CT Finish Line Scholarship Faces Funding Shortfall in 2026

Connecticut’s new Finish Line Scholarship Program, designed to give community college graduates a debt-free path to a bachelor’s degree, will serve only a fraction of eligible students this fall unless the state legislature restores funding the governor’s budget proposal cut in half.

Connecticut State Colleges and Universities Chancellor John Maduko told the CSCU Board of Regents on Thursday that under the current budget proposal, the program will reach between 350 and 450 students. That’s roughly one-third of the approximately 1,300 students who will meet the program’s already-narrowed eligibility requirements when the fall 2026 semester begins.

“We’re facing a situation where we would be turning away CT State students who received the PACT/Mary Ann Handley Award, who are interested in transferring to one of our four-year institutions,” Maduko told the board.

The Finish Line Scholarship Program was established last year to extend the promise of debt-free education beyond Connecticut’s community colleges. Students who received funding through the Mary Ann Handley Award program, the state’s debt-free community college initiative, and who transfer to one of Connecticut’s four public universities or Charter Oak State College can use the scholarship to fill any remaining funding gaps after federal Pell grants and other aid are applied. CSCU estimates the average award would fall between $8,750 and $9,750 per student.

The math behind the shortfall is straightforward. Governor Ned Lamont’s proposed budget cuts the program’s funding from $7.7 million to $3.85 million. Even the original $7.7 million figure would only have supported between 800 and 900 students. But the original estimates used to fund the program assumed roughly 550 eligible students would enroll in the state universities in the first fiscal year. The actual eligible population has turned out to be far larger.

About 5,500 students are expected to meet the program’s legal eligibility requirements by the end of this academic year under state law, which requires students to have earned 60 credits through the Mary Ann Handley Award program. Notably, students do not have to have completed an associate’s degree under the current statute, only accumulated the credits.

To manage the gap between demand and available dollars, CSCU administrators tightened eligibility on their own. Starting this fall, the program will be limited to students who completed their associate’s degree during the 2025-26 academic year or later. That administrative fix narrows the eligible pool to around 1,300 students. Still, with only enough funding for a third of those students, the scholarship falls well short of its intent.

Chris Collibee, spokesperson for the Office of Policy and Management, pushed back on the idea that the funding was always insufficient. Collibee said CSCU never indicated that the fiscal estimates and assumptions used to build the program’s budget were inadequate. The fiscal note attached to the original legislation estimated 550 eligible students enrolling at the Connecticut State Universities in fiscal year 2026.

That figure now looks significantly off. How that gap developed, and whether it reflects optimistic projections, changing enrollment patterns, or a broader policy design issue, is a question the legislature will likely press as budget negotiations continue through the spring.

The stakes are real for students caught in the middle. Connecticut’s community college pipeline is supposed to feed into four-year degree completion, and the Mary Ann Handley Award has built a population of students who planned around the promise of continued support. Limiting access at the transfer point undercuts that investment.

CSCU has not said how it will select which students among the 1,300 eligible will receive awards if the governor’s funding level holds. That process will matter enormously to students weighing whether to enroll at a four-year institution this fall or delay.

The legislature’s Appropriations Committee has not yet acted on the governor’s budget proposal. Advocates for the program are expected to press for full restoration of the $7.7 million figure, though even that amount would leave hundreds of eligible students without awards. A broader fix would require either additional appropriations or a renegotiated set of eligibility rules that brings the eligible population in line with available funding.