BATON ROUGE - Nearly 7,000 college students will lose their TOPS scholarships next semester if the Legislature chooses not to renew an $18 million tax that funds a portion of the scholarships.

The House of Representatives has twice rejected a bill that would renew the removal of a $25 per child credit on personal income tax forms. The $93.7 million TOPS budget relies on that funding.

Gov. Mike Foster said he was "totally disgusted" when he learned that the House had rejected the bill to fund TOPS. "I'm going to veto any bill that doesn't have TOPS in it fully funded," he said

If there is a shortfall from the projected needs of the program, the TOPS law calls for elimination of scholarships to those students who scored lowest of the ACT. If the reduction requires for moving into a large group of students who registered the same score, income becomes a factor.

"We've always hoped it would not occur," said TOPS administrator Jack Guinn. "We don't believe it will occur this year."

But if it does, all 147 technical college students who have Tech Awards with ACT scores of 17 to 19 and all 5,259 community college and university students with an ACT score of 20 will be cut off.

That leaves 1,451 students to be eliminated from a much larger group that scored 21 on the ACT.

Guinn said that based on methodology established in state law, those students whose parents have an adjusted gross income above the mid-$40,000 range will be the first to go, regardless of how many years they have attended college.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Jay Dardenne said he's counting on the House to approve a different bill that will renew the $18 million by lifting the $25 student exemption.

That provision was inserted into legislation by Rep. Lydia Jackson, D-Shreveport, but Dardenne said he's afraid it might be unconstitutional because the bill addresses two different topics.

Jackson's bill primarily seeks to grant tax credits to working parents who put their children in child care.