OFFICE OF FISCAL ANALYSIS
Legislative Office Building, Room 5200
Hartford, CT 06106 (860) 240-0200
http://www.cga.ct.gov/ofa
sSB-8
AN ACT CONCERNING HIGHER EDUCATION AFFORDABILITY
AND GRADUATE RETENTION.
As Amended by Senate "A" (LCO 8705)
House Calendar No.: 597
Senate Calendar No.: 104
Primary Analyst: SB 5/26/23
Contributing Analyst(s):
OFA Fiscal Note
State Impact:
Agency Affected Fund-Effect FY 24 $ FY 25 $
Board of Regents for Higher
Education
Various - Cost 21.1 million 21.1 million
Higher Ed., Off. GF - See Below See Below See Below
Public Institutions of Higher
Education
Various -
Revenue Gain
See Below See Below
Note: Various=Various; GF=General Fund
Municipal Impact: None
Explanation
The bill makes changes to the debt free community college program,
the Robert Willis Scholarship program, and higher education program
approval, resulting in the fiscal impacts described below.
Section 1 makes changes to the debt free community college
program, resulting in additional annual costs of approximately $21.1
million. The changes to the program include: 1) increasing the minimum
grant, 2) removing the Connecticut high school graduation requirement,
3) eliminating that a student must be continuously enrolled in college in
order to qualify, and 4) removing the requirement that it is a student's
first semester in college. These changes result in additional students
being eligible for the program and increased annual costs. The table
below provides the increased costs for the expansion. If additional 2023SB-00008-R01-FN.DOCX Page 2 of 3
General Fund funding is not provided, it is anticipated the community
colleges would cap grant expenditures at available funding based on
past practice.
Increase Minimum Grant $4.6 million
Remove CT High School Graduation Requirement $4.0 million
Remove Continuous Enrollment $8.0 million
Remove First Time in College $4.5 million
Total $21.1 million
Section 2 makes various changes to the Roberta Willis Scholarship
program within the Office of Higher Education, including eliminating
the community colleges from the program. This could result in a
revenue loss to the community colleges beginning in FY 24 as their
students would no longer be eligible for financial aid grants under this
program and consequently may choose to enroll elsewhere or not at all.
Additionally, the bill requires that in FY 24, any ARPA funds designated
for this program must be spent before any appropriated dollars. Section
2 also establishes a cap of $10 million dollars or 30 percent of the annual
appropriation (whichever is greater) to be reserved for the need merit
portion of the program. This could result in a redistribution of financial
aid funds among various eligible institutions, including the Connecticut
state universities and UConn.
Section 3 prevents any unused Roberta Willis Scholarship funds
from lapsing beginning in FY 24, which could result in a revenue
increase to various eligible intuitions, as unused funds will not lapse but
will be reallocated to institutions.
Section 4 makes various procedural changes regarding (1) program
approval and modifications, and (2) what is required of programs that
are exempt from such approval. These changes are not anticipated to 2023SB-00008-R01-FN.DOCX Page 3 of 3
result in a fiscal impact.
Senate "A" strikes the underlying bill and its associated fiscal impact
and replaces it with the fiscal impact described above.
The Out Years
The annualized ongoing fiscal impact identified above would
continue into the future subject to inflation and participation in the debt
free community college program.
The preceding Fiscal Impact statement is prepared for the benefit of the members of the General Assembly, solely
for the purposes of information, summarization and explanation and does not represent the intent of the General
Assembly or either chamber thereof for any purpose. In general, fiscal impacts are based upon a variety of
informational sources, including the analyst’s professional knowledge. Whenever applicable, agency data is
consulted as part of the analysis, however final products do not necessarily reflect an assessment from any
specific department.