Mississippi spends one-sixth of its funding for welfare, a program reserved for the most vulnerable residents, on a college scholarship program benefiting thousands of middle class families.
In January and February, Mississippi Today published an investigation into state financial aid, which detailed an outdated program plagued by a lack of awareness surrounding need-based scholarships and barriers to aid for the neediest citizens, such as adult learners and low-income families.
Adding to doubts about how the state doles out financial aid dollars is the little-known fact that Mississippi reported almost half of all state-funded scholarships it awarded in 2017 as welfare spending.
In 1996, at the height of welfare reform, Congress created Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, a safety net program that replaced the previous cash assistance entitlement program called Aid to Families with Dependent Children.
Instead of an entitlement, the federal government block granted this new pot of welfare dollars — $31.1 billion total in 2017 — to states, giving the local governments broad discretion on how to spend them.
