BATON ROUGE - Future high school students won't have to meet tougher standards to get their college tuition paid through Louisiana's TOPS program, at least for now.

Rather than face likely defeat in the Senate, a Baton Rouge lawmaker Thursday dropped his proposal to bump the grade point average from 2.5 to 2.75 for a student to get the basic TOPS award to attend a four-year university. The change would have taken effect in four years.

Instead, Republican Rep. Franklin Foil said he'll work with a planned study group on recommendations for how Louisiana should dole out awards from the nearly $300 million program.

Foil's bill scraped through the House with the narrowest of votes, but faced opposition from Gov. John Bel Edwards and Senate President John Alario.