HOPE Scholarship could shrink even more in 2014 as lottery funds fail to meet demand
Yikes. The AJC is reporting possible deeper cuts to HOPE starting with the fall semester in 2014. While HOPE once covered all tuition costs and some books and fees, it now covers 80 to 90 percent of tuition and no books and fees.
As I said in my first blogs about HOPE Lite last year: Start doubling up on those college savings as HOPE may eventually only cover the gas to Athens.
Earlier today, Tim Connell, president of the Georgia Student Finance Commission, gave legislators a grim outlook. To prevent further erosion of HOPE in 2014, Connell said the state would need an additional $107 million for the 2014 fiscal year.
According to the AJC:
The gap is expected to increase to $163 million by 2016, Connell told a joint economic development committee of the Legislature on Monday. Lottery revenue is projected to remain flat, and more students are expected to be entering colleges and be eligible for awards through HOPE.
Gov. Nathan Deal and lawmakers overhauled the popular scholarship last year, reducing payouts to prevent the program from running out of money. While Connell said those changes helped, the new rules include a provision over the use of reserves that would lead to a drop in the scholarship amount. The new rules require reserves to remain at a certain level, but the commission uses this money to supplement the funding provided by the Georgia Lottery. Reserves are large enough now that the commission can tap into that money to keep scholarship payments at the same level for the 2013 fiscal year. But starting in 2014, HOPE will have to rely just on lottery revenue, Connell said.
A drop in award payouts combined with expected increases in tuition and fees will result in students having a larger out-of-pocket expense for college.S While Georgia’s lottery is considered one of the most successful in the nation, it can’t keep up with soaring enrollment and tuition. More than 256,000 students received HOPE last year, while fewer than 200,000 received it a decade ago. “I’m not sure we can ever meet the demand doing what we’re doing currently,” said Margaret DeFrancisco, CEO of the Georgia Lottery.
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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92 comments Add your comment
Dixiecrat
January 10th, 2012
12:32 pm
Not every kid should go to college. College is something that, if necessary, the parents should make sacrafices to pay for. That’s how it used to be. The HOPE has turned into an entitlement program paid for off of the backs of people who don’t know better than to be taxed willingly buying lottery tickets. I went to college in the mid eighties and my dad had three of us in school at one time and he was in the real estate business, which took a negative turn when Reagan changed the tax law in 1986 hindering real estate sales etc. Anyway, my dad had saved and paid for four years of tuition for me, but I had to pay for everything else and I worked two jobs through school and had to borrow the money for my fifth year and when It was on my dime, I took it a lot more seriously. College is not for everyone and it should be more of a “big deal” to attend one and graduate.
Steve
January 10th, 2012
12:34 pm
Cat Lady, I feel that you’re missing the point. If my son had attended UGA, the state of Georgia would have had to fork up more money. There is NO arguing this point. It was my son’s choice to attend a private institution that is SAVING Georgia tax payers money. Take away the private Hope stipend, and my son ends up at UGA or Georgia College and the state of Georgia pays MORE ! UGA and Georgia College are fine institutions for sure. But take away private Hope and more students that attend private schools end up going there which costs the state much more money.
KJDFH
January 10th, 2012
12:44 pm
HOPE will never have enough funds as long as schools can continue to raise tuition on it’s recipients. why not freeze the tuition amount schools can collect from students receiving HOPE
DawgFan88
January 10th, 2012
12:51 pm
Not sure if this has been stated, but here’s how HOPE should work. First year of college you must pay – get loans, whatever – out of your pocket. When you have PROVEN you belong in college with good grades, HOPE comes in to pay for the remaining three years. You could even get paid in arrears for year one if you’ve shown the grades. This way, we’re not wasting money on kids who don’t care about college. Given the percentage of kids who lose HOPE after year one, this would keep much more money in for the serious students.
Marc
January 10th, 2012
12:54 pm
Two comments said earlier have merit to me. 1 was the 1 about kids who get the Hope and flunk out have to pay back the money.
It is a performance based gift, but you still must continue to perform with penalties if you do not.
The other was the out of control tuition costs at Georgia public universities. There is NO way anyone but a dept. head at UGA should be making 100K+/year. UGA is a decent school, but what they charge for tuition and what you get for an education isn’t worth it. The HOPE is exactly why they keep raising their tuition; taxpayer FREE money. Need to put serious brakes on what they can charge right now.
KJDFH
January 10th, 2012
12:59 pm
Tired of reading Ignorance
January 10th, 2012
10:59 am
@Shar and others on this comment page! Check your sources and check them well. The Georgia Lottery Corporation NO LONGER RECEIVE BONUSES OR INCENTIVES! It has been over a YEAR SINCE BONUSES WERE DISTRIBUTED! Now What!
Diogenes
January 10th, 2012
1:24 pm
You owe me medical care, you owe me a university degree, you owe me food, rent money, etc…, you owe me whatever I dream up today that I feel is my “right”. Bull-feathers! Grow up! You can go to a great college if you want, you will find a way. Quit whining, quit blaming all of your problems on someone else and quit blaming the anyone who has more than you! Get off your butt, realize YOU have great potential to make things happen for YOU and get to it. Quit expecting everyone to hand you whatever you believe is your “right” to have. If I earned it, it is not YOURS. But, you can earn your OWN!
Entitlement Society
January 10th, 2012
1:29 pm
Amen, Diogenes!!!
nypeach
January 10th, 2012
1:36 pm
I work at a local community college, and I can’t tell you how many HOPE scholars we get straight out of high school who have to take remedial classes. I think that needing remedial classes should mean forfeiting the HOPE.
Shar
January 10th, 2012
2:09 pm
Catlady, as usual I agree with you. Taxpayers do provide the bulk of funding for the University System, but that is because tuition does not pay for all costs incurred in delivering a degree. The student’s portion, tuition, is what HOPE is supposed to pay for. However, the University System has had to raise tuition so much faster than can be justified – due to the Legislature’s failure to fund education in favor of such important priorities as Go Fish – that they have played games with costs, inventing “temporary fees” and then making them permanent and doubling them at whim.
Pay Up
January 10th, 2012
2:16 pm
The government needs to raise taxes to keep the full hope scholarship. Just jack up income taxes and sales taxes and pay 100% of tuition and books for all students with a B average.
Entitlement Society
January 10th, 2012
2:19 pm
@ Pay Up – hopefully that was sarcastic
Georgia Matters
January 10th, 2012
2:30 pm
Stop the bonus money for lottery officials, stop the paying of remedial courses and make the students earn at least a B to maintain the Hope.
I gota tell ya, my son goes on a Hope, his last semister but even though he has the hope he cant use it. He only got 911 for this semister but he can only use 485 of it for his classes. It does not even pay the tution all the way. $911 is not a lot but at least he should be able to use it for his education instead of it going back to the state.
I voted for the lottery to fund the hope and pre-k, not to give high payed lottery officials and administrators at local and state colleges huge bonuses. They get paid a salary to perform their jobs. If they dont perform then fire them. If they do perform, then they did what they were paid to do. End of comments.
ACE
January 10th, 2012
2:51 pm
Notice how everything is worse since Georgia became a red state? Roads, schools, unemployment, now HOPE. Republicans destroy everything they touch.
yuzeyurbrane
January 10th, 2012
3:04 pm
It took about a year to realize that Deal’s “saving HOPE” legislation was all spin, as he well knew. More and more college expenses have been foisted upon HOPE recipients despite a promise of “fixed for four” when they were enticed to Ga. colleges in a classic bait and switch scam. How did they do it? Not so hard. They only froze tuitions for 4 years. So they promptly started labeling most increases as “fees”. They also changed the rules in the middle of the game to excude fees and books from HOPE. And they have not met the statutory requirement that 35% of lottery profits go to HOPE in years, staying basically around a 25% figure. Huge bonuses to lottery officials, huge incentives to merchants, and Sonny and Deal only know how much has been sucked off in sweetheart vendor contracts because no one has even looked. At the same time, the state has cut its budget on education by billions, facing college administrators with the Hobson’s Choice of gutting the quality gains their schools had struggled to earn or increasing the out-of-pocket charges on students and their families. Governor Deal reportedly looks upon HOPE as an entitlement program he would like to turn into a voucher program which is essentially what occurred with his so-called “reform”. At the same time, state subsidies of private school education have actually increased. The people of this state can only blame it on themselves if they continue to elect officials who do not believe in quality public education. The real public policy question is: will Georgia invest in creating a well-educated workforce that will attract the 21st century industries to create a prosperous state?
Entitlement Society
January 10th, 2012
3:17 pm
@yuzeyurbrane – just what makes you think the State of Georgia should GIVE you even a dollar for college? They owe us nothing. Get out there and work for it like the rest of us have done and are teaching our children to do. Money is tight, but we instill work ethic and achievement values in our family. Our ancestors came to this country with nothing and did it. I can do it. Why can’t you? Why do you think you deserve a handout from the state?
To Entitlement Society from Good Mom
January 10th, 2012
4:10 pm
Whoa there, ES. You’re barking up the wrong tree and you need to get your facts straight. Our ancestors wer immigrants but they didn’t “make it” — they were exploited. Children were in factories being maimed and killed as they worked 12 hours a day 7 days a week for starvation wages.
It took the GOVERNMENT as in “we the people” to make laws to change the horrific working conditions and exploitation big business used to fatten themselves.
HOPE is necessary in this rotten economy with skyrocketing tuition. Yes, HOPE changed the rules midstream and without a job or without reasonable financial supplements, these hard working studying kids can’t make it through college.
We as taxpayers and citizens should be clamoring for our government to provide education to the generatioin beneath us. It is they who need to earn enough money to pay taxes so that we, the old, can get social security, an “entitlement” I’ve worked for all my life to get. I will need medicare too after I am too old and worn out to work anymore. Where do you think that money comes from?
It comes from those kids today who are struggling to pay for school. Without an education, they won’t be able to have the knowledge and skills to maintain an economy and a democracy.
You best be kind to the generation below you. We owe them an education. Just as we need to thank and be grateful to the generation above us who gave their very lives and livlihoods so that we can have a better life; we need to do the same for them.
It’s time for all of us to be generous and kind to those who have helped us (the generation above us) and to the generation behind us (the ones who will care for us when we are old and no longer able.
WE lost our way
January 10th, 2012
4:35 pm
Has any one seen the Governors recommendations for this years budget??? Look hard at the fine print and you will see a request for millions to buy land for the new Falcon Stadium in downtown Atlanta. I guess football and entertainment comes before education.Oh well back to the same old game being played in the Gold Dome.Go Falcons and Yea for the Executive Suites for Legislators in the new stadium.By the way the current one (stadium) has suites for the key legislators not paid out of their pocket.Go figure!!!
woodrow
January 10th, 2012
4:43 pm
I agree the Hope scholarship should be merit-based. I thought it was merit-based? I never was able to go to college because I couldn’t afford it. All my hard work in High School was a waste of my time. I never got to college. I hope these young hard-working people take advantage of this while it lasts.
WJH
January 10th, 2012
4:59 pm
You folks voted GOP now you have the results – fully funded road building and cuts to education. Too bad the HOPE doesn’t provide kick backs it would be fully funded too!
greg
January 10th, 2012
5:06 pm
Hope was meant to help middle and lower class kids, it should now be called the ‘great White Hope’, rich folks can afford tutors and special schools. Plus the government gives almost 50 million extra to politically connected kids, the system is corrupted. Way to much advertising, to high salaries and there should be a salary cap put on, say families making over 150 grand no longer get it. Soon only the rich will go to college and the middle class and poor will fight the wars just like Vietnam. We see what happens when rich generation after rich generation run the country, right into the ground.
gradgrind
January 10th, 2012
5:09 pm
All the graduate students and part-time adjuncts who are performing the bulk of introductory teaching duties should 1) go on strike and 2) sue the lottery corporation for back living wages. It’s hard to teach (ahem, remediate) two classes, do extra professional duties, hold office hours, grade papers, prepare for conferences, and do your own research when the heat or the water or the lights or the Internet is getting cut off. Groceries and downtown parking are officially unsustainable now, as well. Yet GSU sees fit to charge a slew of pork fees:
$92 Activity Fee (to pay for clubs)
$263 Athletic Fee (but wait, there’s more)
$35 Health Fee (for the student clinic)
$15 International Fee (for study abroad)
$35 Library Fee (that’s OK; it’s why we’re here)
$53 Recreation Fee (wait, activity fee? athletic fee? WAIT FOR IT…)
$36 Student Center (we have two of these. Do we need two student centers?)
$46 Transportation (for the parking place you can’t get because it’s been oversold for 30 years)
$85 Technology Fee (for undergrads on the HOPE Scholarship to play games, listen to music videos, check Facebook, etc. in the library where you would like to be researching)
AND…
$404 USG Institution Fee (I think this is what they used to call a “temporary fee” about 2006). Is this a CYA of the credit swap purchase of the SunTrust Building?
This has been going on for years. Try supporting two people on $1100 a month after taxes with no access to public transportation. The kicker? They set chirpy undergrads on us via dinner-time (no dinner) phone bank (if it’s on) to ask for alumni donations… and now, undergrads can join the Alumni Association as a sort of alumni-to-be thing and pay MORE money into the coffers.
TWO WORDS: FORENSIC AUDIT.
gradgrind
January 10th, 2012
5:09 pm
That should read “and the Internet ARE getting cut off.” That I did learn before college.
gradgrind
January 10th, 2012
5:11 pm
@Georgia Matters: Some departments no longer teach “remedial” course as such. Guess why not. (Of course, that doesn’t mean the kids are ready for regular introductory work–and that includes third- and fourth-year transfers from other USG colleges).
greg
January 10th, 2012
5:13 pm
Entitlement Society Do you really think everyone that came here was poor?,, Get to know your history teabagger, now go back and get your gov contract that you no doubt got due to paying off gov Deal.
Prof
January 10th, 2012
5:42 pm
@ woodrow, Jan. 10, 4:43 pm. It’s never too late to go to college! According to Georgia law, USG schools must provide tuition-waivers for students who are Georgia citizens and 62 or older. Check the school in which you’re interested for details.
I’ve had over-62 seniors in several classes over the years. They must first be admitted by the institution, and can only enroll at a certain point in registration after the full-paying students have enrolled. But I’ve known some who have gotten their undergraduate degrees this way. They add a ballast to the class, and usually are eager students who actually do all of the assigned readings. The younger students seem to enjoy their presence, for they clearly are learning for the sake of learning.
Go for it!!
quietmarcoit
January 10th, 2012
5:47 pm
Loan forgiveness, are you f-ing kidding? The entitlement mentality that so many people have adapted in recent years is a big problem, and yes I am referring to the Obama minions. The privilege of obtaining a higher education is not a right. If you make the grades your in, if not oh well.
em
January 10th, 2012
6:06 pm
The Governor’s Office on Student Achievement shows that only 32 percent of Georgia’s HOPE recipients actually retain it. Maybe it’s time to make HOPE a reimbursement program before the well completely runs dry.
Entitlement Society
January 10th, 2012
6:54 pm
@Good Mom – You’re missing the point and maybe you need to get your facts straight. I don’t know about your ancestors, but mine came from several countries from poor families in search of freedom and the American dream, trying to create their own destiny. They didn’t come here expecting life to be easy and handed to them on a silver platter. DID THEY GO TO COLLEGE? NO. Like others have said today, not everyone is college material. HOPE Scholars needing remedial courses? (I had to chuckle to myself when I read that one.) The program is an obvious joke and should be scrapped period. Then maybe these kids would learn how the real world works and that things aren’t just handed to you. We need to raise a generation with work ethic and motivation, not one who depends on the government for handouts. The role of government is not to run our lives.
Those of you waiting around for the government to education your children, just sit back and take a number. I, on the other hand, have decided to make sacrafices in other areas so I can send them to private school and avoid this whole mess. I will also make sure that I (or they) are responsible for their own college tuition and do not expect the government to educate MY child. I chose to have the children, now it’s my turn to see to it that they’re educated.
@ Greg from Entitlement Society
January 10th, 2012
7:00 pm
@ Greg – Sorry Greg. Didn’t mean to offend you. I had no way of knowing your ancestors were rich. Mine like millions of others were poor and worked for everything our family has today. No government handouts for us.
Entitlement Society
January 10th, 2012
7:06 pm
*sacrifices – oops from 2 posts up
Scooby
January 10th, 2012
9:06 pm
@ Greg,
You hit the nail on the head. Hope was created to provide hope to those who were under priviledged but the politicos changed it. Now the participation by those who can afford to pay the bill has gutted the program. Thats why I have not purchased a GL ticket in years and I encouraged other, not so well to do, folks to join me. We don’t need to subsidize the greedy.
gradgrind
January 10th, 2012
11:07 pm
@what_what: Obviously you’ve never had to take a real art history course. Ever notice how all the slacker students sign up for intro appreciation courses in the arts, then cry like they dropped their paccies when they get the D they earned?
I get so tired of the utilitarian approach to higher ed. Students who think a university education is a trade school/job license mill, yet don’t even have a fast-food gig to pay for their beer, have no idea what they’re doing in college. Want practicality? Call the Carpenters Union and try earning a journeyman’s license.
I guarantee you that when I was an undergrad (working three part-time jobs, thank you very much), maybe 1/30 students were NOT working their way through college. Now, the inverse is the case. Imagine: one, maybe two “traditional” students (ages 18-22) in a class have ever had some kind of a part-time job. Seriously? I filed my first tax return when I was 14. I have actually had students say they are in college because they “don’t like to get [their] hands dirty.” What what?…
Woe unto the parents who created these monsters.
God Bless the Teacher!
January 11th, 2012
6:25 am
HOPE = High Occupancy Post-secondary Education. If pre-weeding took place before future college drop outs ever got to college, fewer people would be in college. Accordingly, no need to keep building all the extra buildings and activity centers that ultimately increase required student fees. Provide full-pay HOPE to students going to smaller colleges (some that were just merged) to help boost enrollments there and help the local economies that support said institutions.
Texan in Georgia
January 11th, 2012
7:56 am
You can thank High School administrators and the University system for screwing up a great thing.
Ole Guy
January 12th, 2012
4:42 pm
Too many hands have been in this “cookie jar” for too long. Too many (kids who pretend to be) college students have soaked up too many “cookies” while taking remedials instead of real college courses. What’s worse…this entire free-for-all cookie grab has gone unmanaged and unregulated.
All these “studies”, statements, and proclamations merely point out, with stark clarity, the results of crappy scholarship management. Just exactly what do these people…these powers that be whose only interest is, supposedly, the publics’ interest…intend on doing in order to MANAGE an obviously dwindling resource?
* Tighten up on grade inflation. Far too many kids, who have absolutely no business even thinking about college attendance, receive top grades (at parental insistence), completely unearned, for the sole purpose of saving mom and pop a few bucks.
* Award HOPE ONLY after at least two grading periods of A/B performance with REAL college courses.
* If the kid falls below a GPA reflective of less than A/B work…awright, give em’ A semester/quarter to get his stuff together. After that, NO MORE HOPE.
IMO has an excellent suggestion. Prior to the awarding of the monies, have the parents issue a downpayment…in real estate parlance, earnest money…to be refunded AFTER the kid has demonstrated so many grading periods of academic success.
Far too many people seem to insist on awarding the endless “second chances” to today’s youth. We’ve seen just where this all leads; we KNOW just where it’s all going to wind up…GENERATIONAL FAILURE. And you good people have absolutely no one to blame but yourselves. You piss n’moan over issues which you, AS INTERESTED FOLKS, should have seen long ago. Meanwhile, just about every other topic of conversation somehow becomes riddled with racial overtones…just what one would expect from a bunch of low life hicks.
QUITCHERBITCHIN an’ start looking at these issues as real adults would.
MInton O'Neal
January 12th, 2012
5:08 pm
Some evaluation of the facts is necessary here. The reason that the Hope program is running out of cash has more to do with the outrageous escalation of the costs of higher education, (possibly driven by the mere existence of the Hope money). In addition, the disingenuous Board of Regents has allowed (or caused) the institutions to raise fees, not tuition, but the effect on the students is the same. College costs in Georgia are SOARING and there is no accountability for that. A real life example: My daughter matriculated at Georgia Tech in the Fall of 2007. Total tuition and mandatory fees (no books, no rooom/board, no freshman application fees, etc) for that semester were $2821. At that time, it was possible to enter school under a fixed tuition program, and the tuition portion of that ($2248) was frozen for 4 years. My son is currently a Georgia Tech student. The total tuition and mandatory fees for the current semester are: $4896, and they escalate every year. Again, this includes no optional expenses, nor books, room/board, etc. So, in four and one-half academic years, the mandatory institutional fees at Georgia Tech have escalated 117.8%!!! This happened in a down economy! Now, I am not complaining or begging for relief in any way. But, this is absurd! If you really want to understand why Hope is sliding to bankruptcy, call it what it really is….
Cheers!
MInton O'Neal
January 12th, 2012
5:17 pm
My apologies…on my comment above. Mandatory fees are up 73.6%. I used an incorrect divisor. The balance of the posting is accurate.
Cheers!
Prof
January 12th, 2012
6:19 pm
@ Minton O’Neal, 5:08 pm.
I just want to point out that your daughter graduated from Ga. Tech. in 2007, just before the collapse of the economy in 2008. The large legislative cuts to the research universities began in 2008. As you point out so astutely, we are in a down economy. That accounts for the unfrozen tuition 4 years later, and the annual soaring fees. Tuition never covers the full costs of students’ educations. Where do you expect Tech to come up with the shortcoming in funds here, given that every year it has had 2-4% budget cuts from the legislature like the other USG schools? It’s not a public charity.
Ole Guy
January 14th, 2012
5:02 pm
Minton, don’t apologize over a simple arithmetical hickup; your point is well-put. College costs are certainly not in keeping with national economic idecies. One might attribute this to any number of factors: greed (college costs, even back in the 60s/70s, was considered an indication of the “money-grubin’ ” administrators), the costs of quality education, etc. As you bring out, the mere presence of HOPE monies (back in the 70s, with the advent of returning warriors heading for the classrooms, GI Bill monies was certainly viewed as a lucrative target by college administrators everywhere) probably adds to the upward spiral of college costs.
The bottom lne, irrefutable fact remains…college is no place for the kid to “find self”. For this reason, kids, on HOPE, who cannot/will not get with the program should be made to reimburse the funds. As the program now stands, from what I understand, the monies are there simply for the asking. False grades “qualifying” for HOPE notwithstanding, these kids AND their parents seem to feel that they are, somehow, deserving of a cut of the shrinking HOPE pool. If the kid demonstrates true resolve in attaining academic success in college, well and good…the HOPE is a sound investment. Otherwise, HOPE “management” needs to start…well…MANAGING the pool.
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