A staff of 40 is about to grow to help wade through the more than 53,000 applications for lottery scholarships for the popular program that is in its first year.
At least 20 more people from other state agencies will be helping out the Higher Education department to process the applications.
More than 53,000 students have applied for the scholarships. Most applications from traditional high-school graduates have already been processed electronically, and more than 11,000 of these students have already been informed of their scholarship eligibility.
But more than two-thirds of the total applications are from current college students and non-traditional students. and those must be reviewed by hand to determine eligibility and priority ranking. What was a staff of three people before the lottery scholarships arrived has grown to nearly 40 through transfers and temporary hiring.