Tuition grant under fire
A bill that would repeal the UNC tuition break given to students at the School of Science and Math in Durham. Basically, kids who do two years at the school are guaranteed free tuition at the school.
The House measure, passed out of committee on a voice vote, would strip the school of that privilege.
Rep. Paul Leubke, the bill's measure, says that giving the break to those students is inherently unfair to students at other high school and brought statistics that show most of the kids who graduate from the school of science and math are not going on to careers in engineering and such.
Oh, and complains it was slipped into a budget bill by the Senate a couple years ago.
Who did the slipping? Sen. Kay Hagan, a Greensboro Democrat, who the last few times I've talked to her about this says the measure is an investment in keeping bright people in North Carolina.
Hagan didn't get any back up from here Guilford County peeps on the issue.
Rep. Alma Adams, a Greensboro Democrat, and Rep. Laura Wiley, a High Point Republican, both spoke against the bill.
Wiley said that kids who couldn't afford to leave home or had disabilities that made going to the school impossible couldn't take advantage of the tuition break.
"This is just something that's not available to all students and I find that inherently unfair," Wiley said.
The bill will likely pass the House, but once it arrives in the Senate I think you can fairly expect it to go a whole lot of nowhere.
More background on the tuition break earlier in the year here with additional material here, here, here and here.