The Arkansas legislature voted to cap the amount of money that public institutions of higher education can spend on scholarships, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education.
The measure states that public colleges and universities cannot spend more than 30 percent of their general tuition and fee revenue on scholarships. Institutions that exceed this cap will receive less state support and extra money will be used to bolster scholarship programs that benefit the state’s neediest students. The General Assembly passed a similar bill in 2005 that set a 30-percent cap, but did not include any penalties for institutions that exceeded that amount. The cap will be lowered to 20 percent by the 2012-2013 fiscal year.