Background: College Bound Scholarship (CBS) Program. In 2007 the Legislature created the CBS Program to provide a tuition scholarship program for low-income students. The scholarship is open to seventh and eighth graders who qualify for free or reduced-price lunches and sign a pledge to graduate from high school with a 2.0 grade point average or higher and no felony convictions. Students in foster care are automatically enrolled. At the time of high school graduation, eligible students must have a family income of 65 percent of the state median family income or below.

The CBS award amounts are calculated as the difference between public institution tuition and required fees, less the value of any state-funded grant, scholarship, or waiver assistance the student receives, plus $500 for books. All scholarship recipients are limited to no more than four full-time years' worth of scholarship awards and the scholarship award must be used within five years of receipt.

The Office of Student Financial Aid, within the Washington Student Achievement Council (WSAC), is the administrator of the Program. The Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) must notify elementary, middle, and junior high schools about the Program and to work with WSAC to develop application collection and student tracking procedures. Currently OSPI contracts with the College Success Foundation to increase CBS middle and high school students’ knowledge and awareness of post-secondary opportunities.

CBS Program Work Group. During the 2014 Session, the Legislature created a work group to make recommendations to ensure the College Bound Scholarship (CBS) program is viable, productive, and effective. The 11-member work group included two senators and two representatives. The work group met four times in 2014. The final report contains 12 recommendations for the CBS program within the following categories: data, student supports, communications, statutory changes, and funding.

Summary of Bill (Proposed Substitute): CBS statutes are amended to be consistent with current practice:

changes the award amount granted to students attending universities or colleges in the private sector to be the equivalent of the maximum CBS awards granted to students in the public sector, less any state-funded grant or scholarship assistance the student receives, rather than the representative average; and
clarifies that CBS recipients must enroll in an intuition of higher education no later than the fall term, one academic year after high school graduation.

WSAC must:

work with other state agencies, law enforcement, or the court system to verify eligible students to not have felonies;
develop comprehensive social media outreach with grade-level specific information to keep students on track to graduate and leverage current tools such as the High School and Beyond Plan and WSAC's Ready Set Grad website; and
collaborate with educational organizations to map and coordinate mentoring and advising resources across the state, within existing resources.

Each college or university is encouraged to tailor advising resources for CBS recipients. The institutions should identify campus officials and other resources.

WSAC and the colleges and universities must ensure that the data needed to analyze and evaluate the effectiveness of the CBS program is annually provided to the Education Research and Data Center. Data reported must include, but not be limited to the following:

the number of students who sign up for the CBS program in seventh or eighth grade;
the number of CBS students who graduate from high school;
the number of CBS students who enroll in postsecondary education;
persistence and completion rates of CBS recipients;
CBS recipient GPA;
the number of CBS recipients who did not remain eligible and why;
CBS program costs; and
impacts to the SNG program.

By December 1, 2018, the Washington State Institute for Public Policy (WSIPP) must compete an evaluation of the CBS program and report to the Legislature. WSIPP’s report must complement studies on the CBS program by the University of Washington or others. To the extent it is not duplicative, the report must evaluate education outcomes emphasizing degree completion rates at both secondary and postsecondary levels. The report must study certain aspects of the CBS program, including but not limited to the following:

CBS recipient GPA;
variance in remediation between CBS recipient and their peers;
differences in persistence between CBS recipients and their peers; and
the impact of ineligibility for the CBS program, for reasons such as moving to Washington after middle school or a change in family income.