AUSTIN, Texas (AP) _ When state lawmakers created the popular TEXAS Grant financial aid program, the goal was to help poor students get to college and create a future for hundreds of thousands who could not afford a higher education on their own.
A decade later, trends show that about half of those using the money never graduate. To improve those rates, two key lawmakers are now trying to put the most academically accomplished of those students at the front of the line.
Minority groups and the state senator who crafted TEXAS Grants are worried that black and Latino students will get pushed to the back at a time when lawmakers are already considering making deep cuts to the program.
They say kids from the poorest neighborhoods could lose out.
(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)