Over the past year, Texans have heard much about the looming public school funding crisis. While that issue has sucked the air out of the room, the Legislature is breaking its promise to Texas college students very quietly by strangling the TEXAS Grant program.

It has become old hat for politicians to talk about the importance of getting a college education. A college graduate earns more than $1 million more over the course of his or her lifetime than someone with only a high-school diploma. In Texas, we talk a good game, but we don't put our money where our mouth is. Our state currently ranks 45th in the number of high-school students that enroll in college. We are the second-largest state and the fastest growing, yet Texas provides about $120 million less in direct state grants to students than the other five largest states. Plain and simple, when it comes to investing in our college students, Texas is all talk.

To ensure Texas produces enough college graduates for the 21st century economy, in 1999 the Legislature created the TEXAS Grant program, which pays for tuition and fees at a Texas college or university for qualified students. In just five years, more than 115,000 young Texans have received 235,000 TEXAS Grants totaling more than $648 million to help them pay for college. Forty-six percent of TEXAS Grants have gone to Hispanic students, while 13 percent have gone to African-American students. Since the program began, 6,758 young Texans have received $56,510,529 in TEXAS Grant funding to attend UT-Austin. The UT System overall has received $187,859,907 to help 25,000 students go to college.

TEXAS Grants are working, but rather than protect and promote the program, the Legislature is strangling it. Last week, the Senate passed a $139-billion budget that increased overall spending by $22 billion, yet cut the TEXAS Grant program by $30 million. That $30 million cut will force 15,000 students to lose their TEXAS Grant over the next two years. The budget cut, however, represents only a part of the problem. Last year, the combination of budget cuts and skyrocketing tuition as a result of deregulation forced 22,000 students to lose their TEXAS Grant. Education analysts believe tuition costs will continue to rise over the next two years, likely cutting thousands more students from the program.

The budget and rising tuition are not the only threats to TEXAS Grants. House Bill 3000 and others would combine B-on-Time loan requirements with the TEXAS Grant program. Students would be required to graduate within four years and maintain a B average or the last two years of the grant would become a loan they must repay. If current TEXAS Grant students were subjected to B-on-Time requirements, 32,000 students would lose their TEXAS Grant. Currently, only 22.6 percent of all students graduate within four years, not all with a B average, and only 16.8 percent of TEXAS Grant students graduate within four years. No other state currently places both a four-year time limit and B-average requirement in order to receive grants for college. Why should Texas students stand alone?

The triple whammy of budget cuts, tuition deregulation and B-on-Time restrictions will essentially destroy the TEXAS Grant program. State higher education leaders have told me that 75 percent of the students receiving TEXAS Grants would lose them under this scenario. That is unacceptable and indefensible, but it is going to happen unless the people affected by these changes - students and their families - rise up and force the Legislature to keep its promise. I urge you to contact your state representative, state senator, the governor and the lieutenant governor and ask them to protect TEXAS Grants.

During the tumult of a legislative session, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. This session, college students and their families have been as quiet as church mice, and that silence will be costly. I can assure you, if the Legislature guts funding, continues to allow tuition to skyrocket and rolls the B-on-Time and TEXAS Grant programs together, there will be plenty of screaming next session from students who can no longer afford to go to college.

Don't say you weren't warned.

Ellis represents Senate District 13 in Houston and is the author of the legislation that created the TEXAS Grant program.