A Senate bill equalizing the maximum awards under the Access Missouri program gained powerful support Wednesday when leaders and students from public universities across the state testified in Jefferson City.

As the scholarship program stands now, students attending a private four-year institution can receive as much as $4,600 per year, while students at public schools are limited to $2,150. Senate Bill 390 would make the maximum award for public and private school students $2,850 in any given year.

“I’m an Access Missouri recipient and it’s important to me because I’m a single mother,” said Missouri Southern student Kirsten Depriest, one of 20 proponents of the legislation to testify at the hearing. “I don’t believe I’d be able to go to college without it. That money makes a big difference because I receive the full amount.

“To make it even just makes sense,” she added.

Sen. Kurt Schaefer (R-Columbia) sponsored the bill after he was surprised to learn of the disparity in scholarship amounts. He added that Missouri ranks 47th in the nation in funding public four-year schools, but fourth in funding private four-year schools.

“We are giving a disproportionate amount of our tax dollars to private institutions,” Schaefer said. “Which frankly are unfettered by a lot of the requirements we put on publics, like not allowing them to do long-term planning because they have to come before the General Assembly every year for appropriations. That’s a benefit the privates have, they do longer-term planning.

“I’ve heard some of the arguments that it costs more to go to a private. Well, it sure does, and I think if you ask most of the privates we’re going to hear from next week what they’re doing with their tuition next year, we’re going to hear that tuition is going up, yet we know the University of Missouri for example, their tuition isn’t going up, and I don’t know that any of our four-year public institutions are.”

University of Missouri – Columbia Chancellor Brady Deaton said more than 4,600 students at the school receive Access Missouri funds, with an average of $1,610 each, yet unmet financial needs remain for a vast majority.

“If you look at all our undergraduate students with financial need, we average almost $2,000 in unmet financial need at this time,” Deaton said. “Students are working two jobs oftentimes to try and get through the university, and it would make a much more rich educational experience as well as expanding the number of students if this $700 increase for the maximum under the provisions of this bill took place.”

A substitute version of the bill given to the committee would push back changes to the scholarship program if the bill were passed. The new maximum amounts would have gone into effect during the 2010-11 school year, but now would wait until 2013 to help students currently in school receiving Access Missouri aid.

Leaders from Missouri University of Science and Technology, University of Missouri – Kansas City, University of Missouri – St. Louis, Missouri State University and University of Central Missouri also spoke in support during the hearing, along with numerous students. One student from the University of Missouri – Columbia testified that roughly 21,000 public school students receive Access Missouri scholarships, compared to 11,000 private school students. Yet private school students receive around 52 percent of Access Missouri money.

“If I as a citizen wanted to know where that money was going, that taxpayer money we’re giving to private institutions, if I send them a Sunshine request and I ask them how they’re spending that money they’re going to tell me to go jump in a lake because the Sunshine law doesn’t apply to them,” Schaefer said.

“We need to devote our public dollars to our public institutions,” he added.

University of Missouri – Columbia Student Association speaker Amanda Shelton testified that the Access Missouri scholarship has had an “amazing” effect on her academic career.

“The grant, in combination with academic and need-based scholarships, have allowed me to better focus on things which I view as integral to my college career,” Shelton said. “It’s allowed me, in part, to accept lower-paying jobs with higher relevance to my interests and career goals. It has allowed me to work fewer hours so as to spend more time on academics and extracurriculars I wouldn’t have otherwise been able to participate in.

“$700 dollars could allow someone like me to quit my second job, to focus on another activity of focus more on my first job. An extra $700 could pay for an extra class, which is about how much it costs to take one at the University of Missouri.”

Opponents of the bill will testify next week.