On Friday, scandal-ridden alleged serial groper Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed S.B. 140, which would create a mammoth $75 million per year recurring expense to the state’s taxpayers to fund “free college” through what is being called the “Opportunity Scholarship.”
The far-left bill, which does not include any limits on “free” tuition is forcing taxpayers to shell out even more money. And the merits required to receive the tuition are embarrassingly low, only requiring a 2.5-grade point average, which means students can get low grades and still have their tuition covered.
“SB140 does not provide a semester or year limit on funding. Rather, the program allows funding up to 90 or 160 hours until the student completes an undergraduate degree or degrees,” analysis for the bill reads.
It should be noted that all representatives who voted for the Democrats’ far-left $8.5 billion budget voted for funding this “free” college initiative by passing the budget. Those representatives include Republicans, such as Gail Armstrong (Magdalena), Brian Baca (Valencia), Rachel Black (Alamogordo), Jack Chatfield (Tucumcari), Kelly Fajardo (Tome-Adelino), Joshua Hernandez (Rio Rancho), T. Ryan Lane (Aztec), Bill Rehm (Albuquerque), Luis Terrazas (Bayard), and Jane Powdrell-Culbert (Corrales).
According to the fiscal impact report for S.B. 140, “House Bill 2 as passed out of the Senate Finance Committee also contains $63 million in nonrecurring funding and $12 million recurring funding for the opportunity scholarship program. Altogether, that would leave the new opportunity scholarship fund with approximately $99.5 million.”
Lujan Grisham had a photo-op at Western New Mexico University in Silver City to sign the legislation, joined by far-left advocates of the fiscally irresponsible bill that is a slap in the face to people who paid their way through college without a socialist program’s help.
“Saddling students with insurmountable debt means they can’t start businesses, can’t buy houses; they don’t have real choices about their future,” claimed Lujan Grisham.
Republicans who voted for the actual free college bill include Reps. Gail Armstrong (Magdalena), Brian Baca (Valencia), Kelly Fajardo (Tome-Adelino), Jason Harper (Rio Rancho), and Luis Terrazas (Bayard). Those Republicans who were excused for the vote included Reps. Rebecca Dow (Truth or Consequences) and Joshua Hernandez (Rio Rancho). In the Senate, Republican Senators Bill Burt (Alamogordo), Crystal Diamond (Deming), Ron Griggs (Alamogordo), Gay Kernan (Hobbs), Mark Moores (Albuquerque), Cliff Pirtle (Roswell), and Joshua Sanchez (Grants) joined the radical Democrats in supporting the socialist free college bill.
I’m going to need to read this one. Interested to know how long you have to be a resident of NM before and after. All we need is democratic college students from out of state getting their college paid for and voting in our state to take their degrees out of state.
She passed this to make it easier to indoctrinate our children with free Critical hate training. Sure she is proud of herself. This is our taxpayer money gone to waste.
Once again my post will not post. Thought this was a free speech site?