Students, staff and commissioners representing Northeastern Technical College gather on the front steps of the Statehouse in support of LTA funding. Pictured are, from left to right, front row, Tiy Peterkin, Hali Larkins, Malkah Bat-Tzion, Penelope Wilson and Frankie L. Arant; second row, Pinkie Brown, Charlotte Berger, Ashley McLain, Susan Ayers and Amy Lowery; third row Dr. Forest Mahan, vice president of academic affairs and student services, Ronnie Ford, Nicole Charles, Dr. Ron Bartley, president of NETC, Rep. Dan Bozard, NETC area commissioner for Dillon County, and Herbert Watts, NETC Area Commission chairman.

Feb. 3, 2011
NETC Students Show Support for Lottery Funding Program

Students and staff from Northeastern Technical College recently joined hundreds of other students from the South Carolina Technical College system at the State House in Columbia to show support and appreciation of the Lottery Tuition Assistance (LTA) program.

Rally participants wore T-shirts that said “Thank you for LTA,” a program that nearly 285,000 technical college students have benefitted from since its inception.

“The group assembled here today demonstrates how important Lottery Tuition Assistance is to the students of the South Carolina Technical College System and, ultimately, to our state,” Dr. Darrel W. Staat, system president, said in his speech on the Statehouse grounds.

“I was honored to participate in the LTA rally,” NETC student Charlotte Berger, of Cheraw, said. “The LTA program has really made a difference for me.”

Berger decided to go back to school after 15 years to complete her Associate in Arts degree, which she was one class away from earning. She is also taking business classes and working toward an Associate in Applied Science degree.

“As a breast cancer survivor for seven years, I feel truly blessed to have been given a second chance,” Berger said. “I enjoy attending Northeastern Technical College and am eager to earn my long-awaited associates degree and achieve my goals in business. But I could not have made this progress toward these goals without the financial support I receive from the LTA.”

Berger is among the nearly 40,000 students who receive Lottery Tuition Assistance, according to information gathered by the South Carolina Technical College System.
“Hopefully, this annual event helped our state government to see the need to continue to fund the LTA program for all of those who want to achieve a better quality of life by attending college,” Berger said.

Speakers at the LTA rally included Staat, system president; Sen. John Courson, R-Richland, chairman, Senate Education Committee; Rep. Phil Owens, R-Pickens, chair, Education and Public Works Committee; and Leon Rogers, an LTA recipient and student at Florence-Darlington Technical College.

“This is something we fought for five or six years ago to get in the budget in the Senate Finance Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee, and we are going to keep that money in the appropriations bill,” Courson said.

The Lottery Tuition Assistance program was created by the General Assembly in 2002 for public two-year institutions. Unlike merit-based lottery-funded aid, award amounts are not guaranteed from semester to semester, and fluctuate based on lottery collections and student demand.

Student demand across the South Carolina Technical College System is growing as most colleges are experiencing record enrollment. Northeastern Technical College, for example, experienced a growth of more than 18 percent during the 2010 fall semester with more than 1,200 students enrolled in college credit programming. This is record enrollment for the College since being established in 1969.