| Promise scholarships are under scrunity again.
Some lawmakers have predicted that the scholarship might become a financial burden for the state.
It is expected to cost more than $40 million a year by fall 2008 and could reach $50 million in 2010, based on state budget projections.
Suggestions have been made to change the scholarship from merit based to needs based.
A Marshall University study say all Promise Scholarship recipients would have attended college, most likely in West Virginia, even if they hadn't received the scholarship money.
Ninety-seven percent of students who received the scholarship said they would have pursued postsecondary education.
Seventy-one percent of those recipients would have enrolled in a West Virginia school if they hadn't received the scholarship.
The study concluded that the program might be ineffective in terms of reaching students who might not have otherwise gone to college.
Marshall University surveyed 1,183 students who were among the scholarship's first graduating class in spring 2006.
Delegate Mary Poling, D-Barbour, who now chairs the House Education Committee, said the study doesn't change her view of the four-year-old program's success.
"The Promise scholarship, from its infancy through its funding, has always been a merit-based scholarship," she said. "There was never any question about it being merit-based.
"The issue should be on whether or not we want to take it away as a merit-based scholarship and change it to needs-based."
Poling told reporters she thinks the program is fine as it is.
Today there are about 10,000 students benefiting from the scholarship, which is awarded to high school students who graduate with a B average and score well on the ACT.
To maintain the Promise, students must attain 30 credits each academic year and keep a 3.0 cumulative grade point average.
Delegate Brady Paxton, D-Putnam, expressed some concern about the costs, but said he is satisfied with the program's results so far.
"They tried the same thing in North or South Carolina and it damn near bankrupted the state," said Paxton, vice chairman of the House Education Committee.
Delegate Brady Paxton said "If you make $500,000 a year, you're just as eligible as somebody on welfare," Paxton said. "Whether that's good or bad, the jury's still out."
"They tried the same thing in North or South Carolina and it damn near bankrupted the state," said Paxton, vice chairman of the House Education Committee.
When former Gov. Bob Wise proposed the Promise scholarship in 2001 and when lawmakers approved it, many said they intended for it to help keep young adults in West Virginia.
Many said they also hoped to raise the caliber of the state's work force to boost the economy.
The recent study shows that only about 50 percent of graduates who received the scholarship either acquired employment in the state or planned to stay here.
The remaining half said in their surveys that better opportunities existed elsewhere and jobs in their fields aren't available in West Virginia.
Seventy percent of survey respondents said the scholarship was a "fair" or "primary" factor in their decision to attend college in state.
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