Bright Futures book stipend on budget chopping block
“We re subsidizing textbook companies.
Book stipends provided by the Bright Futures Scholarship program are under the gun as part of the House and Senate budget proposals.
Students currently receive $600 a year for textbooks under the merit-based scholarship. This year, however, both Chambers are in lockstep on the cuts.
“We’re subsidizing textbook companies by just giving them straight dollars that goes from the student directly to the publishers for textbooks that many people know are highly overpriced,” said Rep.
Rene Placensia.
“We believe that the best thing to do, especially the way education is moving into a more digital space, is to provide those digital textbooks at a much higher reduced price for those students.”
A proposal is advancing in the House that would allow high-performing students who live outside of Florida to pay in-state tuition rates at public universities if their grandparents reside in the Sunshine State.
“Would the grandparent have to be a full-time resident of the state of Florida? We know that Florida attracts snowbirds, people who are here for a period of time but not necessarily full-time residents,” Rep. Geraldine Thompson, D-Windermere, said.
“They’d have to be full-time residents of Florida. The (university system’s) Board of Governors would actually set up the way they mechanically do that, but it would require an attestation by the grandparent,” Maney answered.
Other lawmakers asked for a definition of “grandparent” to be written into the bill.
“In these crazy times we live in, what is the definition of a grandparent, and how far do we expand that?” asked Rep. Mike Caruso, R-Delray Beach.