TICUA Policy Update: Ben Atchley Opportunity Grant, Telemedicine Bill and More!
Thursday, March 11, 2021
| | | | | | | | | | | | | 112th General Assembly
Policy Update | | | | |
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| | | | | | | | | | South College Seeks Ben Atchley Opportunity Grant | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | | SB1025/HB708 by Sen. Richard Briggs and Rep. Jason Zachary, seeks to expand the definition of eligible postsecondary institutions for TSAA’s nonprofit focused Ben Atchley Opportunity Grant to include for-profit colleges. The Tennessee Student Assistance Award (TSAA) serves students from families with a combined family income of $40,000 or less. In 2019/20, the program served 64,246 students with just over $102 million. This is Tennessee’s need-based student grant program which serves to supplement the Federal Pell Grant to assist in making college affordable for low-income Tennesseans. The Ben Atchley Opportunity Grant is a part of the TSAA and was designed by the Legislature to provide an additional portion to qualified students attending a regionally accredited nonprofit college or university domiciled in Tennessee.
This bill specifically seeks to allow South College, a for-profit college, to gain access to the Atchley supplement. South College’s share of the TSAA program dramatically increased this past year. In 2017/18, South received $670,694 from the TSAA program, in 2018/19 they received $699,377, and in 2019/20, the amount more than doubled to $1,788,081. Inclusion in the nonprofit focused Atchley supplement grant will double that amount again.
The grant has been losing its purchasing power for students for more than a decade. The priority of any additional funds appropriated to the program has been to expand the number of families served rather than to increase the grant amount. Not long ago, there were insufficient funds to provide grants to all eligible students. Just recently the program has been funded at a level which expands eligibility to students with a combined family income of $40,000. Expanding to include South College in the Atchley supplement would consume one-half of Governor Bill Lee’s proposed increase of $4 million for the TSAA for FY21. | | | | |
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| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Senator Shane Reeves and Rep. Clark Boyd are sponsoring legislation (SB1265/HB508) which will codify Governor Bill Lee's Executive Order which allows pre-licensed graduate students (i.e., counseling, speech pathology, etc.) to be engaged in remote patient contact under the supervision of a licensed professional. These students are required to have a set number of patient contact hours to qualify for licensure and satisfy graduation requirements.
When the telemedicine bill was passed last summer, the language restricted remote medicine to "licensed" professionals only. Consequently, pre-licensed graduate students were inadvertently left out the enabling language of the bill. Prior to COVID-19 students were able to satisfy their patient contact hours through face-to-face and remote supervised sessions. If this bill passes, it will reinstate students' ability to satisfy contact hours through supervised remote sessions. As well, with the burgeoning practice of telemedicine, it is critical that the training of our graduate students include this important practice.
On February 26th Governor Bill Lee extended the suspension of the licensing requirement for graduate students with Executive Order 77 through to April 28, 2021. This should provide for sufficient time for the bill to pass, thus making a further extension unnecessary.
The House version of the bill successfully passed out of the House Health Committee this past Wednesday and will now move to the House floor for a chamber vote. The Senate companion bill has been delayed but is currently scheduled for the Senate Labor and Commerce Committee next Tuesday. | | | | |
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| | | | | | | | | | House Education Announces Lottery Calendar | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | As has been the practice in previous years, the House Higher Education Subcommittee announced that it will have a lottery calendar to review all bills impacting lottery funds. There are several bills which will be considered on the calendar. March 23rd has been reserved for the calendar consideration.
The Senate Education Committee has decided not to cluster the lottery bills, rather they will take up the bills as they are put on notice by the bill sponsor. |
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