GOP Budget Axes Help For Thousands

September 21, 2017

At a time when other states are finding ways to make access to higher education more affordable or even free, the Connecticut General Assembly’s latest budget would axe a scholarship program that helps thousands. That is unacceptable to New Haven’s state lawmakers.

The lawmakers delivered that message at Gateway Community College Wednesday in the wake of the passage of a state budget that would, among other things, eliminate the Roberta Willis scholarship program and other higher education funding. Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has vowed to veto the budget but incorporate some of its ideas in a new budget.

The scholarship program helps pay for the education of some 15,000 students across the state, 9,000 of whom attend community colleges like Gateway. Six hundred students at Gateway are scholarship recipients. Under the current iteration of the budget, all that financial aid would vanish.

For more, read this New Haven Independent news story.