Summary of Amendments to Louisiana's TOPS Scholarship Program Enacted During the 1999 Regular Session of the Legislature

To assure that your Scholarship and Grant Policy and Procedure Manual remains current, please record this document on your TOPS Bulletin index and retain it with your manual.

The amendments which are briefly described below will be implemented by rules promulgated by the Louisiana Student Financial Assistance Commission (LASFAC). The rules, as proposed by LASFAC, will be first published in the Louisiana Register and may be viewed, when available, on the agency’s Internet web site (http://www.osfa.state.la.us).

• Amendment: Requires that applicants for TOPS be U.S. Citizens. Students who are non-citizens and below the age of majority may qualify for the program provided they apply for and become citizens within one year following their 18th birthday.
  

• Amendment: Clarifies that a dependent student is a resident of the state in which his parent or parents are residents.
  

• Amendment: Clarifies that the dependent children of tax-paying residents on active duty in the Armed Forces and stationed outside of the state will be eligible for the program, provided these children graduate from a state approved or Department of Defense school and meet the alternate academic requirement. (Note: The alternate academic requirement is an ACT composite score which is 3 points above the state average ACT score).
  

• Amendment: Permits the dependent children of a nonresident stationed in Louisiana on active military duty to qualify for TOPS, provided that within 60 days after reporting for duty the military sponsor changes his personnel records to show Louisiana as his official home of record and pays Louisiana income taxes. (Note: The dependent must graduate from an approved Louisiana high school and meet all academic standards including grades, curriculum and ACT score).
  

• Amendment: Requires the qualifying high school grade point average of 2.50 to be computed on the core curriculum beginning with high school graduates of 2003.
  

• Amendment: Eliminates "academic probation" as the basis for determining whether an award should be suspended because the student is not making academic progress and replaces it with a common standard referred to as "steady academic progress" which will be applicable to students at all schools and be defined in rule by the administering agency.
  

• Amendment: Maximizes the opportunity for families to qualify for the federal HOPE and Lifetime Learning tax credits by re-defining the TOPS award to be "an amount equal to tuition". (Note: If the award is used to pay tuition, the family would be ineligible for a tax credit. Existing law permits the award to be used to pay the "cost of attendance", which includes room, board, books, and supplies. Families with federal income tax liabilities whose children are receiving TOPS awards should consult their tax preparers about eligibility for these federal tax credits).
  

• Amendment: Prevents the TOPS award from being used to supplant any portion of the Tulane Legislative Scholarship.
  

• Amendment: Mandates that non-public high schools be academically approved by the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) and be eligible for state funded textbooks and transportation in order for their graduates to be eligible for TOPS, beginning with the graduating class of 2000.
  

• Amendment: Permits 1998 graduates to qualify if their ACT scores were achieved after high school graduation but prior to July 1, 1998.
  

• Amendment: Prevents the disqualification of those 1998 high school graduates whose parents moved out of state during the student’s senior year, provided that the parents were residents for at least 2 years before leaving the state.
  

• Amendment: Provides that a student or the student’s parents may elect to defer the TOPS award pending the filing of a federal income tax return and, upon proof that a federal HOPE Tax Credit has been taken by the family, the student would be paid directly the difference between the amount of the federal tax credit and the TOPS award, plus an incentive equal to 25% of the credit taken. Essentially, this provision offsets the amount of any TOPS award by a percentage of any tax credit received.

This notice of changes in the Tuition Opportunity Program for Students (TOPS) is provided for information purposes in compliance with L.R.S. 17:3048.1C(3).