With the Lottery Scholarship facing a major shortfall, it is possible that next year UNM students who receive it may only get 80 percent of their tuition paid for. The Daily Lobo talked to Sanchez about the work he’s done to protect the scholarship and possible solutions for fixing it.
You introduced a bill this year that would have taken unclaimed lottery prizes and added them to the scholarship fund. The bill seemed to have bipartisan support, but it died in the House. Was that frustrating?
“It is a little bit. But you know, the legislative process is what it is. It hurts the students, and that’s what bothers me. But hopefully we’ll reintroduce it next January and hopefully they’ll take care of it. We’ll take care of it on the Senate side, and hopefully they’ll do the same on the House side. It was a no-brainer to me.”
The scholarship fund has been short before, but the state managed to make up the difference and keep the funding at 100 percent. Why has it fallen below full tuition coverage again?
“The prior legislative session, I introduced a bill and we found another funding source to be able to pay 100 percent of tuition for all students. That bill was then amended on the House side — by a representative from Rio Rancho — that ensured that the students wouldn’t get their full amount. It came back at the very last moment in the Senate for concurrence, and rather than students not getting anything at all, we concurred with it. But that Rio Rancho representative and some of his Republican friends and even some Democrats voted for that amendment, and they really hurt the students of New Mexico by doing it. I don’t think the Democrats really realized it, but I’m absolutely positive the rep from Rio Rancho understood it. I disagree with the amendment and still do to this day, because we had it covered through another funding source and they chose to ignore that. And that’s why (the funding level) is what it is today, because of that representative.”
What other solutions are there to getting it back to 100 percent?
“Well, one of the things is that the Board of Regents — not only at UNM but boards throughout the state — they’ve got to look at this issue in a realistic manner. They’ve got to stop using the New Mexico Lottery as a cash cow. I understand that New Mexico State University is going to raise their tuition. They continue to use the Lottery as a cash cow and I’m personally tired of it. There is a way that we can cap or stop that — there have been bills introduced that have said that when you start (attending a university), that is what you’re going to end with in terms of the amount of tuition you’re going to pay. Those bills have generally failed, just because we want to give the universities a little leeway, but I think that may be more important now than ever. That might be one of the ways to stop the universities from doing these (tuition) increases that in my opinion are unnecessary.
“Continuing to look for another funding source is another way to fix the shortfall. There are a lot of funding sources we somehow sit on, and we don’t use it for anything. That may be an avenue in the future. The Permanent Fund has, I think, $17 billion, and is used for colleges and schools. Looking at other revenue sources available is an option, but you have to have the willpower to do it, and some members don’t look at the scholarship like others do. I look at it as, this is the best thing that’s ever happened for New Mexico and the best thing for our students, and there’s nothing better than getting our kids educated and out in the workforce to become good, productive citizens of our state. So we’re going to continue to work. There’s a lot of different options and we’re always looking, and until the day that I leave the New Mexico Legislature, I’m going to continue to find a way to fund this scholarship at 100 percent.”
What do you think about making the requirements for keeping the scholarship more stringent in order to ensure that those who meet those requirements get their entire tuition covered?
“I don’t agree with any of that. That hurts families that don’t have high incomes. And if people want to play that game, I introduced a bill this year that would make it a needs-based scholarship — let’s see how people react to that because a lot of the students who use the scholarship may not really need it. When they make the requirements stricter, they’re hurting those lower-income individuals. That’s the bottom line, and I’m not going to stand for it. We need to give everybody the ability to go to college, regardless of where they come from or what income their family has.
How do you explain the government’s inability to address these problems? Is there just not enough political will?
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“I really don’t know for sure. The reduction (of the outside funding source), that was pure politics at its worst. I think they were trying to get at me, and they didn’t realize they were hurting students. When you start playing that game, you don’t do anybody any good. When the economy gets better there will be more lottery sales, but we’re still not out of the recession in this state. When times get better it’ll improve, but we’ve all got to work together to make sure we keep the promise we made when it started — that it will remain at 100 percent. I don’t like breaking promises.”
Jonathan Baca is the news editor at the Daily Lobo. He can be contacted at news@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @JonGabrielB.
