Most Louisiana students won't get bigger TOPS scholarships — but an elite few will – NOLA.com
Prospective students from Tampa, Florida, walk by Memorial Tower during a guided tour at LSU on Wednesday, March 19, 2025.
Prospective students from Tampa, Florida, walk by Memorial Tower during a guided tour at LSU on Wednesday, March 19, 2025.
Louisiana will cover the full price of college tuition for a small group of stellar students, under newly passed legislation — but it won’t give more money to thousands of students whose state scholarships cover only part of their tuition bill.
Top-scoring high schoolers will qualify for a new “Excellence” award through the state’s TOPS scholarship program under House Bill 77, which the Louisiana Legislature passed last week and Gov. Jeff Landry is expected to sign. Starting this fall, the award will provide up to $12,000 per year to students who attend a public university, or roughly the annual cost of tuition and fees at LSU’s main campus, and up to $8,500 for students at eligible private universities.
To qualify, students must score 31 or higher out of 36 on the ACT and earn 3.5 or above grade point average. Fewer than 900 students annually are expected to get the award, or less than 2% of first-year students at the state’s public colleges and universities.
The bill’s author, Rep. Christopher Turner, R-Ruston, initially had grander ambitions. His original bill would have established uniform rates for TOPS scholarships, which vary by school and often fall thousands of dollars short of the full cost of tuition and fees. The new rates would have meant more money for most of the roughly 48,000 TOPS recipients, lowering their out-of-pocket expenses.
But the bill faced pushback because it would have resulted in smaller scholarships for some LSU students while increasing state spending on TOPS by nearly $48 million. In the end, the Legislature scrapped the new rates and kept only the Excellence award, which is projected to cost about $3 million next fiscal year.
“I’ve very happy with where we ended up,” Turner said. “It’s just not what we started with.”
Louisiana has given merit-based TOPS scholarships for nearly three decades, but participation has slumped in recent years. Fewer students are meeting the academic requirements, while more eligible students are turning down the awards. Some of the highest-achieving students are choosing colleges in states with more generous scholarships.
Turner’s bill aimed to make TOPS more enticing by setting higher award amounts. It also sought to create parity across colleges by setting standards rates for each TOPS award — $6,000 per year for the Opportunity award, $6,500 for Performance and $9,000 for Honors. The proposed amounts were thousands of dollars higher than the current TOPS rates at many colleges, which haven’t increased in nearly a decade.
The changes would have driven up the cost of TOPS to about $330 million next fiscal year, compared with $282 million under the current rates, according to cost estimates.
Turner said lawmakers might eventually considering boosting TOPS amounts, but they “just weren’t ready this session.” He added that lawmakers want to ensure that TOPS dollars are well spent.
“How do we make sure Louisiana is getting a good return on investment for the students who are using state dollars to go to college?” he said.
About 40% of TOPS recipients earn a bachelor’s degree in four years, compared with just 10% of non-TOPS students, according to the state Board of Regents, which oversees public higher education.
Students who qualify for the Excellence award will receive the standard amount or their college’s tuition and fees, whichever is less. Recipients can use the money at any public college or university in Louisiana, as well as private institutions in the Louisiana Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. Member universities include Dillard, Loyola, Tulane, Xavier and others.
Rep. Laurie Schlegel, R-Metairie, who helped develop the bill, said she thinks it will convince more top-performing students to stay in Louisiana.
“I do believe the Excellence level will move the needle and encourage students that might be looking out of state to choose our in-state colleges,” she said.
Students today can qualify for TOPS based on their ACT or equivalent SAT scores. Under the new legislation, students will also be able to qualify using their scores on the Classic Learning Test.
Backed by many conservative groups and frequently taken by private or homeschool students, the test features reading passages from classic literature and historical texts with a “lasting influence on Western culture and society,” according to the test website. Most colleges do not accept the test for admissions. Louisiana Christian University in Pineville is the only institution in the state listed as one of the test’s “partner” schools.
The state Legislature also made it easier for homeschool students to qualify for TOPS.
Under current law, those students are exempt from requirements to take certain high school courses and earn a minimum GPA to qualify for TOPS, but they must earn ACT scores that are two points higher than the cutoff for public or private school students.
House Bill 378, which passed and is awaiting Landry’s signature, removes the higher score requirement. Now homeschool students must earn the same minimum ACT scores as their peers: 20 for Opportunity, 23 for Performance and 27 for Honors.
Rep. Roger Wilder, R-Denham Springs, said he authored the bill after hearing from a student who scored 21 on the ACT. She would have been eligible for TOPS if she’d gone to a public school, but she didn’t qualify because she was homeschooled. Wilder said his bill holds all students to the same standard.
“To me,” he said, “a test is a test and student is a student.”
Email Patrick Wall at patrick.wall@theadvocate.com.
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