By Rae Arnett
The Lottery Scholarship for Spring 2014, the current semester, has been fully funded by the New Mexico Legislature.
Eastern New Mexico University will be receiving funds, which then will be used to reimburse students. This process occurs each year, but, due to Lottery Scholarship funding constraints, ENMU officials were not sure whether students would be fully reimbursed this year.
Since the 2009 recession, lottery ticket sales have decreased. Consequently, there are fewer funds available for the Lottery Scholarship.
The New Mexico House of Representatives and Senate allocated funds from the state liquor tax to the scholarship in order to keep it alive.
These new funds are meant to “keep the scholarship solvent for the next two years,” according to Michael Howard, financial aid officer.
With the new legislation, students who receive the Lottery Scholarship at four-year universities, such as ENMU, must complete 15 hours a semester while maintaining a 2.5 cumulative GPA to be eligible for the seven semesters of lottery money.
These new rules would not apply to legacy students, which include students that graduated high school in 2010, 2011, and 2012, according to Howard. Legacy students will have to maintain a 2.5 cumulative GPA and complete 12 hours each semester. In addition, they will be eligible for the Lottery Scholarship for eight semesters.
Current freshmen are not considered legacy students and will be subject to the new regulations.
A glitch occurred in the original Lottery Scholarship legislation. According to the legislation, students would receive the scholarship after their second program semester as long as they maintained a 2.5 GPA. The problem was “program semester”—this wording means that the scholarship would not be available to students until their sophomore year, leaving a semester gap of no funding.
Governor Susanna Martinez signed the bill into law March 12 and used her power to line-veto the word “program” in order to avoid any gaps in funding for New Mexico students.