Pay for college now or pay later

New Mexico needs to be making it easier, not harder, for young people to become educated.

Thousands of New Mexico students have attended college — costs partially subsidized — supported by the Legislative Lottery Scholarship program. It is one of the best deals in higher education in the country.

The promise of the scholarships for the past two decades is that students who qualified — by keeping their GPA up and taking enough classes — would be able to attend college with tuition costs paid for by proceeds from lottery sales. That left students and their families responsible for purchasing books, paying fees and living expenses. No one was getting a free ride.

Over the years, as more students took advantage of the program and, for whatever reasons, more people stopped playing lottery games, the state has begun reducing the share of college tuition it will cover. First, the tuition share went down from 100 percent to 95 percent, then 90 percent, and just last week, the Higher Education Department announced that scholarships will only cover 60 percent of tuition. A temporary boost to the scholarship fund from a tax on liquor is expiring, exacerbating the situation.

For now, students and families are on their own for the other 40 percent of tuition — and this at a time when federal student aid is being reduced and college costs are rising. Even with New Mexico’s relatively low tuition costs at its public universities and colleges, this decrease in funding will be a hardship for many families.

With some 26,000-plus students at state colleges and universities receiving lottery scholarships, it’s inevitable that at least some students will have to leave school or take longer to graduate. Yet nothing will have greater impact on New Mexico’s future than an educated population. New Mexico needs to be making it easier, not harder, for young people to become educated.

Researcher Lucy Dadayan of the Rockefeller Institute of Government in Albany, N.Y., got to the heart of New Mexico’s problem in her remarks in Andrew Oxford’s report on the lottery scholarships’ difficulties earlier this week. Too much of New Mexico’s reaction to increased demands on lottery scholarships is focusing on how to increase the sales of games of chance. The real question is how New Mexico — and other states — can find more sustainable ways of paying tuition costs.

With tuition costs rising faster than lottery sales are increasing, students will be shortchanged every year unless more money flows to the scholarships. It’s that simple.

The first question to debate, then, is whether New Mexico wants to pay tuition for students as promised — after all, the state already funds public education from preschool to high school. We would argue that, yes, helping subsidize higher education in a state where people are poor and so many families are sending first-generation college students off is a worthy public policy.

The state must have an educated workforce to improve its economy. What’s more, New Mexico made a promise two decades ago that it would cover tuition costs; the students currently enrolled are being left high and dry through no fault of their own.

Rep. Carl Trujillo of Santa Fe tried to keep the liquor tax flowing to lottery scholarships this session, but he did not succeed. He understands that some sort of supplement is going to be needed for lottery scholarships to continue covering tuition. Finding those funds should be a focus of lawmakers and even candidates for governor. We need new solutions.

Already, the state has passed a law requiring some 30 percent of lottery revenue go to scholarships, rather than be spent on administrative costs, advertising or prize dollars. Lottery executives want that changed, arguing that they could increase sales through advertising more and end up making more dollars for scholarships. That battle likely will return to the Legislature. We think the 30 percent figure should be maintained, but more attention should be paid to reducing the growth in tuition costs and finding other supplemental dollars for the scholarship fund. With lottery revenue growth stalled, this problem is likely to get worse. Currently, if tuition costs were funded at 100 percent, about $60 million would be needed. The fund is about $20 million short annually.

That’s the number to keep in mind. Where can New Mexico find $20 million a year, especially in a time of budget cutting and worries about declines in oil and gas revenues? Sen. Howie Morales’ proposed cigarette tax increase would have brought in some $89 million a year, for example. What other sources of revenue are out there?

The bottom line is this: Does the state have the vision to keep its promise — both by funding lottery scholarships but also by increasing oversight of college costs? If tuition can be lowered, scholarships can be raised. The math is easy to understand, but finding a policy solution will be difficult. The reward? An educated population not mired in college debt, just what New Mexico needs to build its future.