not including my nursing diploma) towards my degree with a 3.5 GPA. I applied in January, and got zip. Ten percent (that's TEN percent) of nontraditionals received a scholarship. ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of young traditonal students who applied received one. I looked over the FOI list I got today and some GPAs were in the 2.5 range, with a stunning low number of earned college hours thus far. I am fed up and totally disgusted by the entire thing. The only thing standing in the way of higher education in Arkansas is the Department of Higher Education. Tell me it's not an age discrimination issue. I have a higher percentage chance of graduating with excellence and staying the course than a brand-new high school graduate who doesn't even know what they want to do with their life yet, and still got a scholarship. I love the hinky way they only publicized the preference scale - after the fact, conveniently never informing hopeful and highly-qualified applicants that preference would be given to math, sciences, engineering majors. I am majoring in one of the most critically needed areas in Arkansas, with a long-established and documented history of need. But they apparently don’t care about the needs of high-risk children and families, which my degree would directly help. I guess I committed the cardinal sin years ago when I left my senior year of high school to help out an ill (divorced, single) parent and went to work instead of college. I became a single parent myself later. After 30 years, this past Spring was the very first time I applied for a student loan. I’ve been paying for my education out-of-pocket, on a salary of less than $20,000 per year. Is it any surprise I could almost never do more than 3-6 hours per semester – when I could go at all? Just the past two years I have been finally able to financially step it up and go 9 hours. You are penalized for not doing a whole 12 hours, but you can’t afford to do 12 hours because you don’t have a scholarship, so you don’t get a scholarship to help you go 12 hours or more, ad finitum. Sounds like a self-defeating prophecy to me. Ah yes, only in Arkansas, where our favorite place is number 49 or above. And let’s not even get started on the irrefutable point that many of the degrees require a minimum of a master’s in order to be licensed (engineering, psychology, etc.). Arkansas have any ideas about that, other than to continue paving the highway for we students to go out of state to earn a master’s and Ph.D.? The whole thing stinks. Maybe Ernie Passailague, earning his cool third of a million a year, might help out we serious, academically-excellent older nontraditional students who have learned a thing or two about life and education and know precisely what we want to do with our degree. I'll put my experience, dedication, and knowledge and self-discipline up against almost any 18 year-old who was handed a scholarship on a silver platter, any day. Look at the retention / graduation percentage rate of schools like UALR. That should tell you something.

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Shirley some of our astute Demos can bring up how much traditional Democrats despise Bill Halter. Future guvs, like the current one, will be winning votes by grandstanding on lottery proceeds bought to us by Bill Halter.

Kinda stupid isn't it..this personality contest Arkie politicos like to play?

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I have a friend who's son is a "current achiever", he just finished his freshman year at UCA taking over 12 hours each semester.
Not a word from the Lottery folks/Dept. of Higher Education. All the info we have read says he gets it. How long will these students have to wait??

DBI/Mag...Big day tomorrow, youngest daughter off to Uof A?? Will there be tears??

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I am going into my 4th semester full time at UALR and was put in the "non-traditional" category. I wasn't even aware of the "current achiever" category which I believe I qualify under. ADHE sent me notice that I qualify in every way for the scholarship and that they would love to give it to me, but the couldn't because they ran out of money. I am on the Chancellor's list and have been since attending UALR. During the application process, I repeatedly called ADHE to make sure they had everything they needed to process my application and they refused to even check my record saying that they have too many and couldn't take the time to check. I received a delinquency notice on 8/2 saying they didn't have my transcripts, but I called and they indeed did have them. Since the final notice, I have sent inquiries to ADHE via e-mail and telephone that consistently go unreturned. How do I know if I qualify for part of the new $5.9M? E-mail: jcrewlr@yahoo.com

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I am currently a student at JBU. I am a Senior and looking to graduate this December. I am taking the 12 hours and my GPA is above the required numbers. I have received nothing. The ADHE website YOUniversal shows that everything I have sent in has been received and in time. We have heard nothing. No "hey, you didnt qualify" No "hey, we ran out of money" and most certainly no "Hey, you've got money" I would atleast like to hear something.
If they are looking at needs based, then I should atleast be on the radar as we are sending our oldest to college this next week. Two in college is a killer when it comes to the family of 5's finances living on 1 income. Don't get me wrong, I am happy that my son got some of the money. It would just be awesome if we both did, then the rest of us could eat too.

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I called again on behalf of my son again this morning when I heard about the miracle $6mm. She said because he fell to 11 hours in his three years of college at Arkansas Tech, he does not qualify for any and is not on any waiting list and he can reapply for the spring. WHat changes that would qualify him then. Even with the summer courses he is supposed to graduate next May. They are giving any Baptist nursing, dental, etc. students the money, they are giving students that alreayd have scholarships money, but not the kid who has strugged through college and had to drop a class one semester. I wasn't going to get upset about this again. :-)

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Internetta,

Sorry to hear about your situation. A number of people were confused and surprised to learn of the rule that a student had to be continuously enrolled in at least 12 hours per semester (and have a 2.5 GPA) to qualify for money as a "continuing achiever." The information appears on the Higher Education Department website, but clearly, the word didn't get out.

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I just looked at their website today, It is totally different. The rules are clearly stated and in a different format.
No sour grapes, just disappointed. I'll have a freshman next year again, but he is receiving an ACT scholarship already. :-)

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I have been reading about all this and from what I understand there is still money left over about ,20m maybe, in the current achiever bank, and because of the narrow rules to be considered a current achiever a large amount of those people got pushed in to the nontraditional and flooded that pool of applicants. And this is why I am not getting a scholorship. Why can't they just pull some of that money left over frmo the current achievers to satisfy the remaining qualified applicants. Nontraditional students are the ones that really need this scholorship anyway. we are often the ones that dont really qualify for much aid or help and most of us are not on the parents pocketbook anymore. I am really disappointed! I worked so hard for the last year and a half to get into nursing school at the UofA starting this fall in the nursing program. I don't qualify for anything but financial aid that I will have to pay back. I was counting on this being a way to fund college a little that I would not have to worry about.Student loans are already piling up, I pay my taxes, I work and I contribute to our great state. I was looking forward to a little help with my college but I guess I was wrong.... Maybe something will happen in the next few days and things will change and the legislator will do what they need to do to full fill there promise. One can hope right!!

I will say this when I called my state rep Jim House, he was very diligent and getting a hold of someone at ADE and I spoke to someone that day. I was very happy to know our local state rep is so helpful. Thank you Jim.

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Maybe Beebe can spend some of his campaign money to fund the rest of the applicants that qualified but aren't receiving scholarships. I bet that would buy some votes better than anything would!!

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i can honestly say i am a student that qualifies for this scholarship in every way. i've lived here my whole life, have the grades and college credit hours needed. I was told "not enough money" to help me out as of right now. i'm pretty pissed because i needed it so bad especially after being denied fafsa because i maybe made a thousand dollars too much last year (at a grocery store)???. it's ridiculous.

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