Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

A recent StarTribune story this week covered a situation with a state aid program for college students that is coping with a $40 million shortfall.

The story reports that because of this shortfall, students receiving money from the Minnesota State Grant will see grant reductions for between $175 and $730 depending on factors that include family size, income level and other factors.

There is no doubt that this grant is important as it provides support to “low- and middle-income students who attend public or private colleges in the state,” the story reports and goes on to say that award amounts can be anywhere between $100 to $15,830.

This also comes at a time when colleges and universities were beginning holding classes this month, potentially putting families who need that money to support students into a bind that they may not otherwise be able to get around.

We could go into the call for increased education funding in the state, an argument that should have been made anyway. In fact, this whole situation shouldn’t have been something that snuck up on the state, because essentially this news is going to blindside families and students.

Instead, this feels like a perfect time to try and nudge students a little closer to Austin Assurance Program, which established in 2018 provides a free avenue to Austin students — attending both Austin Public Schools and Pacelli Catholic Schools — to attend Riverland Community College.

In some ways, this isn’t a completely free journey. The students taking part in the program need to meet certain criteria, including:

• Documented 50 hours of community service;

• Maintain a 2.5 GPA or higher; have an ACT score of 18 or higher; pass all courses with a GPA of 2.5 or higher in their junior and senior year; be a graduate of the Be Your Best College Prep Summer Academy at RCC all by the end of the first semester of the student’s senior year;

• Have an ASVAB score of 31 or higher;

• Be in the top 75% of their graduating class and meet one of the following categories: be a first-generation student; be a low-income student; self-identify as a member of a racial-ethnic minority; and

• Be enrolled in an approved program of study at RCC.

On first glance, this is an awful lot, but when you consider that the student is able to complete two years of tuition free post-secondary education or even come out of the school with a job, the ratio of cost-reward is overwhelmingly tipped in the student’s favor.

This program has opened doors in the six years of its existence, and would provide an option for any student that might be relying on this now burdened Minnesota State Program in order to go to school.

We understand that there are students whose dreams will take them through a four-year school and there is nothing wrong with that, but we also don’t want a monetary shortfall to halt that dream all together.

Nobody right now knows how far-reaching this shortfall will be and if its effects will create further ripples down the line, but we know that the Austin Assurance Program is established for a student concerned about their future, it marks one less closed door.