Gov. Jeff Landry is pushing to redirect millions from the state’s $300 million TOPS scholarship program toward workforce credential training, citing data showing that only 30% of new Louisiana jobs require a four-year degree.
By the Parish Journals Network Staff
BATON ROUGE — A debate unfolding on the floor of the Louisiana House of Representatives is forcing a long-overdue question about the state’s education funding priorities: Is Louisiana spending its scholarship dollars where the jobs actually are?
The answer, according to Gov. Jeff Landry and a growing coalition of lawmakers from both parties, is a clear no — and the gap is staggering.
Louisiana currently spends approximately $300 million annually on the Taylor Opportunity Program for Students, known as TOPS, which funds four-year college degrees at in-state universities. By contrast, the state dedicates just $6 million to vocational and technical students — a 50-to-1 disparity that Landry called “a significant imbalance” in remarks to legislators.
“This is not about choosing one path over another,” Landry told lawmakers. “It’s about respecting every path that leads to work and opportunity.”
The Job Market Picture
The governor’s contention is backed by state workforce data. According to the Louisiana Board of Regents, slightly more than 30% of good jobs in Louisiana require a bachelor’s degree or higher, while slightly more than half of all quality jobs in the state require a community or technical college credential or other postsecondary certification. The workforce majority, in other words, does not require a traditional four-year university education.
Louisiana’s 2024 Workforce Development Report identifies skilled trades — welders, electricians, plumbers and boilermakers — as among the fastest-growing occupations over the next decade, alongside healthcare. Many of these positions carry competitive wages and can be entered through training programs measured in months, not years. As of October 2025, the state reported 115,000 open job positions per the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, a job openings rate of 5.4% — above the national average of 4.5%. That persistent gap between available workers and available jobs has amplified urgency behind the policy conversation.
Louisiana Workforce Commission Secretary Susana Schowen has described the situation directly: the state has a significant number of jobs that are critically undersupplied, particularly in health care, information technology, coastal restoration, logistics and industrial construction — none of which consistently require a four-year degree. A growing movement to eliminate what advocates call the “paper ceiling” — degree requirements that screen out qualified candidates — has gained traction in Louisiana state hiring as well, with civil service officials working to open more government positions to skills-based applicants.
TOPS: A Program Under Pressure
Created in 1989 by oilman Patrick F. Taylor, TOPS has been a cornerstone of Louisiana higher education for more than three decades. It covers a significant share of tuition at public colleges for students meeting GPA and ACT thresholds. The Board of Regents reports that TOPS recipients complete degrees at higher rates and in less time than peers without the scholarship — a genuine success story.
But the program faces structural strain. Award amounts remain frozen at 2016–2017 tuition rates and have not kept pace with rising costs. A 2025 legislative session proposal by Rep. Chris Turner of Ruston, House Bill 77, sought to update those amounts and add a new top-tier “Excellence Award,” but the estimated $30 million to $50 million annual price tag proved difficult to absorb amid a tight budget year. The share of eligible students choosing to accept TOPS awards has also declined for a decade, raising questions about the program’s long-term reach.
The MJ Foster Promise Program: A Different Bet
In contrast to TOPS, the M.J. Foster Promise Program is the state’s primary financial aid vehicle for workforce-aligned credentials. Named for former Gov. Mike J. Foster, it supports Louisiana residents 19 and older pursuing associate degrees or short-term credentials in construction, healthcare, information technology, manufacturing and transportation and logistics.
In its second year, the program served 3,038 students at a total cost of $10.5 million. Nearly half of recipients were 30 or older, and nearly 65% earned less than $28,000 annually before enrolling — reflecting its role as a genuine economic mobility tool for working-class Louisianans. Demand has already outpaced funding: the initial allocation ran out in December, six months before fiscal year end, prompting a mid-session $7.5 million supplement. The Board of Regents has since requested lawmakers double the program to $21 million. Gov. Landry’s proposed budget requests an additional $14.5 million, which would more than triple the state’s current $6 million vocational commitment.
Bipartisan Support, Real Disagreements
The governor’s push has drawn rare cross-aisle support. Sen. Royce Duplessis and Rep. Shaun Mena, both New Orleans Democrats, voiced backing for expanding Foster Promise, with Duplessis acknowledging that four-year degrees are not the only path to well-paying careers.
“Overall, the issues he chose to highlight are ones we all want to address,” Duplessis said. “We just might have some differences in how to do that.”
Those differences are real. TOPS is politically entrenched, and universities — particularly LSU, with approximately 10,000 TOPS-funded students, and a budget-strained University of New Orleans — have grown dependent on the program. House Appropriations Chairman Rep. Jack McFarland of Jonesboro framed the challenge succinctly: “Before we go and we commit ourselves to more, I think we need to address what we currently have in front of us.” With lawmakers simultaneously trying to avoid K–12 teacher pay cuts, any new spending commitment carries a steep political price.
What Comes Next
TOPS is not on the chopping block. The program’s graduation outcomes are genuine, and its political constituency is deeply rooted. But the question of whether $300 million in annual scholarship spending should remain so heavily concentrated in four-year degree pathways — while vocational and technical students share just $6 million — is no longer a fringe debate. It is the central question on the House floor.
Gov. Landry’s framing places the legislature in the difficult position of defending a funding structure that Louisiana’s own workforce data does not easily support. How lawmakers resolve that tension this session — and whether the Foster Promise Program receives the investment its early enrollment numbers suggest it merits — will have lasting consequences for how Louisiana prepares its workforce.
For residents pursuing careers as electricians, welders, healthcare workers, process technicians and industrial maintenance workers — the occupations the state’s own projections consistently identify as most in demand — the stakes of getting this balance right are substantial.
Editor’s Note: This article is produced by the Parish Journals Network, which covers communities across Northwest and Central Louisiana. Information is drawn from floor proceedings of the Louisiana House of Representatives, the Louisiana Board of Regents, the Louisiana Workforce Commission, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Louisiana Illuminator.
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