The current amount of Bright Futures, with the book stipend, was only changed in 2016. Before that it was a much lower amount, about half. So they had this big change and somehow didn’t count on it costing twice as much (plus the Benacquito amounts for instate and OOS NMF). I really think this is a cost correction, that the Bright Futures agency doesn’t have enough money. If they put it into the general budget, they can better control the amounts paid out.
I’m actually surprised that they aren’t making more changes. In 2013ish, they changed the qualifications, and the current program is not very inclusive of poorer and minority students. I thought that is what would get them to make the changes and return to giving less money to more students, like it was before 2013.