In the current 2015 budget, there is a $5 million allocation for the scholarships for high school students taking career tech classes at community colleges. House Bill 38 sponsor Alan Baker, R-Brewton, said the additional $5 million would help 5,000 more students.

But committee members Wednesday morning had yet to see Gov. Robert Bentley's proposed education budget.

"We're going to address this issue in the budget; we don't want to address it in a separate statute," committee chairman Bill Poole, R-Tuscaloosa, said.

Committee member Rep. Terri Collins, R-Decatur, spoke in favor of the allocation.

"These are high schools students, many of them who might not have dreamed they could go to college," Collins said.

Former Calhoun Community College president Marilyn Beck, who retired late last year, attended the meeting. She said she is working on a few projects related to community colleges.

"Calhoun could use three times as much money as we've been able to get so far because the funds are distributed throughout the (25-college) system equitably," Beck said. She said that combined, community colleges requested about $1 million more than the $5 million available this year.

"We had a lot of students taking welding classes or aviation or machine tool or other types of career tech that really gives them a jump start in the workforce, but also a jumpstart into college as well," Beck said.

Calhoun Community College received about $300,000 in scholarship money and gave out 167 scholarships in the fall and another about 140 this semester.

In the fall, Northwest-Shoals Community College gave out 224 of the scholarships, totaling about $120,000.

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