It's regrettable that there's never enough money to fund every good thing we might want to fund. So common sense suggests that we have to make choices about where to spend the limited dollars that are available.
Recently passed legislation in Tennessee puts a 120-credit-hour cap on the college education that the state's lottery scholarships will fund. That's the minimum number of hours that most degrees at the University of Tennessee and other public schools in the state require.
That has upset a number of students who are pursuing double or even triple majors and therefore have to take additional courses beyond the 120-hour limit. Hundreds of students currently in the UT system could be affected financially by the new cap on the number of credit hours that the scholarships will pay for.
We are sympathetic with their plight and with the money they may personally have to pay to complete their degrees once the lottery scholarship money runs out. But lottery revenue is limited. The state simply cannot create more money out of thin air.
Though we don't think lotteries are a wise way to fund education in general, limiting lottery scholarships to funding basic requirements of a four-year degree - and asking students to pay for "extras" beyond that - is reasonable.