Alabama Prepaid Tuition Fund Is Running Out of Money

Alabama's prepaid tuition program may not be able to pay tuition past the fall 2011 semester and still have money to provide refunds to the 44,000 participants who believed their children's tuition would be covered, the Associated Press reported. The program relies on investments, many on the stock market, and when Wall Street prices fell dramatically in 2008, the finances for the program became precarious and it stopped accepting new participants. There are proposals in the Legislature to provide a bailout but it is unclear if one of these will pass, leading some participants to talk of suing the state.