§3046.3 Private scholarships

A. Recognizing the success and growth of the Louisiana GO Grant program and in order to maintain the long-term financial stability of the program, private businesses, industry, foundations, charities, individuals and other groups may request from the division of administration that, notwithstanding any provision of law to the contrary, they may create privately funded scholarship programs to make payments to eligible colleges and universities on behalf of individual students. If the division of administration were to approve a private scholarship program then any scholarship funds received by an eligible college or university from a private scholarship program on behalf of a student shall cause a reduction in the dollar amount of the grant award to the eligible college or university attributable to that student such that the grant award associated with that student shall be an amount that is equal to the dollar amount that the grant would have been if no such private scholarship funds had been received less the amount of private scholarship funds received by the eligible college or university on behalf of that student.

B. This Section shall in no way be interpreted in such a manner that a student could receive less benefits from a combination of the grants from the program and the private scholarship funded on his behalf then he would have received solely from the grant program if there had been no private scholarship funded on his behalf. Therefore, to the extent that any privately funded scholarship funds provided for in this Section made to an eligible college or university on behalf of a qualified student are for an amount less than the amount a given student would have otherwise received as a grant if no such private scholarship funds had been paid under this Section and the criteria established by the Board of Regents, then the eligible college or university shall receive that difference on behalf of the student as the student's grant from the Louisiana GO Grant program.

C. As provided in this Section, when an eligible college or university receives privately funded scholarship funds on behalf of a student, the state funds for the Louisiana GO Grant program shall be reduced by the amount of the private scholarship program funds so received. The commissioner of administration shall determine and specify the amount of the reduction from the source of the funds to provide the maximum benefit to the state from the privately funded scholarship program. The state treasurer shall deposit the amount of the reduction as specified by the commissioner of administration into the Overcollections Fund created in R. S. 39:100.21 and credit the deposit to an account within the fund hereby established and created to be known as the "Program Participation Savings Account".

Acts 2014, No. 778, §1, eff. July 1, 2014.