When it comes to who killed the most successful scholarship program in Florida's history, Rick Scott and Charlie Crist ought to holster their weapons and wave a white flag.
Shooting at each other for crimes against Bright Futures makes no sense. They both should be firing away at the real culprits -- every Florida Legislature since at least 2007.
Fault for the demise of Bright Futures -- and now, as predicted, the ineligibility of more than a third of state university freshmen to get financial aid (read Tuesday's story in the Tampa Bay Times) -- lies 90 percent with the Legislature, maybe 10 percent at best with any governor.
Let me explain.
And forgive me for quoting from an April 8, 2013, storyI wrote about the University of South Florida studypredicting exactly what the Times just reported:
"Last week comes the latest saga -- a sad I-told-you-so, a new study from the University of South Florida that finds this about Bright Futures:Upcoming changes to the 16-year-old program will result in only half as many total scholarship recipients in 2014 -- from 30,954 to 15,711. And poor and minority students across the state will be the most affected. Black freshmen with a Bright Futures scholarship will drop 75 percent, Hispanic freshmen more than 60 percent and white and Asian freshmen more than 40 percent."
That was then.
But it was enough forthe Charlie Crist people to pick it up and blame Rick Scottfor the drop, for approving changes to Bright Futures criteria in 2011. "This disproportionally hurts minorities, but it also hurts our entire economy," said Crist in a statement reported in the Times story.Crist claims he's going to fix it all when he's elected.
Scott, meanwhile, fired back that Bright Futures was never meant to be based on race -- and he's right. It was intended to give all Florida students who worked hard in school and kept good grades a shot at a college education and the American dream -- minimum need for a lifetime of servitude to repay tens of thousands of dollars in student-loan debt. Bright Futures was never, ever about race or income level.
And, of course, it gave the governor a chance to point out it was the degradation of student aid opportunities that inspired him tocreate $10,000 degrees and limit universities' ability to raise tuition.
But neither can Scott, try as he may, blame Crist for the Bright Futures travesty.
Because Crist produced a TV ad claiming Scott "cut Bright Futures in half," PolitiFact Florida checked it, wrote about it and gave Crist's claim a "half true." I wouldn't have given it even that.
As it happens, Scott and Crist both were victimized by the Florida Legislature.
PolitiFact does a good job of presenting the numbers and pointing out that on both governors' watches, Bright Futures' criteria was stiffened and it became more and more difficult for students to qualify.
Scott never cut the program in half. But with changes to the criteria -- with SAT scores raised -- suddenly only half the applicants as before were eligible.
PoilitiFact claims the same thing happened in Crist's last term in office -- criteria were raised, fewer scholarships resulted. Crist is just as guilty or just as innocent as Scott. Here's why:
Bright Futures -- passed in most incredible fashion in 1997, remember -- is funded entirely out of proceeds from the Florida Lottery, a trust fund. The idea was that the lottery should supplementeducation, not supplant it, and thus this scholarship program that gave every Florida student a chance to participate was born.
But, little by little lawmakers' resolve eroded.
First, with term limits, the Legislature lost its collective memory. The further away from 1997, the dimmer Bright Futures' creation became. Legislators forgot the lottery promise. Bright Futures was well-established, they didn't have to think about it and they weren't involved in it. And the big chunk of money rolling in from the lottery proceeds was so tempting to raid. They kept whittling away at it, year after year, in good times and bad.
Florida lawmakers eventually decoupled the popular scholarship program from tuition increases in response to those who said it was growing financially faster than the lottery could handle. But the changes made to the qualifications over the past couple of years turned it into an elitest program, out of reach for most.
Which was exactly the idea for the Raiders of the Lost Trust Fund: The tougher Bright Futures requirements get, the fewer students you have claiming the scholarships and the more money you've got for the next trust fund raid.
So, thousands fewer students are eligible for Bright Futures at the same time the cost of higher education is slipping out of reach for middle class and low-income families in particular. While student loan debt keeps on growing, college tuition in Florida has more than doubled in the past decade.
The Bright Futures standards put in place in 1997kept a college education within reach for most students who worked hard. The program cost not a dime of taxpayer money.
The lottery proceeds were enough to leave a good, groundbreaking program alone -- and would be to this day -- if the trust fund hadn't been siphoned off into the general fund.
No governor -- not Jeb Bush, not Charlie Crist, not Rick Scott -- ever went to an appropriations committee chairman and asked him to cut Bright Futures scholarships or make fewer good students eligible for the program. And even if one of them had asked -- begged -- to keep Bright Futures intact, that's all he gets to do -- ask. Governors don't make the law.
So, the gutting of Bright Futures went through in yearly increments, as it always does, by becoming part of a conforming bill on education that gets embedded in the larger omnibus appropriations package.
Yes, a governor could veto the bill, but in all honesty, it's not realistic. There are too many other moving parts within such a large, complicated document.
But wouldn't you think the Florida Legislature would want to protect Bright Futures, the product of an emerging Republican majority in 1997 and one of the most popular legislative initiatives of the last several decades?
For now, somebody should tell the Crist and Scott campaign teams to stop throwing Bright Futures at each other. It's misleading and inappropriate.
Related Nancy Smith Commentary
- March 24, 2010: The Big Bright Futures Lie
- June 24, 2011: Bright Futures a $780,000 Jackpot for Shouping Hu; Students Out of Luck
- July 1, 2011: How Did the Bad Guys Get Their Hands on All-Republican Bright Futures?
- Nov. 27, 2012: So Predictable, So Tiresome: Democrats' Disdain for Rick Scott's Affordable Ed Plan
- Nov. 30, 2011: Rick Scott Did Not -- Repeat, Did Not -- Raise University Tuition
- April 8, 2013: Bright Futures: They Should Never Have Messed With the Best
Reach Nancy Smith at nsmith@sunshinestatenews or at 228-282-2423. Twitter: @NancyLBSmith
