Rep. Thaddeus Jones Wants “Legislative Scholarships” Brought Back

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Legislative scholarships are typically offered as a means of helping students to get to college through the support of lawmakers in their individual states. These scholarships are often given out to help students pay for college but there have been concerns in some spots with regards to these scholarships and how they are being given out to individual students.

The concerns come from how many of these scholarships are given out to students by government representatives who often hold their own partisan values. There are also concerns that some states are being forced into spending a good deal of money on these scholarships.

This was the problem with Illinois’ legislative scholarships. These scholarships were believed to cost the state’s universities more than ten million dollars each year.

There is also the concern that came from many politicians around the state abusing their powers. That is, they were often using their powers with the intention of targeting specific students as a means of making themselves more viable from a political standpoint.

State Representative Thaddeus Jones is hoping to get legislative scholarships to come back in Illinois. These would entail four one-year scholarships and two four-year scholarships given out to students by each state senator. The senators would have the option to choose who gets these scholarships. Also, recipients of these scholarships must live within the districts that these representatives follow.

Whether or not these scholarships will come back to Illinois is unclear but one point is for certain in that many other states around the country are offering their own legislative scholarships. There are many good examples that are going around right now with regards to who is offering these scholarships to students. For instance:

· One-year tuition is covered for students in Louisiana in many districts to attend classes at Tulane University.

· One-year awards of up to $10,100 in value is available for students in Maryland to attend classes within that state.

· Legislative scholarships are available to students in New Mexico with the state’s lottery funds helping to cover the cost of a large part of tuition for select students that are chosen by individual legislators within New Mexico.

· The state of Maine also has a legislative scholarship that covers up to $1,000 in educational costs for college for students within each individual district of Maine.

· North Carolina also offers scholarships that are given to students within individual sections of the state. These scholarships are given to students through the support of funds from the state’s lottery.

Whether or not Illinois is going to get these scholarships to work for them again is unclear. What is known for certain is that there is a very realistic potential for many students from many parts of the country to receive support in the future through the assistance of the government whether it is from legislators or other entities that are related to the government in some way. This is a popular point for students but it is not a point that is without its controversy or other issues getting in the way of how it may be run.