It’s disappointing, though certainly not surprising, that members of the state Assembly balked at expanding the number of students who qualify for tuition and other assistance to family members of military personnel killed or disabled while engaged in or training for hostilities.

Assembly bill A.2991 would have expanded the scholarship to include family members of those killed or disabled in non-combat situations. Last week, the state Assembly’s Higher Education Committee blocked the expansion, with the committee’s chairperson saying the legislation was brought up after the budget process and that it was unclear how much it would cost.

That is hogwash, and the committee chairperson knows it. The legislation was initially proposed in January, so there should have been time to consider it for the 2019-20 state budget. At worst, the legislation could have been approved with an eye toward next year’s budget while the program’s cost was finalized.

Give credit to Gov. Andrew Cuomo, then, for both supporting the Merit Scholarship expansion and then for identifying language in state law that allowed him to expand the program immediately. Cuomo and his staff have done a great service to families whose lives are already difficult enough. His Democratic colleagues in the Senate and Assembly would be wise to do the same.

Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie made a big deal earlier this year about making sure the state Assembly didn’t forget about issues important to districts far away from his New York City district. He apparently didn’t make sure that message made its way to Deborah Glick, the Manhattan Democrat who chairs the Assembly’s Higher Education Committee and who picked a strange time to get bitten by the fiscal responsibility bug.

A service member’s death — whether in active service or undergoing training — is a tragic loss. New York state has, for years, penalized the children of some service members who have paid for their devotion to this country with their lives based solely on whether they were killed in active service or during training exercises. Those children will be penalized no longer, thanks to Cuomo.