With the Arkansas Scholarship Lottery in it’s third week and gathering steam. Many church aligned private colleges are having to deal with the issue of their students playing the lottery. So far only 1 college has come out and forbad it’s students from playing. Others, like Crowley’s Ridge College in Paragould are letting their handbook policies which ask students to refrain from gambling serve for now.

Crowley’s Ridge President Ken Hoppe showed me their student handbook passage. “It would be their own moral decision and we do have a statement in our student handbook that we expect a student to refrain from gambling.”

But now another question arises. Will these private Christian colleges accept students with lottery based scholarships?

Hoppe told me that right after the election Governor Beebe met with all the presidents of private colleges in Arkansas. Hoppe said that Beebe asked their help to make the scholarship program work.

Hoppe said that though not all the presidents were in favor of the lottery they realized that the student needs came first.

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