Students, foundations and donors press Connecticut to bar scholarship displacement; private colleges urge caution over state funds timing

A panel of students, scholarship providers and university officials told the Higher Education and Employment Advancement Committee about competing approaches to scholarship displacement and why the committee should weigh a statutory ban carefully.

Mona Lucas, assistant vice president for enrollment policy and strategic initiatives at the University of Connecticut, said UConn supports raised bill 1112, which would prohibit institutions from reducing a student’s institutional aid solely because the student receives an external scholarship. Lucas framed the change as consistent with affordability goals and said UConn’s long-standing practice is to apply outside aid toward unmet financial need rather than reduce core institutional support.

Student advocates and local scholarship organizations described the problem as widespread. Christian Thomas (Yale College Council) urged lawmakers to "allow students to actually use the scholarship money that they've received and apply that to their cost of attendance," saying many external scholarship recipients currently see no net benefit. Elaine Mims of the Fairfield County Community Foundation (which manages more than 150 scholarship funds and distributes over $1 million annually) and David Gebre of the Wellington Scholarship Foundation told the committee that scholarship displacement undermines donors’ intentions and disproportionately harms low-income students; Gebre said private institutions are the likeliest actors to displace outside scholarships.

The University of Hartford, represented by Catherine Pizzuti, opposed the bill in its current form, citing the timing and uncertainty of Roberta Willis need-based allocations from the state. Pizzuti said the university uses conservative estimates when issuing award letters because official Roberta Willis allocations often arrive late in the budget cycle; prohibiting displacement could force private institutions to reduce initial award packages for many students or assume budget risk once state allocations are finalized. She noted Hartford rarely displaces private scholarships except when federal regulations or total cost of attendance rules require it and stressed that institutions work to minimize student debt when they do reallocate funds.

Several legislators signaled interest in reconciling the goals of protecting student access to outside scholarships and preserving state scholarship allocation mechanisms. Committee members discussed whether prohibitions should apply to both public and private institutions, whether exceptions should exist when a student’s total package already meets full cost of attendance, and how to address the late schedule for Roberta Willis allocations so institutions can responsibly finalize offers.

What happens next: witnesses offered to provide additional benchmarking and data; the committee said it will consider timing fixes for Roberta Willis allocations and language to limit unintended impacts on institutional budgeting before acting on SB 1112.