AMARILLO, TEXAS -- A little more than a month from now, Texas voters will take to the election booths to vote on ten amendments to the Texas Constitution. One that might interest a few college students (and their financially exhausted parents) involves changes to the Hinson Hazlewood College Student Loan Program.
Since 1965, Texas voters have approved several amendments authorizing $1.86 billion in bonds for low interest student loans. But now, there's only about $275 million left.
"There's some concern that all the students that need this money that by 2013 that 275.5 million will be used up", said WTAMU Political Science Professor, Dr. Dave Rausch.
To keep that from happening, the Texas legislature is proposing an amendment that can help support the loan program and give it "evergreen authority".
"What this amendment will do is it'll extend, it'll issue more bonds and it'll also set up an automatic process for bonds that have already been paid off instead of every two years having to come back and ask the voters for more funding", said Dr. Rausch.
What's that mean for Texas taxpayers? Actually, not a thing.
"Now, it is self supporting. General revenue funds do not go into the student loan fund. All the student loans that are made are based on the interest that is paid back", added Rausch.
Constitutional amendment elections like the one coming up only happen every other year but Rausch says, this year, there's not much opposition to any of the propositions.
"Constitutional amendment elections are always the lowest voter turnout because they're hard to understand. For the most part, they're all fairly standard constitutional amendments that we vote on", said Dr. Rausch.
As usual, the best way for you to speak up is to vote.
For a complete list of the ten amendments, click here.
