And the big winners of the Tennessee Lottery are: Tennessee college students. Since its inception in 2004, the Tennessee Lottery has awarded more than $2 billion to fund more than 6000,000 college scholarships. We think that makes the lottery a big winner for students and for Tennessee.

 

It took nearly two decades to pass the state’s lottery. Then state Sen. Steve Cohen, D-Memphis, spent years introducing legislation to amend the state’s constitution to allow a lottery. Year after year his legislation went down to defeat, but Cohen never gave up. Thanks to his efforts, thousands of Tennessee students have been able to attend college, and many of them have achieved the goal of getting a degree.

 

Today, the Tennessee Lottery is more important to higher education than most people could have imagined when the idea of a lottery first was proposed. Two important things have changed: College tuition rates have skyrocketed and employer demand for workers with formal post-secondary education has soared. The Tennessee Lottery Hope Scholarship is the lifeline between the need for higher education and the opportunity for economic success.

 

Even with clear evidence of the lottery’s importance and success, state lawmakers keep trying to cut it. During the recent General Assembly, lawmakers sought to add restriction to lottery eligibility and to cut scholarship amounts to some students. That, despite consecutive record years of lottery sales and proceeds. At the same time, state colleges and universities are undergoing another round of steep tuition increases, some exceeding 8 percent. It is almost as if some lawmakers are anti-education.

 

Fortunately, Gov. Bill Haslam appears to have a different agenda, and one we can support. He has turned his attention to higher education reform. His focus is on the cost of higher education, the appropriateness of what is being taught and an eye toward more closely aligning higher education curricula to the needs of business and industry.

 

One of Haslam’s goals for higher education is to put more degrees into the hands of more Tennesseans. That is important as the state lags well behind other states and the national average of residents with a college degree. Haslam also appears to understand that creating more traditional four-year bachelor’s degrees is not the only answer to the higher education challenge. Achieving two-year associate’s degrees and technical certifications and licenses are equally important. That’s why attempts to cut lottery scholarships to these students didn’t make sense.

 

Tennessee doesn’t only need more residents with traditional bachelor’s degrees and post-graduate degrees, it needs more people with job-relevant post-secondary education of all types. The Tennessee Lottery is the best way to help students achieve those goals.

 

SUN EDITORIAL POLICY The opinions expressed in editorials labeled as “Our View” represent those of The Jackson Sun’s editorial board. Viewpoints expressed in other columns or letters represent the opinions of the writers only.