Among the bills that have already been filed for the 2023 Arkansas Legislative Session is SB 3.
According to KATV, Higher Education Subcommittee chair, Sen. Jane English, R-District 34, filed the bill Monday morning after constituents reached out to her with their complaints.
As the law currently stands, dependents of veterans who are disabled, prisoners of war, or missing or killed in action are eligible for prioritized academic financial aid. Despite the law including both biological and adopted children under the definition of dependent, step-children – many of whom are not officially adopted by their step-parents – are not.
“A lady that called me – she was in the military, her husband was not in the military,” English said. “He had a child that they were supporting and was a dependent, was on their income tax, everything like that – but had not been adopted by them. So, the child would not qualify. There’s really not a problem with anybody getting a scholarship right now – we got plenty of money – but if there were a problem, that child would not qualify.”
“A constituent who called and they had been trying to fill out the application and they were unable to because that child, their child, did not fit into the criteria. So that’s my reason for doing it. And when you looked at it it really didn’t make any sense not to have a step-child in there,” she said.
English’s amendment to the law would rectify this seeming oversight.
“I think it was 2009, 2011, something like that – Representative Mayberry, Andy Mayberry, passed some legislation to help military dependents of wounded or disabled or whatever to have some priority on their scholarships–academic challenge scholarships. Basically, all this does is it just adds step-child to the bill,” she said.
The Regular Session of the 94th General Assembly convenes on Jan. 9. English expects the bill to pass with ease.
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