Pruitt campaigns to keep college-assistance plans intact

State Sen. Ken Pruitt, R-Port St. Lucie, has been traveling around the state in a yellow school bus the past two months, drumming up grass-roots support to remind his fellow lawmakers to keep what they promised to do -- but recently have been changing their minds.

He wants them to keep the Florida Lottery-based Bright Futures scholarship and Prepaid Tuition program as they were intended.

"They're under assault," Pruitt said. "I have one clear message: This state needs to keep its promises."

Some lawmakers want to change the two college-assistance plans or eliminate them altogether because of budget belt-tightening.

Thursday, Pruitt took his campaign -- and his school bus -- to a luncheon held for him at Edison Community College in Fort Myers and a student rally at Florida Gulf Coast University in Estero. They were the last stops on his tour of Florida's 28 community colleges and 11 public universities.

"I'm on a crusade," Pruitt told his Edison audience, made up of college officials and educators, students and business leaders. "I want to bring back a reverence for education."

Bright Futures scholarships help students like his father, Pruitt said, and they need to be kept intact, as they're written in state law.

His mother was a waitress and his father worked at the city dump.

"There was no way my father could go to college without assistance," he said. "He made $80 a week. But he was able to go to Miami-Dade Community College on the GI Bill, and he ended up being successful."

The Florida Prepaid plan, Pruitt said, also needs to be left unchanged.

"Out of 16 million people in Florida, 50 percent make less than $50,000 a year," he said. "First they pay the rent, then the light bill, and third their Prepaid payment. This is the fastest growing population buying into Prepaid."

He encouraged the audience to attend and support an upcoming "Rally in Tally," set for March 17 in Tallahassee to urge lawmakers to keep both plans.

"You business folks in this audience are the recipients," Pruitt said. "It's vital that you support them."

Edison District President Kenneth Walker said Pruitt brought the encouragement higher education needed.

"It's encouraging to see that kind of reverence and passion for education in someone who is in the position he's in," said Walker, presenting Pruitt with an Edison-logo T-shirt and spill-proof coffee mug.

"There is a tremendous amount of positives going on in the state, and his crusade is one of them."