in our Spotlight on Business Report tonight one of the state's most popular Aid programs for low-income college students is getting an update it's following a push from the Murphy Administration to make higher ed more affordable lawmakers are now considering making it easier for students to use their state funded assistance throughout the year joining me to help explain is budget and finance writer John reitmeyer John obviously lawmakers see a lot of value in the tag program what are they trying to do yeah Brianna so it looks like they're trying to clean up sort of a procedural hiccup that prevents a lot of students in New Jersey from using tag in the same way that they may use say the federal Pell grant program and that would be allowing these types of Grants to pay for summer courses that college students take and you know we hear so much about college affordability issues student debt the cost of tuition and this issue was raised recently in a report that the state compiled on this program and it was specifically flagged as one of the issues that should be addressed going forward I mean how many students potentially would this help when we talk about keeping College affordability a thing and student debt down how many people would take advantage of this so that's a really good question it's thousands of students across the state to attend both public and private colleges the state's estimates are that about one-third of New Jersey's college students are already receiving tag grants and and so you know it's a big population but we've heard testimony in legislative committees about ways that could help students who aren't on financial assistance if this ends up generating more interest in summer courses increasing demand it might enable a student who's trying to get done their their coursework early you know get a degree earlier than the four years if they can take more classes over the summer because there's more demand perhaps they'll save money because they'll be getting through their course load quicker and not staying in college quite so long lawmakers of course have to weigh what the cost will be to keep this program not only going but to extend it to be able to use in the summer so what are they estimating there and does it seem like the legislature on board well right now and and based on the vote in the Senate it was 36 to nothing in favor and so the in the upper chamber certainly there is a lot of support for this right now it would only be done for this summer it seems like sort of a trial basis and the estimates are maximum it would cost about 35 million but it would use money that already exists the imbalances for these types of purposes that just haven't been expended yet and so that cost seems relatively modest when you consider the state spending more than 50 billion annually overall and has a 10 billion dollar surplus building up right now so it seems like a very modest amount of money money that may already actually be be in the state's bank accounts uh at least on this trial basis we'll see going forward if this is something that can get extended Beyond just the 2023 summer and not to mention it's a certainly a politically popular subject uh John reitmeyer for us thank you so much John you're welcome support for the business report provided by New Jersey American Water we keep life flowing online at newjerseyamwater.com [Music] [Music]