re: should TOPs recipients be required to stay in LA for a set # of years after graduation?

So frick anyone that wants to go into a program that one of those school doesn't offer?

Never gonna happen.

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The whole purpose of TOPS was to keep our best and brightest students from leaving the state for college,

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I disagree. The whole purpose originally was to allow more people the opportunity to go to college. It even originally had an income cap. Pat Taylor thought there were kids who deserved to go to college but couldn't afford it.

Now it has changed to where everyone should go to college whether you deserve to or not and no matter how much income you have taxpayers will pay for it.

If the purpose of TOPS is now to keep our best students in LA colleges then that wasn't its original purpose.

I'd be OK forcing students who leave LA to pay back a percentage if they leave the state, with a couple of caveats. You wouldn't have to pay it back if:

1-You could prove your job in the new state makes 10% more salary than a comparable job offer in state.
2- You could prove you weren't able to find a job.
3- You get a deferral if you are obtaining a graduate degree. I.e. Go to Florida for law school, have fun, but we expect you back here in 3 years.




I'd be more interested in forcing students who drop out pay back a percentage of the money provided. Too many people who have no business being in college are spending two or three semesters hanging out at the fraternity house before they drop out and get a job they could have gotten out of high school.



All of this assumes that TOPS is being turned into an interest free loan and not a scholarship. But in reality, the cost of putting an administration in place to handle these issues would offset the benefits of any money you get back.

The first step is jack up the requirements to get TOPS. Stop giving people who have OK GPAs and a 21 on the ACT free tuition.

The fact that there are people in this thread who think this is a good idea says a lot about the psyche in the state of Louisiana,

Yes

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Likewise, the state needs to find ways to grow industry and provide incentives for companies to hire LA applicants.

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Good luck. LA cannot get out of its own damn way. The state gov would frick it up somehow.

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legislators propose changing TOPS from a scholarship to a loan with employment provisions, anyone with half a brain would just take a merit-based scholarship at a school in another state before taking the loan unless the state could somehow guarantee a certain level of employment with adequate compensation upon graduation.

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This. When I picked LSU for college, I had the option to take a full ride at Alabama or a couple other schools (including tuition, room and board, meal plan, and a stipend), and I chose LSU anyway. If this "you can only take a job in LA" thing existed, I would have gone to another school that was giving me a better offer anyway

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No, why would you tie your citizens to just working in La.?

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why should the people of LA subsidize the education of people who aren't going to help make it a better, more educated palace?

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To a degree, it makes sense. At the same time, the state of LA has nothing to offer in regards to many occupations.

Plus, it is broke as hell.

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Scruffy, 50_Tiger thinks you are mostly correct except for that bolded text you wonderful put. You cannot hold people to something you cannot even account for yourself.

Texas could technically do something like this because we are diversified.

You get a degree in La you are pretty much working in a hospital or a plant as an indentured servant. Well at least until you have paid your "time" like some prisoner.