Petition to the D.C. Council to let Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton resolve with Congress the imminent threat to the D.C. TAG program posed by the passage of the D.C. Promise Program.

On February 4, 2014 the D.C. Council voted unanimously to tentatively approve a new D.C. taxpayer-funded college scholarship program, the D.C. Promise Program. The D.C. Promise program would provide the city’s low-income high school graduates with up to $7,500 per year for college. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton has warned that passing the D.C. Promise “could torpedo congressional support” for a federally funded scholarship program that’s unique to the city and has become key to how thousands of families budget for college – the D.C. Tuition Assistance Program (DC TAG).

“If that bill becomes law, the committee would certainly look closely at it when senators gauge the amount of federal money that should be set aside for the existing college tuition assistance program,” said Vincent Morris, a spokesman for the Senate Appropriations Committee.

DC TAG provides most D.C. high school graduates with up to $10,000 to attend out-of-state public schools or up to $2,500 to attend a private university in the Washington area or a historically black college. The program aids more than 5,000 students each year, and it has brought more than $317 million to 20,000 students since its inception in 2000. This year, Congress appropriated $30 million for the program.

DC TAG is available to all D.C. high school graduates from families that earn less than $1 million per year. DC Promise funds would be allocated on a sliding scale and reserved for students from families with less than 200 percent of median income — about $215,000 for a family of four. Students could be eligible to receive money from both programs.

The D.C. Council is ignoring voices in Congress while saying that the city should be able to make its own decisions on educational funding—risking real money. Mayor Gray has written a letter supporting the passage of D.C. Promise. This approach is unnecessarily putting at risk a proven program that makes available $30 million annually in educational funding to a broader population of our city’s citizens.

By signing this petition you are asking that the D.C. Council let Del. Norton do her job and work with Congress to win support for the passage of a D.C. Promise Program without endangering the funding for the D.C. TAG Program.