Week in Review

State Capitol Week in Review

LITTLE ROCK – Last year 28,295 seniors graduated from Arkansas high schools and 63.4 percent of them went on to attend an Arkansas college or university in the fall.

That percentage is slightly lower than the previous year, when 64.7 percent of Arkansas high school graduates enrolled in college.

Legislators, higher education officials and business leaders pay close attention to college attendance and graduation rates. It affects the quality of life in Arkansas and the state's economy. It is well known that regions with the most college graduates also have the best jobs and the healthiest local economy.

Arkansas is very close to the national average in the proportion of high school graduates who go on to college. The national average is 67.2 percent.

Since the 1991-1992 school year, the average cost of college tuition and fees has gone up by 275 percent at Arkansas universities, and by 272 percent at Arkansas two-year colleges. Some legislators have expressed concern that if tuition continues to increase so steeply, the value of lottery scholarships will be diminished.

In many ways South Carolina is the model for the Arkansas lottery scholarship program. According to the South Carolina Policy Council, after voters in that state approved a lottery scholarship program in 2000, the cost of college tuition has risen by an average of 13 percent a year at the state's two major institutions of higher education -- Clemson and the University of South Carolina.

In the 10 years before the lottery in South Carolina was established, tuition at the two major universities rose by an average of 4 percent a year.

The recent, steep increases in tuition in South Carolina have coincided with a decrease in state appropriations to higher education. Therefore it can be argued that the lottery scholarships merely replaced, rather than supplemented, traditional sources of revenue for higher education.

However you look at it, according to the South Carolina Policy Council college students in that state now pay more out of their own pockets for tuition than they did before the lottery was created. The Policy Council is a conservative think tank.

The amounts of lottery scholarships in Arkansas will depend on how many lottery tickets are sold.

Payday Lenders Gone from Arkansas

A spokesman for the state Attorney General's office announced that payday lending companies no longer do business in Arkansas.

The Supreme Court had ruled that payday loans violated the Constitution's prohibition against usury, and the attorney general was instrumental in convincing the loan companies that leaving Arkansas was preferable to litigation.

They also are known as check cashing companies. Typically, the borrower would write a check for $300 and the loan company would hand over $250 in cash. The company would wait until the borrower's payday before cashing the check.

The interest rate on the short-term loans could exceed 300 percent, and if a borrower fell behind on payments it would be even higher.

A few years ago more than 200 payday loan companies operated in Arkansas. The attorney general's office estimates that payday lending companies were collecting $25 million a year in interest.