Texas also authorized the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to assist qualified teachers to repay their student loans if they worked in designated shortage areas. Although contained in statute, no appropriation has been made to fund the program. The Troops to Teachers Program, a program that effectively attracts males and minorities specifically into shortage areas, was mentioned in more than a dozen pieces of legislation this year. In October 1999, national funding was canceled. Because of inadequate funding, new teachers' mentoring and induction programs often last only a few days.
Many experts recommend that yearlong support can help stem attrition.
Frequently, people create scholarship programs but fail to fund them adequately. An example is the Paul Douglas Teacher Scholarship Program, which provides deferments or cancellations of some federal student loans to teachers at an accelerated rate if they teach in designated shortage areas. Since 1995, the program has accepted no new applicants. Another example is the Rockefeller Brothers' Minority Teachers Fellowship Program, which helps outstanding minority students in New York City become teachers. That program has accepted no one since 1998.