SC proposal would lower costs for college students aspiring to be teachers
.JPG "SC state senators want to increase scholarship amounts for students majoring in education.")
State senators are looking to make college more affordable for students who want to go to college to study education and become teachers — a plan supporters say could help the state address an ongoing shortage of teachers to fill South Carolina classrooms.
Senators on Wednesday unanimously approved a plan to increase existing LIFE and Palmetto Fellows scholarships for college students majoring in education.
If the proposal becomes law, LIFE scholarship recipients would receive $2,500 more, and Palmetto Fellows scholarship recipients would receive $3,300 more.
Senators added the proposal to a broader education bill currently being debated in the Senate.
Currently, recipients of both scholarships who major in science or math receive those same increases.
Legislators hope increasing the scholarship amounts will encourage more students to go into the teaching field.
“Whatever the cost is worthwhile for the benefit we’re going to get out of it, the cost of trying to recruit and retain teachers is horrendous,” said state Sen. Nikki Setzler, a Lexington Democrat who co-sponsored the amendment with Sen. Greg Hembree, R-Horry.
At the beginning of this school year, there were 555 vacant public school teaching positions around the state, or about 1% of the 53,000 teaching positions in South Carolina. That represented an 11% decrease from the previous school year.
School districts also are increasingly relying on teachers from other countries to fill critical classrooms.
After the 2018-19 school year, more than 6,600 left South Carolina public schools. That was 9% lower than the previous school year’s of 7,300 departures, driven by a larger number of teachers retiring than usual, and lower than two years prior when 6,705 teachers did not return.
Kathy Maness, the executive director of the Palmetto State Teachers Association, said the scholarship increase could help young teachers into stay in the profession, which doesn’t pay as much as other industries.
“Many teachers are concerned with how they’re going to pay their bills. That includes their student loans, so this could help them come out with not as much student loan debt,” Maness said.
LIFE scholarships currently are awards for up to $4,700 a year, plus a $300 book allowance at a four-year school, according to the S.C. Commission on Higher Education.
Palmetto Fellows scholarships can reach up to $6,700 for a student’s freshman year of college and up to $7,500 for each of the student’s final three years in college.
This story was originally published January 31, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
