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Cohen Statement on President’s Highlighting of Misguided Tennessee Promise Program in his State of the Union Address

January 20, 2015

[WASHINGTON, DC] – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09) today made the following statement regarding the invitation of Pellissippi State Community College student Chelsey Davis to sit with First Lady Michelle Obama at tonight’s State of the Union Address:

“I share the President's goals of making college more affordable and ensuring educational opportunity for all, and Ms. Davis is a powerful example of how community colleges can help students realize a better life. But she is an outlier of the Tennessee community college system, not the norm. Ms. Davis’ achievements, while impressive, were not aided by Governor Haslam’s Promise program as that program does not begin until this fall. She more likely than not received assistance through the HOPE scholarship while at Pellissippi State and will receive a HOPE scholarship if and when she enrolls in a four-year college. By raiding HOPE funding from which all of its funds are derived and preventing any future growth, the no-standards, non-existent Tennessee Promise program actually hurts low- and middle-income HOPE students who have shown they can achieve and directs their earned scholarship funding to more affluent, non-achieving students. By highlighting the Tennessee Promise, a yet-to-be-established $14 million ‘last dollar’ scholarship program rather than the ten-year $250 million Tennessee Education HOPE Lottery program, the emphasis is being placed on the hole and not the donut.”

Many aspects of President Obama’s community college proposal are in fact similar to the Tennessee HOPE Education Lottery scholarship program that Congressman Cohen, as a Tennessee State Senator, led the 2-decade fight to create. The Tennessee Education Lottery has provided more than $3 billion in education funding to Tennessee students. By requiring students to maintain a reasonable minimum grade point average (GPA) and achieve high standards in order to continue to receive assistance, the President’s plan is more closely aligned with the HOPE Education Lottery scholarship program that rewards high school performance than Governor Haslam’s Tennessee Promise program, which is a “last dollar” scholarship program that actually reduces the scholarship funding available to new students under the HOPE program.

The Governor’s Tennessee Promise program will not begin assisting students until this fall, and many of those who have succeeded at the state’s community colleges—including Chelsey Davis—have done so because of existing programs such as federal Pell Grants and Tennessee HOPE Scholarship. The average cost of attending community college in Tennessee is $3,787 per year, and the HOPE Scholarship provided $4,000 to high-achieving students prior to being reduced to help fund the Governor’s plan. The Tennessee HOPE Education Lottery Scholarship program “ASPIRE” grants provide students from families that earn less than $36,000 per year $750 per semester to attend community colleges, which was reduced to $250 per semester by Tennessee Promise. Federal Pell Grants also provide up to $5,645 for the most recent school year.