COLUMBIA 鈥擲outh Carolina鈥檚 K-12 schools, technical colleges and hospitals that employ medical students would see the greatest windfall from $152 million in unspent lottery profits under a .

The money, originally intended for college scholarships, came to light in December, when the inspector general found the state鈥檚 higher education agency had allowed it to pile up over six years. It鈥檚 a blunder that would lead to the agency months later.

The report angered a number of lawmakers who said the funds could have been spent in other ways. Now they get to decide where to redirect it.

The budget approved by the House this week would send half the funds to K-12 education 鈥� $35 million for school busses and $40 million for classroom materials.

The rest remains focused on higher education:

$30 million spread among the state鈥檚 technical colleges for equipment used in classes preparing students for high-demand careers$9 million in grants spread among eight colleges in the state with a high percentage of low-income, Pell Grant recipients$8 million split between Clemson University ($3.5 million) and the University of South Carolina system ($4.5 million) for internship programs$30 million to increase the state match for Medicaid payments to hospitals employing medical school students as residents. The money is meant to pass more dollars to hospitals so they can increase the number of residency training slots and incentivize those residents to remain once they complete their program.

While the $152 million now being doled out by lawmakers went untouched for years, no eligible student was denied scholarship funding, according to officials at the Commission on Higher Education.

The error came in the formula for predicting how much was needed to fully cover the state鈥檚 three largest scholarship programs 鈥� HOPE, LIFE and Palmetto Fellows 鈥� awarded to eligible South Carolina students who go to college within the state. Awards range from $2,800 for students鈥� freshman year only to $10,000 yearly for students pursuing math and science degrees. Criteria include at least a 3.0 grade point average for HOPE and LIFE scholarships and 3.5 GPA for Palmetto Fellows.

Voters approved the lottery in 2000 as a way to make a degree affordable for South Carolina students, who can put it toward costs at the private or public college of their choice.

Awards had been growing each year before peaking in 2021 at $302 million, the inspector general鈥檚 report said. Instead of continuing to rise, though, scholarship totals declined. Still, the commission kept asking for money as if nothing had changed.

The agency said it has since adjusted its prediction methods, so the problem won鈥檛 happen again.

This year the House is proposing $336 million for the state鈥檚 merit-based scholarships, about $4 million less than what was doled out to students in fall 2022. Budget writers also set aside $80 million in grants for low-income students and $95 million for technical college students pursuing careers in high-demand fields.

At the root of the decline in scholarships is the number of South Carolina high school graduates going on to attend colleges in the state.

During the fall semester of 2017, more than 34,000 South Carolinians enrolled as freshmen at state colleges. That was roughly 75% of the public high school students who graduated months earlier, according to Commission on Higher Education and state Department of Education data analyzed by the SC Daily Gazette.

By fall 2020, a semester after the onset of COVID-19 pandemic, that rate had sunk to 62% 鈥� about 4,000 fewer students. The rate has since rebounded slightly to 66% as of fall 2022 but is still behind the annual increases seen in the early 2010s.

So, while the percentage of students qualifying for scholarships each year has held steady 鈥� at about 50% of students who stay in state for college 鈥� there are fewer students to give them to.

This phenomenon is part of what led Gov. Henry McMaster to propose a study of South Carolina鈥檚 two- and four-year public colleges. The study will assess whether the state should consolidate some of its colleges or whether there鈥檚 too much overlap in certain degree programs.

鈥淲e have 33 institutions in the state,鈥� said Rep. Nathan Ballentine, R-Chapin, who heads the House budget-writing subcommittee for higher education. 鈥淲e want to make sure they鈥檙e all working to their strengths.鈥�

House budget writers have agreed to go along, setting aside $3 million to fund it.

Other big-ticket items in the House budget proposal for colleges include:

$60 million split among South Carolina鈥檚 public colleges, including all USC satellite campuses, in exchange for a sixth consecutive year of not raising tuition for in-state students. The amounts to each range from $513,000 for USC-Salkehatchie to $12.1 million for USC鈥檚 main Columbia campus.$22 million to each of the state鈥檚 research universities toward major projects: A vet school at Clemson University, a new medical school at the University of South Carolina and an academic building at the Medical University of South College$11.5 million to USC Beaufort for a new sports and event center$12.3 million to USC Sumter for a student success center and facilities management center

With the state鈥檚 growing focus on the electric vehicle industry, Midlands Technical College is up for $6.5 million as it seeks to build a workforce for Scout Motors鈥� assembly plant in Blythewood. And Trident Technical College could receive $2.3 million for an electric vehicle institute.

The House sent its $13.2 billion spending package for the fiscal year starting July 1 to the Senate on Wednesday. Now it鈥檚 the Senate鈥檚 turn to decide how to spend the lottery money. A final budget is still months away.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. SC Daily Gazette maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Seanna Adcox for questions: info@scdailygazette.com. Follow SC Daily Gazette on and .

In the four years since New Hampshire legalized sports betting and teamed up with DraftKings, the partnership has contributed $100 million to public education, according to the New Hampshire Lottery. It鈥檚 one of several games run by the Lottery that contributes to the Education Trust Fund.

鈥淲e are extremely proud of the work we have done to establish New Hampshire as the premier destination for sports betting in the Northeast,鈥� said Charlie McIntyre, executive director of New Hampshire Lottery, in a statement. 鈥淲e encourage our New Hampshire players to continue placing responsible bets and we are excited for many more years of winning big!鈥�

State revenues across all games, including instant scratch tickets, keno, and historic horse racing, generated an increase of $43 million, or 29.3 percent, last year to the Education Trust Fund, according to Lottery鈥檚 .

Sports betting is among the Lottery鈥檚 newest games, opening its first retail sports book at The Brook in Seabrook, followed by Filotimo in Manchester and Dover, and the Gate City Casino in Nashua.

In the four years since the launch of sports betting, New Hampshire players have wagered more than $2.71 billion, according to the Lottery.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. New Hampshire Bulletin maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Dana Wormald for questions: info@newhampshirebulletin.com. Follow New Hampshire Bulletin on and .

Winning the lottery can be a dream come true 鈥� not only for the jackpot winners but for the states they play in. State revenue generated by lottery earnings often benefits charitable or civic causes 鈥� education, public employee pension funds, or the Special Olympics, for example. Throughout history, lotteries have helped pay for the construction of elite educational institutions like Yale and Harvard and even the cost of running militias that could fight the British Army during the American Revolution.

But while this revenue can help generate much-needed funding for communities and organizations, it can come at a cost to many communities as well. An released in July 2022 underscored their impact on low-income communities. The report from the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism at the University of Maryland found that lotteries depend on low-income communities 鈥� Black and Hispanic communities, in particular.

Most states have lotteries of some kind. Alabama, Hawaii, Nevada, and Utah do not, although Alabama legislators have .

 reviewed news and information on the various uses of lottery funds among the 50 U.S. states, according to the North American Association of State and Provincial Lotteries. The following seven states underscore the diverse ways lottery proceeds are spent鈥攆rom numerous beneficiaries to guaranteed state tuition.

State that has the most lottery beneficiaries: Arizona

Arizona’s lottery generated in the 2021 fiscal year for the 17 programs and services the state has mandated as beneficiaries. The money is allocated to four key areas: higher education, which received $38.2 million; health and human services ($29.5 million); environmental conservation ($10 million); and economic and business development ($15 million).

Among the diverse programs and services include the Tribal College Dual Enrollment Program, which allows the state’s Native American high school students to take a college course for both high school and college credit without tuition or fees, and the Arizona Biomedical Research Centre, which funds research into diseases, treatments, and cures. Other beneficiaries include an enforcement fund for internet crimes against children, teen pregnancy prevention work, and homeless services. The largest amount, $195.2 million, went to the Arizona General Fund.

State that generates the most lottery revenue: New York

New York’s lottery is the largest and most profitable in North America, ending the 2021-2022 fiscal year with . All the money goes to the state’s public K-12 schools as the New York Constitution requires. The same formula used to distribute other state aid is also applied to lottery profits so that larger, lower-income school districts receive proportionally larger shares. New York City received the largest amount for the 2021-2022 fiscal year: $1.26 billion. The New York Lottery has earned since 1967 for education across the state.

State that earmarks lottery earnings for Special Olympics: Illinois

Illinois is the only state to earmark funds specifically for the Special Olympics, and has been raised so far. Special Olympics Illinois provides sports training for 20,500 athletes throughout the state and offers competition in 18 sports annually. Most of the lottery earnings 鈥� in the 2022 fiscal year 鈥� benefit K-12 public schools across the state. Since 1985, the lottery has generated for education funding. Other beneficiaries include programs to support veterans (over $19 million); breast cancer awareness, education, and research (over $15 million); and HIV/AIDS prevention, education, and treatment (over $10.5 million).

State that earmarks lottery earnings for pensions: Indiana

Indiana’s lottery surplus benefits pension funds for teachers, firefighters, and police officers, as well as the Lottery Surplus Fund. That surplus amounted to for the 2022 fiscal year鈥�25% more than anticipated. It is the only state to benefit the pensions of public employees explicitly. Since its 1989 inception, it has raised $4.9 billion for the Lottery Surplus Fund, $760 million for the police and firefighters’ pensions, and $947 million for the teachers’ pension. The surplus fund goes toward lowering excise taxes by up to 50% for owners of vehicles.

State considering using lottery earnings to upgrade a stadium: Maryland

Profits from the Maryland lottery to state programs for the 2022 fiscal year, breaking the record set the year before by $6.3 million. Lottery profits go into the Maryland General Fund, which provides budgets for education, public health, safety, and other services. Lottery proceeds have also paid the debt on the bonds for two stadiums in Baltimore: Camden Yards, home of the Baltimore Orioles, and M&T Bank Stadium, where the NFL’s Baltimore Ravens play.

The Maryland Stadium Authority now wants to upgrade the stadiums in the 1990s. To do that, it asked the state legislature to raise the allowable bond debt for stadium projects from $235 million to and increase the number of lottery proceeds that can be used to pay debt service on the bonds from per year. However, the Orioles are worth about , while the Ravens are valued at and could sell for $4 billion. Both franchises are valuable and may not need that additional funding, which some argue could be better spent on persistent issues such as .

State that first earmarked lottery earnings for scholarships: Georgia

Georgia began its Helping Outstanding Pupils Educationally scholarship program when it created its state lottery in 1993. Since then, it’s allocated  to Georgia students in the form of tuition grants and scholarships to attend the state’s colleges, universities, or technical colleges. Two million students have been able to attend college as a result.

States including Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, New Mexico, South Carolina, Tennessee, and West Virginia also offer lottery scholarships for promising students headed to college. Florida’s lottery earnings have helped 917,000 students attend college through the Bright Futures Scholarship established in 1997. In West Virginia, lottery proceeds have helped more than 64,605 students receive a PROMISE scholarship since 2002.

State that was first to run a lottery: New Hampshire

The New Hampshire lottery was created in 1963 to help fund education. It began as the New Hampshire Sweepstakes the following year at Rockingham Park in Salem. Players’ tickets were matched with horses; whichever horse won also determined the lottery winner.

The country’s first state-run lottery caused a national uproar in its inaugural year. According to an article in , Reader’s Digest predicted, “Is either New Hampshire or Uncle Sam so hard up that this shabby dodge is the only way out? 鈥�. It will mean moral bankruptcy for New Hampshire.” However, it was an experiment that proved successful, allowing other states to follow suit. The 2021 fiscal year brought in for education. To date, the contributions have exceeded .

This story originally appeared on OddsSeeker.com and was produced and
distributed in partnership with Stacker Studio.

Coral Academy, which operates seven schools across Southern Nevada, announced this week they are accepting applications for the 2022-23 school year, and that low-income students will have a better shot at snagging one of their coveted seats, thanks to the implementation of a new weighted lottery system.

Ercan Aydogdu, executive director and CEO of Coral Academy, describes how it will work simply: It鈥檚 like a fishbowl filled with raffle tickets. A student who is considered economically disadvantaged will have four tickets put in. A student who isn鈥檛 will have one ticket put in. Students receive the weight if they qualify for the federal free and reduced lunch (FRL) program, which applies to families with incomes at or below 185% of the poverty line. For a family of four, that鈥檚 $49,000 annually.

Coral doesn鈥檛 struggle for applicants overall. Its schools regularly have to hold a lottery because applicants outnumber open seats. Aydogdu says Coral has a combined wait list of more than 5,000 students still hoping to enroll during this current school year.

The times-four multiplier of enrollment is likely to have the biggest impact at Coral鈥檚 newest campus, Cadence, which is scheduled to open next year in the Henderson master planned community of the same name. Coral Cadence will be enrolling 1,800 students from kindergarten through eighth grade. Coral鈥檚 other campuses will have fewer open seats (since the majority of students return for subsequent years) but may also see a boost in FRL-eligible students.

The Coral academies are the first Southern Nevada charter schools to implement a weighted lottery system. But several others, including Pinecrest Academies of Southern Nevada, are agendized to ask the state Charter School Board on Friday for permission to move to a weighted lottery system.

Two Northern Nevada charter schools already use a weighted lottery.

Though they are privately managed, charter schools are considered public schools because they receive state and federal funding. They cannot use selection criteria such as academic performance or entrance essays, and they cannot charge tuition or fees. They are supposed to be open for all students. However, in practice, and for a variety of reasons, charter school enrollment than traditional public schools.

For example, 77.7% of students statewide are considered economically disadvantaged, compared to only 43.4% of students at state-sponsored charter schools, according to 2021 state enrollment data.

Coral Academy鈥檚 existing schools have FRL student populations around 30%. Aydogdu says the schools have been making headway in the past few years to make that number more reflective of the community at large, but he acknowledges their campuses still lag behind Clark County School District. A Charter School Authority presentation on enrollment shows three Coral campuses as having the biggest percentage boost in FRL enrollment between 2020 and 2021. Their Nellis Air Force Base campus went from 16.5% FRL to 29.6%.

Coral鈥檚 other efforts have included hiring a family and community outreach coordinator to market specifically to people in targeted low-income neighborhoods.

Previous efforts fell short

Pinecrest Academy of Northern Nevada opened for the 2020-2021 school year. It was approved by the Charter School Authority the calendar year prior of reflecting the community at large. One of the tools it hoped would deliver diversity: the weighted lottery.

Now in its second academic year, PANN reported a student population that was only 14.6% FRL eligible; 45.4% of all Washoe County students are FRL eligible.

Principal Jami Austin believes the pandemic is a major reason why the school fell far short of its goal to mirror Washoe County demographics. The school鈥檚 enrollment period fell around the same time as the onset of the pandemic, meaning many low-wage earners had more immediate issues to address than school choice.

But the biggest hurdle was likely that the Charter School Authority required its schools to operate at 50% capacity at the beginning of the 2020-21 academic year, meaning PANN had to operate in a virtual or hybrid format. Washoe County School District, the charter鈥檚 primary competitor for student enrollment, offered instruction entirely in-person.

鈥淲e quickly lost a lot of (prospective) kids,鈥� says Austin. 鈥淟ooking at families of lower socioeconomic status and what their priorities are. It was, 鈥業 just need my kid in school, so they鈥檒l have to go to the neighborhood school.鈥欌��

Austin adds that the school is doing 鈥渞e-outreach鈥漷o those families in hopes they might reapply.

Another factor may have been the way PANN originally structured its weighted lottery. For the inaugural year, it was a times-two multiplier for FRL eligible students. Austin says the potential benefit of having two chances for enrollment instead of just one might not have been a strong enough incentive to compel parents to submit the necessary paperwork to prove they qualify for FRL.

For their second year, they raised the weight to a five-times multiplier.

鈥淲e want to make sure everyone who has that need and desire has the opportunity to attend,鈥� says Austin. 鈥淲e spend all this time teaching and educating families and getting them to apply. For them not to get in is devastating.鈥�

Aydogdu of Coral Academy isn鈥檛 discouraged by early results from PANN.

鈥淩eno is totally different,鈥� he says. 鈥淲e are hoping in Southern Nevada (the weighted lottery) will see a much greater impact, especially for the first year (at Cadence).鈥�

Amanda Safford, the director of operations for Academica Nevada, agrees the regions are different. Fewer charter schools exist in Northern Nevada, which means parents and other caregivers are less familiar with what they are and who is eligible to attend. Academica Nevada is the private education management organization that sets up and manages many of the state鈥檚 charter schools, including Pinecrest, Doral and Mater academies.

Safford says the impact of the weighted lottery is still promising and that the types of families interested in PANN are diversifying. She is also encouraged to see other charter schools follow suit.

鈥淭here鈥檚 a real desire on the part of the boards in the schools I serve of wanting to help diversify and provide access to all students,鈥� she said.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Nevada Current maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Hugh Jackson for questions: info@nevadacurrent.com. Follow Nevada Current on and .

It鈥檚 a notion that first caught on in the 1960s, when middle class families sought more access to higher education and the paths to prestigious schools became increasingly competitive. Since then, lotteries as when the admissions process has come under scrutiny 鈥� most recently, after the 鈥淰arsity Blues鈥� bribery scandal and a federal lawsuit alleging that Harvard discriminates against Asian-American students.

But new research suggests that switching to a lottery-based system could create significant new challenges for schools looking to promote racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic diversity. , published today in the journal of the American Educational Research Association, finds that low-income, Hispanic, and African American students would be less likely to gain acceptance to colleges in a multitude of lottery scenarios; in some cases, even the percentage of male students admitted would be sharply reduced.

Dominique Baker, a co-author of the study and a professor of education policy at Southern Methodist University, said she was drawn to study the question because of the wide range of advocates on different sides of the American political spectrum who have supported randomizing college admissions for a variety of reasons.

A former assistant dean of admissions at the University of Virginia, Baker noted that lotteries are too often perceived as a silver bullet for what ails higher education. The mechanisms of college admissions 鈥渉ave an incredible amount of randomness already,鈥� she said. 鈥淲e just don’t see it because it’s an opaque process.”

Baker and her coauthor, University of Michigan professor Michael Bastedo, relied on two sets of data from the U.S. Department of Education to simulate what college admissions figures would look like under various lottery configurations. One, the Educational Longitudinal Study, followed a set of high school sophomores for several years beginning in 2002; the other, the High School Longitudinal Study, followed a different group of high school freshmen beginning in 2009. Both data sets included academic and demographic information 鈥� including grade point average as well as test scores 鈥斅爁or large samples of students as they made their way from high school to college.

They then identified all students in each sample who fell above several minimum thresholds of academic performance: those at or above the 25th and 50th percentiles for SAT scores, GPA, and weighted GPA. These, they reasoned, would be the students eligible to participate in a theoretical national admissions lottery.

Next they generated 1,000 random simulations to project which students in the sample might be accepted to colleges that are at least moderately selective, using minimum eligibility thresholds of GPA, SAT scores, and a combination of the two. Finally, they compared those results to the sample of students who attend highly or moderately selective institutions under the current system.

Their findings were stark. Black, Hispanic, and low-income applicants generally declined as proportions of admitted students under most lottery scenarios. Consistently, lotteries that established a minimum GPA threshold for eligibility resulted in significantly lower numbers of male students being accepted than currently prevail 鈥� typically between 36 and 40 percent. When lotteries used a combined threshold consisting of both SAT scores and weighted GPA, the eligible pool of African American and Latino students fell below the proportions that are currently enrolled in selective colleges.

Baker said that the patterns seen across lottery simulations pointed to large disparities in how students from different demographic groups performed in the various eligibility measures. Black and Latino students tend to score lower than white and Asian American students on college admissions exams like the ACT and SAT, while girls generally earn higher grade point averages than boys. 

“None of the thresholds that we looked at showed evidence of creating a more equitable class,鈥� Baker said. 鈥淎nd you can see differences because different inequities are baked into GPA versus test scores 鈥� that’s why you see the difference for men with GPA that you don’t see for test scores.”

In terms of racial groups, virtually every lottery formation yielded higher percentages of white and Asian American students than under current admissions procedures. In some lotteries, the proportions of low-income students and students of color shrinks below 2 percent of the admitted class. This is attributable in part to the random swings in selection that go along with annual lotteries; over enough years and draws, the characteristics of admitted students would be expected to resemble those of the total pool of eligible participants. But that might not be the case in any given year, Baker observed.

“Many years’ worth of admitted classes of lotteries 鈥� 50 years, 100 years 鈥� would look kind of similar to the larger population,鈥� she said. 鈥淏ut an individual lottery has no guarantee of being demographically similar to the larger population.”

It should be noted that proponents have cited many reasons why a switch to lotteries would be superior to the current system, many (alleviating pressure on prospective applicants, or eliminating the low-grade corruption of admissions officers exchanging donations for acceptance letters) unrelated to equity concerns. For those who complain that elite colleges the Asian American portions of their student bodies, the increased numbers of such students admitted under the study鈥檚 lottery projections could even serve as an endorsement.

Baker said that she and Bastedo were 鈥渟hocked at the magnitude鈥� of some of the shifts detected under the lottery simulations, but said the results generally reflected what existing evidence has shown with respect to performance disparities in both high school grades and college admissions exams.

鈥淚t’s well-rooted in the research literature we have. If you pick different types of thresholds, whatever demographic patterns we see for that measure, we should also expect to see them in the lottery.”