Most kids could get less HOPE so a few can get more. Seems unfair to me.
The celebrating might be less once high school grads see their HOPE amounts. (AJC/file photo)
The luster of a HOPE Scholarship — once a full tuition ride to public colleges for Georgia high school graduates with a B average — may dim a bit more this year.
To recap how we came to this depressing situation: Faced with a money crunch, Gov. Nathan Deal last year reduced HOPE for all but top high school students, those who graduated with a 3.7 or higher GPA combined with a minimum score of 1200 on the math and reading portions of the SAT test or a 26 composite score on the ACT.
And he dubbed that new elite scholarship the Zell Miller Scholarship.
It turns out that more kids qualified for the Zell Miller Scholarship than had been expected, so the regular HOPE Scholars — which I call HOPE Lite – could see their financial awards shrink even further than predicted over the next several years.
In stark terms, to fully fund the Miller-level scholars, the state could end up plundering the HOPE Lite coffers.
I still have the same complaint about the two tiers of HOPE that the governor and Legislature created.
The qualifications for the full HOPE/Zell Miller Scholarship rest solely on high school performance. So, teens who graduated from the state’s highest performing high schools and even achieved a perfect score on the SAT cannot get full HOPE if their grade point average was not 3.7.
Students who took 11 AP classes and attended highly competitive high schools but ended up with a 3.6 GPA because of their grueling course loads are out of luck. And that will not change even if those students are physics majors at Tech and maintain a 4.0 GPA there.
Seems unfair to me. What do you think?
The Georgia Student Finance Commission, which oversees both scholarships, already has seen thousands more students qualify this year for the Zell Miller Scholarship than it had anticipated. Commission President Tim Connell said the agency may have to borrow against future revenue from the Georgia Lottery to cover the cost. That, in turn, will only further exacerbate HOPE’s financial woes.
Additionally, despite conservative cost estimates from commission officials, Deal has asked lawmakers to allot millions of dollars less than what will likely be needed. Deal’s request comes as uncertainty lingers about how many students will be eligible for the money, and how much they will receive. It has some lawmakers questioning whether either program can survive without drastic changes and college freshmen wondering if the scholarships they receive will still exist by their senior year.
All are trying to understand the ramifications of last year’s reforms, when a reduced HOPE scholarship was put into place to prevent the program from going broke. At the same time, Deal unveiled the Zell Miller Scholarship, named for the former governor who created HOPE nearly 20 years ago.
The new program promised full tuition to the state’s most accomplished students. In contrast, HOPE students receive about $500 less each semester than Zell Miller scholars, depending on the campus they attend.
The gap between the payouts to students will widen in the next few years, because of other reforms lawmakers also passed last year. Among them, the HOPE program starting in two years will no longer be able to dip into reserves to supplement Georgia Lottery revenue, which pays for both scholarships as well as pre-kindergarten programs statewide. Those reserves have kept HOPE afloat.
“HOPE is going to get worse before it gets any better,” said Sen. Buddy Carter, R-Pooler, chairman of the state Senate’s higher education committee.
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100 comments Add your comment
Shar
January 22nd, 2012
1:20 pm
Enormously unfair and utterly ill-advised, as usual.
Paul Murphy
January 22nd, 2012
1:26 pm
I completely agree with you Maureen, but we all know that these scholarships are not based on true merit. To do so would require us to confront the dirty little secret that some schools are “better” than others, and some students are “better” than others. To your point, a 3.7 GPA and top 3% class standing from “Cow County High School” may not equate to a 3.5 GPA, top 10% class standing from an elite private school. The easy way to normalize for the academic rigor of various schools would be utilization of standardized test scores. But we all know the common complaints associated with standardized tests. So the Communists will win this argument, and scores of academically inferior students will be awarded scholarships while many academically gifted students will be left to fend for themselves. But this is the easy way out – we won’t have to confront the inconvenient truth.
that's goofy
January 22nd, 2012
1:29 pm
smart students will take easier classes – skip the bid for valedictorian and receive full Hope. If college/Hope is the goal – play the game to win.
Cobb Family
January 22nd, 2012
1:32 pm
What happened to the deal with the lottery????? That was supposed to be strictly for funding the hope stuff and now that the normal political bull has started they all have a hand in taking the money from the kids that it was for to start with. HOW COME WE CANT GET AN HONEST PERSON IN OFFICE TO MAKE SURE OUR KIDS GET A FAIR CHANCE AT GOING TO SCHOOL????
nelson
January 22nd, 2012
1:36 pm
I do not see any state having to finance higher education for any student. That is the responsibility of the student and his family. Now I do see financial incentives for students who plan to go to work for the one giving the incentive. The Army will finance a 4 year education for a student who plans to serve his country. Let us find the initiative to succeed.
dre
January 22nd, 2012
2:45 pm
Darn, I was hoping for a few more days of coverage of the epoxy failure on the 17th street bridge. That was out on AJC.com for like three days, it was sooooo interesting.
College HOPE
January 22nd, 2012
2:45 pm
HOPE should be for college students not high school students. Therefore, award HOPE based on their FRESHMAN year performance. This will eliminate school and student inequalities.
Prof
January 22nd, 2012
2:45 pm
“Thousands more students qualify this year for the Zell Miller Scholarship than it had anticipated.” Why was this projected number set too low? Did those thousands game the system by taking easier courses, as “that’s goofy” suggests? Receive inflated high school grades? Are there simply larger numbers of students who wish to go to college?
And should we return to the earlier income cap for applicants’ families? Remove pre-K funding?
HOPE’s original rationale was that it would motivate our best high school graduates to go to college in Georgia. Maybe there weren’t enough preventative measures built into HOPE in the first place against possible ways to cheat…. ways that our ingenious youth have since devised, and that now could be forestalled through some legislative tinkering with the rules. But keep the requirement for a minimum SAT score as the first line of defense against possible inflation of high school grades!
gojackets
January 22nd, 2012
2:49 pm
nelson,
The point of HOPE isn’t welfare; it’s to keep bright students in Georgia so that they can contribute to the local economy. In a sense, many of these kids are “going to work” for Georgia. If you start chipping away at HOPE, schools in other states will be able to cherry pick the best kids here that much more easily, and Georgia will lose those kids forever.
Now, if HOPE is to stay in the black but also keep good kids instate, they should raise the requirements to get it, not cut the payout. No SAT requirement for HOPE is just ridiculous.
Craig
January 22nd, 2012
2:53 pm
None of these issues address the core problem of college financing – out of control costs. By infusing additional millions (hundreds of ‘em) of HOPE dollars into the collegiate “economy”, we have simply enabled schools to continue raising tuition with little or no accountability as to how effectively those dollars are being spent. These scholarships are doing as much to artificially inflate tuition as they are to help families pay those college bills. This phenomenon occurs again and again in financial transactions. When my daughter needed braces, the first thing they wanted to know is whether I had any available insurance coverage. I figured out why this was relevant when we took my second daughter a year later. Because they knew we had exhausted the limited coverage in our plan, they offered to discount the second daughter’s treatment by hundreds of dollars. How could they afford to do this? Because their initial pricing was adjusted simply to rake in whatever insurance dollars I had at my disposal. In other words, my insurance did nothing to save me money – the orthodontist simply put it into her pocket (probably to fund her kid’s Ivy League education). Car dealers do the same thing when they want to know how you are going to pay for the car before they talk about pricing. If you insist on getting $5,000 for your trade-in when the dealer knows it’s worth only $3,000, that $2,000 difference will be built into the price of your new vehicle.
Essentially, universities have simply tapped into the HOPE program as an additional source of revenue, allowing them to offer ridiculously obscure degrees and coursework in addition to building lavish student-life centers and recreational facilities, and other amenities that have nothing to do with preparing students for the future (other than to perpetuate a self-indulgent mindset). This problem is a microcosm of the larger debate we are having about our government. We have promised ourselves (and our students) benefits and amenities we simply can not afford. In short, we don’t have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem.
MB
January 22nd, 2012
3:19 pm
It is completely out of whack if the purpose is to keep the best and brightest in Georgia. WHY are they surprised most are at UGA and GT if that’s the intent; wouldn’t that be where those students would likely prefer to be – especially with transfers included?
Zell requirements are already punitive to students at the most rigorous high schools; eliminating the SAT requirement and having the top 3% of every school qualify is one of the most ridiculous ideas to come out of that group. If they want an assessment of the discrepancies in grading and rigor, I challenge them to give the same test to the student at the 3% cut line at say, Dougherty High, and to the student just below the 25% (even 50%) cut line at Northview High. My guess is the NHS student’s score would trample the DHS student on the test.
Leave the SAT requirement and add it to the valedictorian and salutatorian requirement – if there’s not grade inflation, why should the V and S of any school not meet that standard?
For that matter, why should the V or S of a school with 8 graduates qualify when Maureen’s student who took 11 APs and ended up with a 3.69 NOT qualify? As gojackets notes, that kid will likely qualify for an out-of-state education at the same expense as HOPE Lite and may never return to GA.
Bashing Hope from Good Mom
January 22nd, 2012
3:22 pm
Bashing Hope scholarship decisions is similar to blaming the victim. Few dollars mean cuts the real pervert in this debacled that needs to be addressed is to identify and solve and cause, not treat the symptoms.
The cause of the illness is that college costs have skyrocketed for no good reasons. They are being jacked up just because they can jack them up. That needs to stop, especially in State schools. The second culprit is the bad public schools. It shouldn’t matter from which high school you graduated, a B should mean a B should mean a B. No inflated grades.
Every public school should be a good one. Our democracy depends on it.
Make the schools better by hiring real, qualified teachers and reduce class size.
Make a public college affordable for everyone.
To Nelson from Good Mom
January 22nd, 2012
3:27 pm
Nelson says “The Army will finance a 4 year education for a student who plans to serve his country. Let us find the initiative to succeed.”
Nelson, It is a horrible day on planet earth when one’s only option to go to college is to literally put your life at risk.
The idea that America has an “all-volunteer” armed forces is a crock of you know what.
It is always a rich man’s war but it’s always a poor man’s fight.
Voice of Reason
January 22nd, 2012
3:30 pm
This isn’t rocket science either. The arguments being made regarding high school eligibility requirements, in addition to the requirements needed to maintain the HOPE should be raised. 3.0 GPA?……come on. Raise that minimum standard and lets see what happens.
Some good points made regarding the compare and contrast between high schools. The same could also be said about the state colleges/universities also. A 3.0 at XYZ university certainly isn’t the same at ALL schools (too many variables), but obviously the powers that be are clueless when it comes to seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.
One hates to bring politics into this mess, but the smell coming out of the capitol is atrocious.
Truth in Moderation
January 22nd, 2012
3:44 pm
The article fails to mention that home schoolers will, once again, be shut out of the Hope Scholarship. They will require higher standards than the Zell Miller scholarship in order to qualify. And, they will have an SAT requirement. Home school organizations are currently fighting this. In my opinion, ONLY HOME SCHOOLERS SHOULD QUALIFY FOR HOPE. They have educated their children AT NO COST TO THE STATE! Plus, they have contributed tax dollars to educate other’s children. As a “thank you” for their positive contributions to the welfare of the State, their children should be rewarded with a scholarship based on academic achievement. Any leftover money could be used to provide public school teacher grants. A teacher would submit a grant application requesting funds for their class for specific projects/needs. The school board (elected officials) would select the most worthy applications and award grants according to availability.
On another topic……
Were you aware that a Georgia judge has subpoenaed President Obama to appear in court January 26, 1012 to prove or disprove his eligibility to appear on the Georgia ballot as a presidential candidate?????? Georgia has 16 electoral votes.
The President’s lawyers FILED A MOTION TO QUASH THE SUBPOENA, but the judge DENIED THE MOTION!
This is BIG NEWS! The MSM is giving it a blackout.
http://www.art2superpac.com/UserFiles/file/Farrar-Welden-Swensson-PowellvObama,OrderonMotiontoQuashSubpoenas,GeorgiaBallotChallenge.pdf
http://www.wnd.com/2012/01/judge-rejects-obama-demand-to-quash-subpoena/
Ashley
January 22nd, 2012
3:59 pm
In what realm of the universe does a student get a scholarship on just gpa alone? A 3.0/80 without an SAT or ACT score is ludricrous. We all know about grade-inflation and other manipulative ways to booster someones gpa. Extra-curriculum activities should be part of the process when awarding scholarships , along with the taking of accelerated or honor courses. That way only the best and the brightest would receive HOPE. Every child should have the right to attend college, but to get accepted, there needs to be a greater body of work and having a 80 average with no other merits is just unacceptable.
Fed Up
January 22nd, 2012
4:00 pm
I know, let’s inflate high school grades some more, so that more kids can qualify!
Lee
January 22nd, 2012
4:03 pm
Maureen laments about “most kids getting less HOPE so a few can get more”, but overlooks one of the reasons we are in this shape is that a large percentage of kids were going to school on inflated grades only to flunk out and lose HOPE within a year. If memory serves me correctly, the percentage of students that lost HOPE in the first year was around 45-50%.
Once again, make HOPE a REIMBURSEMENT program and watch those casual go-to-college-for-a-year-and-flunk-out students either get with the program or not attend.
The second issue with HOPE is that nobody had skin in the game. Colleges were free to raise tuition and nobody paid attention because HOPE was footing the bill. It was the same effect Medicare and Insurance had on healthcare costs.
Ian
January 22nd, 2012
4:10 pm
HOPE will fail if anything other than a standard measurement is used. Tie it to GPA and you get kids taking empty courses, making them unprepared for college. They then go on to fail and waste HOPE funds. TIE it to SAT only and you get students who will succeed in college and the funds won’t be poured down a sewer.
Gail
January 22nd, 2012
4:14 pm
With the HOPE scholarship apparently on a path to dwindle each year, we will definitely look at private and out of state colleges for my son who is a 9th grader. With my oldest two children I reasoned that financial aid offered by an out of state college wasn’t guaranteed for all four years so we chose for them to stay in-state. At that time the HOPE scholarship had usually “Grandfathered” current students when changes were made.
I also have a HS senior and wish we had looked at out of state colleges to see how their financial aid compared to the colleges she looked at in Georgia. Dumb on my part.
As Craig said, the root cause of this HOPE funding problem is out of control costs. This was all thanks to the BOR not controlling the USG spending. Thankfully Hank Huckaby seems to be trying to reign it in but it may be too little too late for the children who were born the year (1993) the HOPE scholarship was created by Zell Miller.
Two Cents
January 22nd, 2012
4:32 pm
Another great big thank you to the Repugnants for their determination that NO ONE but the elite and rich get any assistance because only those are entitled to a college degree ot assistance in being equipped to find a good job and making sure NO jobs are available except for college grads. Way to go Repugnants.
drew (former teacher)
January 22nd, 2012
4:39 pm
Craig: Your comments are dead on! How ironic that the biggest culprit in the increasing cost of a college education is………. the Hope scholarship!
+++++
College HOPE says: “HOPE should be for college students not high school students. Therefore, award HOPE based on their FRESHMAN year performance. This will eliminate school and student inequalities.”
That’s a great idea, and it WOULD eliminate grade inflation. But with college costs artificially inflated by Hope, it would also shut out many of those of limited means, as they might not be able to finance that freshman year. Hope should adopt a “needs based” component.
+++++
Truth in Moderation says: “In my opinion, ONLY HOME SCHOOLERS SHOULD QUALIFY FOR HOPE.”
BWAHHHHHHHH! Truth…you’re a hoot! And by the way, please, take your political blather back over to Jay’s blog!
teacher&mom
January 22nd, 2012
4:42 pm
“ONLY HOME SCHOOLERS SHOULD QUALIFY FOR HOPE. They have educated their children AT NO COST TO THE STATE! ”
If we were to go along with that line of thinking, then only those who purchase lottery tickets should be eligible for HOPE.
MB
January 22nd, 2012
4:42 pm
@Gail It was already too late for the majority of students born in 1993. Those who graduated, like my son, in 2011 had the rules changed in the spring of their senior year – too late to consider what an out-of-state college might offer compared to HOPE Lite at UGA or Tech, to work a bit harder senior year for the 90 rather than 89, or decide not to take the class that was very rigorous (but for which there were few As).
Also of note is the fact that students who qualify for HOPE Lite are required to take a minimum of 15 credit hours at UGA and Tech to get the “full 90%.” My son’s advisor recommended that, with two science classes with labs in his spring schedule and a busy club sport calendar and volunteer requirements, he consider only taking 12 or 13 hours. His tuition is still $3641 but HOPE Lite pays only $2757 – NOT 90%! (Plus the $450 “institutional fee” for UGA, in addition to the many other fees and mandatory freshman housing and meal plan, means his cost per semester paid to UGA is $8684. That’s 31% of expenses covered for a freshman on HOPE Lite, not including books, laptop, etc.
My older son’s class (2008) had guaranteed four-year tuition, full fee coverage and a book stipend. There were governor’s scholarships for STAR students and valedictorians. (Of course, he chose to go out of state so we didn’t realize those benefits.) How precipitously the support of scholars in Georgia has fallen…
William Casey
January 22nd, 2012
4:50 pm
I agree with LEE’s 4:03 post that HOPE should be a reimbursement program for the freshman year. The amount of HOPE money squandered on subsidized partying in the past twenty years could easily fund “Full HOPE” for all real students today.
MannyT
January 22nd, 2012
5:06 pm
Which unfair do we choose?
When HOPE started, it had an income cap. Now it does not. Ultimately less resources for poorer students.
At one point, there was no SAT requirement. There is a strong correllation between income and SAT scores.
Some school districts push out a lot more high grades than others. Is there a HOPE reward for grade inflation? See GPA by district pdf OR GPA by school pdf
Is there a penalty for poor stewardship of the program? Who pays it? Not the adults that make the rules.
(176K students on HOPE in 2011-12, which is the smallest number since 2000-01)
If you want to make the awards more equitable to all of the better students in the state, you award a HOPE scholarship to the top X% of HS seniors at each school. Each year the X% is based on what the state can afford. Even if my school has grade inflation, it should cancel itself out within a school. If my rural HS doesn’t do well on the SAT, we still get our X%…because if we are honest, the best student in a rural area is more likely to go back home and help the community & economy than a metro Atlanta student is to move to a rural GA town.
catlady
January 22nd, 2012
5:07 pm
I’d like to see ALL “scholars” be required to have a 1200 math and reading SAT for any HOPE in 4 year public colleges. After all, if you are poorly prepared, you have little “hope” of graduating. Let’s say 1000 SAT for 2 year schools and vo-techs (since they are trying to become COC SACS accredited, instead of COE). Those without the grades and scores would be eligible for a HOPE loan to cover the first 30 hours, to be forgiven if the grade is reached.
It is patently stupid to have kids with a 4.0 who can only muster an 800 on the math/rdg portion of the SAT. Yet, you can be sure that happens. These kids are NOT AT ALL ready for the rigors of college. No sense in wasting money (both lottery funded as well as taxpayer funded) on people who are not ready to do the work.
We also need to put the brakes on dropping classes. It is a waste of money to allow kids to bail out of classes they have determined to be detrimental to their GPA. Perhaps a limit of 2 drops per student per degree, or something.
mountain man
January 22nd, 2012
5:08 pm
“It turns out that more kids qualified for the Zell Miller Scholarship than had been expected”
Most likely as a result of grade inflation in high school to qualify everyone for hope. They should add a minimum SAT complonent to the HOPE scholarship to balance the budget. HOPE was intended to pay for the best students to attend college, regardless of financial conditions of the parents. There are plenty of “need-based” scholarships out there.
catlady
January 22nd, 2012
5:10 pm
Manny, did you know there was a NEGATIVE income cap in the beginning? A cap that persisted after the top cap was extended and then taken off? In the beginning, if you got Pell, you did not get HOPE. It was NOT designed for poor kids at all.
catlady
January 22nd, 2012
5:14 pm
(Poor kids’ families don’t vote as much as middle and upper income parents.)
graysonmom
January 22nd, 2012
5:16 pm
On a trip to a well known out of state university just across the border, ALL of the potential students in our group were from metro Atlanta. Why risk not knowing what little, if any, HOPE is in your future?
I would like to see a SAT/ACT requirement to counteract the grade inflation we all know exists. Also, why not drop the 3.0 in college requirement to 2.5 or so for the students at Ga Tech majoring in the degrees that are difficult and are in fields where there will be jobs in the future?
mountain man
January 22nd, 2012
5:18 pm
“(Poor kids’ families don’t vote as much as middle and upper income parents.)”
IF that is true, then they deserve what they get. If you don’t vote, don’t complain about the people who get elected.
mountain man
January 22nd, 2012
5:23 pm
Another thing to consider making the HOPE scholarship a fixed dollar amount. That would keep the universities from recklessly increasing their tuitions since it is paid by HOPE. Then the student can decide if they want to supplement to go to UGA or choose a cheaper school.
MB
January 22nd, 2012
5:44 pm
@ MannyT An even more interesting document would be the HOPE retention rate – specifically, what percentage of students (by high school AND by college) retain HOPE? When you see that x% of students from HS A keep HOPE at GT but y % of students from HS B lose HOPE at GT, you get a feel for the rate of grade inflation. You couldn’t compare with just HOPE retention rates – sorry, but comparing students from Dougherty High who maintain grades at Albany State to Brookwood students at GT would not be a valid point of reference.
Also, do you not want students from rural areas to get a rigorous education? Catlady suggestion – having students who don’t demonstrate college readiness with SAT scores go to junior colleges first – could lead to better results for rural students. (BTW, I am a product of a southern rural GA school system who moved to metro ATL 33 years ago.) Discouraging grade inflation would hopefully improve the rigor of all high schools and therefore improve the quality of our college students.
MB
January 22nd, 2012
5:53 pm
@Maureen Exactly how do they want to change the way technical college HOPE is administered? That isn’t clear at all in the (print) article – are they trying to make more students eligible for technical college HOPE? If 4200 students lost HOPE trying to maintain a 3.0 in technical college, do we really want them subsidized to graduate to work as LPNs, repair our cars, or wire our houses? The allusion to the fact that they may be older and supporting their own families – how is that germane? (That they may be more likely to vote?)
Janet
January 22nd, 2012
5:56 pm
Growing up in a small applachian town, I know from experience that not all high schools and their respective “honors/ap courses” are created equal. My husband and I have this conversation all the time about our 4 and 6 year olds and whether we think it’s better to be an okay student in a top notch challenging school or Top of the class in a mediocre school. Big Fish in little pond vs Little Fish in big pond scenario.
I have always contended that as far as life skills and overall life success, you are much better off to be an okay student in a top notch high school. I have always thought it better to surround yourself with smart people rather then be the smartest person in the room. But as for getting into college and the hope of having any help paying for it, you would be wiser to be enrolled and do well in a mediocre, middle of the road school with less challenges. This idea is so unbelievably sad to me. The fact that best option we have as Non Wealthy parents is to encourage less challenging curriculum.
Not sure how true this is… but a friend of mine’s daughter has a 4.1 GPA with high AP courses, but due to the high number of kids from her particular school (John’s Creek) with even higher GPAs, she will likely not get the Hope. I have to wonder, if your kid is better than average but not an amazing student, does it even make sense to even try to get into a top notch public school? This weighs heavily on my mind as our home is currently on the market as we prepare to move to South Forsyth County (Big Creek area) for better schools.
Hope in trouble again. - City-Data Forum
January 22nd, 2012
6:37 pm
[...] More on this… Most kids could get less HOPE so a few can get more. Seems unfair to me. | Get Schooled [...]
MannyT
January 22nd, 2012
6:48 pm
The point of my January 22nd 5:06 pm post was to highlight there are several ways to look at “unfair”
I believe the top X% within a school is the closest to fair across the board.
MannyT
January 22nd, 2012
6:53 pm
@catlady
I STRONGLY disagree with I’d like to see ALL “scholars” be required to have a 1200 math and reading SAT for any HOPE in 4 year public colleges. See below
But I do agree that It is patently stupid to have kids with a 4.0 who can only muster an 800 on the math/rdg portion of the SAT. This is a problem that we must address within our schools. However, college admissions offices do filter these students. I doubt they get into the better schools even with HOPE.
You can be in the top 25% of GA SAT scores and be just below a 1200 (Math + Critical Reading) in GA. Notice in Table 5 that GA top 25% is exactly 50 points behind the national top 25% (which would still be 30 points below the 1200 SAT score.)
Over 38% of diploma students were HOPE eligible in 2010 (same link in prior post. Go to last line of pdf) Are you trying to put more value on the SAT than the education? Many schools have the majority of their diploma students eligible for HOPE. You offset the grade inflation with a percentage instead of penalizing a school that grades tougher.
I want the best students you have in an area (rural or urban) to get opportunity. If the top X% in a school don’t meet the SAT requirement, I’d rather take a chance on a kid with better grades over 4 years of high school than another kids in the same school that has a GPA 0.5 points lower but 50 more points on the SAT. The high stakes testing message in the top levels of HOPE has a very different sound than the one I see when we talk about teacher pay & student performance (which is a conversation for a separate blog topic.) Which test has a higher risk/reward profile, the SAT or the CRCT? If you need to include SAT, which I am against, use a sliding scale–so better grades allow you a lower SAT score to be HOPE eligible.
Note–The top X% should have a minimum requirement of a B average, but that percentage is more likely to raise the GPA requirement for HOPE.
MannyT
January 22nd, 2012
7:30 pm
@Catlady
On the poor kid comment, my point is that the absence of any income cap makes more people eligible. More eligible means the money runs out faster so fewer get it. Newer requirements (like SAT requirements) tend to work against the economically disadvantaged.
@MB
Because of funding, we DO compare “students from Dougherty High who maintain grades at Albany State to Brookwood students at GT ” Not saying they are the same educationally, but the money gets allocated to both if HOPE eligible. The money goes out regardless of which GA high school the student attended…even if the Brookwood kid goes to Albany State & the Dougherty kid goes to Tech
On the HOPE retention issue, I think it’s very messy. In a state business perspective, I would want to make HOPE a one shot deal. If you lose it, it doesn’t come back. Personally, I would like people to have another chance, but if you cannot afford the current numbers, it seems problematic to give students extra opportunities to get it back.
That said, I would allow HOPE to pay for remediation at the start of college. There would be some details to limit the total HOPE cost to the state and flag the K-12 system. Too many remedial HOPE scholars will cost the system in the future.
The College Hope from Good Mom
January 22nd, 2012
7:52 pm
College Hope, do you ever just listen to yourself talk? Do you ever listen to what anyone else has to say and think about it for a nanosecond?
You wrote “HOPE should be for college students not high school students. Therefore, award HOPE based on their FRESHMAN year performance. This will eliminate school and student inequalities.”
Eliminate student inequalities? It will CAUSE student inequalities. The Hope Scholarship was created so that students had a better chance of going to college because they could better afford college. If you wait until AFTER they get there to determine who makes the grade, then those students who most need the scholarship won’t get it? You see?
Now the best way for the elite and the privileged to hold down wages and keep everyone poor to the benefit of the elite is to prevent poor people from getting an education.
Are you rich, College Hope? are you trying to make it impossible for poor folks to have a chance at a decent life or are you so blind that you believe in shooting yourself in the foot?
I understand why vulgar rich people want to maintain their greed but what I can never fathom is why the middle class and the poor want to help the rich get richer.
In our university we had to register in the huge arena. Everyone who had a student loan had to stand in this looooong student loan deferment line. I went to a State school and tuition was absolutely cheap compared to today but yet here were thousands of students waiting in a two hour line to get their $1,000 per semester tuition cost deferred….and then they would walk out to their ten year old beat up Toyota…with a Reagan sticker on it.
*sigh*
The Prof from Good Mom
January 22nd, 2012
7:59 pm
Prof you ask “Are there simply larger numbers of students who wish to go to college?”
Of course there are more students wanting to go to college…because when they get out of high school there are no jobs to have to earn a living and the few jobs that are available are being sought after by those with college degrees.
catlady
January 22nd, 2012
8:02 pm
Manny, I certainly agree with you (and so does the research). In fact, something like 75 percent of those getting HOPE are from the highest income levels. I wish I could rememer the exact percentages and percentiles of parental income.
The Craig from Good Mom
January 22nd, 2012
8:03 pm
Craig, did someone slip a stupid pill in your bowl of cereal this morning?
You are blaming the Hope scholarship for rising college costs. Dear Craig, let me give you the 411. The Hope Scholarship is in Georgia, not other states.
The cost of college in other states has risen dramatically — it’s out of control.
So if your theory is correct, that Hope raised the cost of tuition, then the tuition would only be more expensive in Georgia and of course that is not the case.
College tuition is out of control because our government is corrupt and is allowing it to be out of control. If we can put a salary cap on football players, surely we can put a tuition cap on college tuition at State funded schools.
catlady
January 22nd, 2012
8:15 pm
And an even higher percentage of those who KEEP HOPE are from those highest income levels.
bilbo799
January 22nd, 2012
8:17 pm
HOPE is far too easy to get. Having someone else pay for college is a privilege and should be earned with high grades and high standardized test scores.
catlady
January 22nd, 2012
8:18 pm
Once again, I have “already said that” yet the supposed first cut of the “duplicate post” has not posted.
Truth in Moderation
January 22nd, 2012
8:26 pm
Let’s get rid of the lottery. The people that run them always get their guaranteed share of the profits; it is the money for the scholarships that shrinks if lottery business falls off. We should be firing any lottery corp. that isn’t producing enough scholarship money. WHY KEEP THEM IN BUSINESS? At the very least, there should be a new round of bids for a better cut of the profits. WHY ISN’T THERE?
Another reason to get rid of the lottery is that they are the reason for tuition inflation. IN A RECESSION/DEPRESSION, PRICES SHOULD BE GOING DOWN. Aren’t foreclosed houses selling for %50 off right now? The lottery money creates a false economy for tuition. If it went away, school applications would dramatically drop. Colleges would have to lower tuition or go out of business. Also, prior to the lottery, most schools had 501c3 scholarships funded by donations to the schools themselves. WHERE HAS THAT MONEY GONE? In the old system, colleges picked the best students and funded the talent that needed it. There was less wasted money on students who really didn’t qualify. The lottery isn’t free. Taxpayers pick up the tab on running it and filling in the shortfalls.
Atlanta Mom
January 22nd, 2012
8:33 pm
“It turns out that more kids qualified for the Zell Miller Scholarship than had been expected”
No kidding. About 83% more. How can anyone make any intelligent changes if those are the best estimates the governor can come up with?
Atlanta Mom
January 22nd, 2012
8:37 pm
HOPE as intially envisioned was not for all the best and brightest. It was for bright kids from families with incomes less than $60,000.
Seems like we should revisit that proposal. I have a “Zell Miller Scholar”. I would be disappointed to have to come up with another 10 grand a year, but I certainly could do it. And there are plenty of people like me, with students in the University Systemt.
Most kids could get less HOPE so a few can get more. Seems unfair to me. – Atlanta Journal Constitution (blog) | Life Insurance Press
January 22nd, 2012
9:26 pm
[...] Atlanta Journal Constitution (blog) [...]
Better Future
January 22nd, 2012
9:45 pm
We live in a technology-driven society and must focus on STEM majors. Currently, retention of a Hope Scholarship heavily favors easier majors because the requirement that you maintain a high collegiate GPA. Some of our brightest students (high GPA, high SAT) enter Tech on Hope Scholarships in STEM majors, struggle with the exceedingly difficult and rigorous coursework, and see the Hope Scholarship slip away because of the GPA requirement. Others switch to less demanding majors to maintain their scholarship, and society suffers the loss of a potential engineer or scientist to an over-subscribed major like communications or art history. If we treat all college majors equally when considering scholarship retention, there will be less incentive to enroll in science, technology, engineering, and math majors, and that is where we have the greatest need!
Prof
January 22nd, 2012
9:56 pm
Don’t blame raised USG tuition on the schools thinking that HOPE will pay for it; blame it on state legislatures demanding budget cuts from the schools for the last 4 years. Whatever the student pays in tuition does NOT cover the full cost of the student’s education, whether in-state or out-of-state.
ScienceTeacher671
January 22nd, 2012
10:07 pm
Don’t forget that the Lottery Corp. needs to pay its mandated percentage.
I agree that HOPE for the first year should be a loan that is forgiven as long as the student maintains the college GPA. This alone would help.
The idea of having HOPE for a set amount in an attempt to prevent colleges from raising tuition because HOPE pays is probably a good one as well.
I will note that the Lottery Corp has almost never paid as much to education as it is supposed to, it quit funding technology in schools a long time ago, and its other stated purposes, Pre-K and HOPE scholarships, aren’t doing too well either; yet until this year the Lottery Corp was still giving out generous bonuses to its employees. And there’s talk that our General Assembly might let the Lottery Corp operate casinos, too??
Who in the General Assembly is profiting from this? You have to wonder.
MB
January 22nd, 2012
10:39 pm
@MannyT The comparison was for HOPE retention. Compare how many students from Dougherty retain HOPE at GT vs the number of Brookwood students who retain it at GT. That comparison would provide grade inflation data.
And why do you think students should receive HOPE money for remedial classes? To encourage high schools to NOT provide a rigorous college prep education to students? That students are qualifying for HOPE who need remediation is direct evidence of lack of rigor in that high school. Now if you mean that students should get a chance to regain HOPE early in their college career, that is reasonable and the new guidelines allow ONE reinstatement, which seems reasonable. For a student who’s been able to cruise through high school without studying, the rigor of college may be an eye opener. One re-up seems a good consideration of that, or for a student learning to balance school and a job.
MB
January 22nd, 2012
10:45 pm
@ BetterFuture – you are spot on. Seems that it would be reasonable to have HOPE cuts based on the average GPA for the school. If the top 25% at GT in the Engineering School have a 2.9 or above, that would be the HOPE retention GPA for GT Engineering students. If the top 25% at Dalton in Health and PE have a 3.6, that would be the cut for those students to retain HOPE. Discourage grade inflation (which Tech profs aren’t going to abide anyway…) and improve the quality of graduates
Most kids could <b>get</b> less HOPE so <b>a</b> few can <b>get</b> more. Seems unfair to me. « Make Your Money Online « Make Your Money Online
January 22nd, 2012
10:48 pm
[...] Most kids could get less HOPE so a few can get more. Seems unfair to me. That was supposed to be strictly for funding the hope stuff and now that the normal political bull has started they all have a hand in taking the money from the kids that it was for to start with. HOW COME WE CANT GET AN HONEST PERSON IN OFFICE TO MAKE … Read more on Atlanta Journal Constitution (blog) [...]
Craig
January 22nd, 2012
10:48 pm
Good Mom, I think you could use a pill of some kind, or anger management perhaps. I didn’t know anyone was still hanging out in Zuccotti park. Your “refutation” of the idea that HOPE has contributed to rising tuition in Georgia schools is hardly definitive. Who cares if other states do not have HOPE? The point is that as long as universities are afforded significant revenue streams outside of the student’s ability to pay, the natural (market) restraint on tuition is retarded and spending is allowed to go on with little or no discipline.
Perhaps you should take your own advice (@ 7:52) and “listen to what [someone] else has to say and think about it for [more than] a nanosecond.”
Better Future
January 22nd, 2012
10:57 pm
@MB, I have read that college education majors receive inflated grades (lowest GPAs and SATs entering college, highest GPAs exiting college), but engineering students cannot receive inflated grades because courses build on a progression and if you don’t master the lowest level course, you will be unable to function in the latter coursework. I like your idea of rewarding a defined percentage of STEM students based on the actual GPAs of their peers. I personally know a valedictorian who chose computer science over engineering because he knew the coursework would be easier (not easy, just easier) because he was worried about scholarship retention. To compete in the global workplace, we have to encourage our brightest students to choose the most difficult majors. They will provide the economic engine and the innovation to provide a better life for the average American.
Gail
January 22nd, 2012
11:07 pm
MB- Great idea about the GPA required for retaining HOPE being based on top 25% of other students in same major at each college.
Truth in Moderation
January 23rd, 2012
12:58 am
THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE!
“BENGHAZI, Libya (AP) – Hundreds of angry Libyans on Saturday stormed the transitional government’s headquarters in the eastern city of Benghazi, carting off computers, chairs, and desks while the country’s interim leader was still holed up in the building.”
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20120121/D9SDIGOG0.html
And what, you ask, does this story have to do with Hope Scholarship?
It’s all about money. We were told that we invaded Libya so they could be free from a tyrant dictator and install a “democratic” government. I don’t think the Libyans got the news flash.
Meanwhile, just how much did Americans spend on this undeclared NATO war?
What! You don’t know?
Check this out and see if this is what a RIPOFF looks like……
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/checkpoint-washington/post/libya-war-costs-for-us-896-million-so-far/2011/08/23/gIQA5KplYJ_blog.html
GwinnettMom
January 23rd, 2012
12:58 am
What if an amount was given instead of “full tuition”. Back in the day, I received a scholarship based on my SAT score that covered the costs of attending Dalton College (then a Junior College) for two years. I lived at home, attended college, and worked. When I graduated from the University of Georgia (no scholarship), neither I nor my parents had any associated debt. My parents used the unspent funds they had set aside for college an let me buy a car. My daughter is going to a small private out of state college after taking her core courses at Georgia Gwinnett. There’s “no HOPE” for her outside of GA so I’m sure now that she’s not spending her share there’ll be plenty of money for everyone else.
another comment
January 23rd, 2012
12:58 am
Many of the top Private Schools are making sure that virtually all of their graduates are now graduating with a 3.8 GPA or Better. After all these parents have paid $16K to $23K per year. These are the Families making $200K and plus a year. They have counted on the HOPE for all these years. Do you think that their grades would drop out of contention. They also make sure their students get all sorts of tutoring to meet the 1,200 score on it. They also have their students take their AP tests multiple times if they do not score at least a 3, after tutoring. They want to make sure their advertising material has the correct stats.
There can be big differences in School differences. There is between Cobb and Fulton. I found with my daughter she got a couple of really stinker teachers in the Fulton County School. So she went back to Cobb, where we found better teachers. We also found in Fulton that some parents were trying to compensate for these bad teachers by hiring tutors for 3 + days per week of tutoring per subject per week. This is ridiculous. When the average test score on the final exam in the AP US History Class and In Physics on the finals are failing, then you know it is a teaching problem. When the Cobb School doesn’t have this issue.
MannyT
January 23rd, 2012
1:05 am
@MB, Gail, Better Future
If you are willing to use percentage for college majors within a school, why not use a similar system at the high school level for HOPE eligibility?
Top X% (min 3.0 GPA) at each high school, get HOPE.
MannyT
January 23rd, 2012
1:48 am
@MB
I’m sure someone could collect retention data by school, but I would question what good would become of it. Lower retention means more money in the pool to use for future students. So those that wash out are less of a cost to the HOPE system. I wouldn’t tie retention to the K-12 systems because things can happen after the students have left the high school that may impact their college grades. You could have been a legitimately strong high school student, but your college grades might suffer due to a variety of reasons. As an example, I would guess that the Ivy League admits students that were almost all very much above average in high school. Yet, some of them will still struggle in college. That doesn’t mean they were not good high school students.
I mentioned in that prior post that “There would be some details to limit the total HOPE cost to the state and flag the K-12 system. Too many remedial HOPE scholars will cost the system in the future.”
If a student gets an A/B at the local high school, it seems that both the student and the school bear some responsibility for entering college below the norm. However, the student may have received a lower grade in that one subject in high school, yet still be admitted to college & HOPE qualified. The K-12 system would have to bear some negative consequence, defined by the state, if they keep HOPE qualifying many remedial students. The student has to deal with the remedial college class that replaces one regular class in your limited HOPE funds.
Yes, I would allow a student to take remedial courses under HOPE. The class should not count toward the HOPE GPA-no easy A for remediation. If the college decided to accept the student, I would think the school expects the student to handle the work. If the college is wrong, its dropout rate increases. As long as the student is LIMITED in the number of class hours that HOPE pays, it doesn’t matter to me that some classes were remedial. You don’t get extra class hours because you need remediation, but you can use some of your freshman class hours toward remedial classes if needed.
In these cash strapped times, I’d say one shot at HOPE. In better times, you can have a chance to reenter.
a reader
January 23rd, 2012
7:12 am
FIrst, let an AP A be a 4.5 in the Hope calculation. That will help the kids with the harder classes qualify for whatever level of Hope / Zell Miller. They’re the kids more likely to keep Hope / stay in college / stay in GA.
Second, keep the ACT/SAT requirement – it’s the only thing across school districts that’s possible to actually compare/ have as a benchmark.
Third, grandfather current students who can’t change history (college students especially can’t retake their ACTs/SATs) and who made decisions and possibly gave up out of state money to stay here. We find ourselves trying to decide between two full tuition offers from out of state flagships (based on grades / SATs) that are guaranteed for 4 years based only on my child’s academic performance (not the whims of the school or state) vs. the uncertainty of Hope.
Dr NO / Mr Sunshine
January 23rd, 2012
7:28 am
Well of course its unfair. Anytime liberal give-aways may fall under the ax then its unfair, mean-spirited, racial or all of the above.
END HOPE NOW!!
Entitlement Society
January 23rd, 2012
8:08 am
@ Craig – Great post to Good Mom! You’re spot on!
East Cobb Parent
January 23rd, 2012
9:02 am
I spoke to several parents who either have children at Westminster or a relative’s child is at Westminister. None were applying to GA or GA Tech. All applied exclusively to Ivey League Schools. Parents and students were evaluating different scholarships and incentive packages to determine which school to select. You may have more graduates of middle income parents staying in GA due to the Hope, but I wouldn’t start lumping all the upper income into that pile.
flipper
January 23rd, 2012
9:08 am
Well, our first of three won’t graduate until 2014. The others are 2017 and 2021. They will all be seriously considering out of state schools. There is a good chance we will just up and move out of state once the oldest graduates if Hope is reduced and especially if it is income capped. As small business owners, we will be taking dozens of jobs with us. We can operate in NC or several other states just as easily as in GA. What’s the point of staying in a state that is one of the worst in the nation educationally for a measly $2000 or less a semester that could be yanked away at anyone’s political whim?
I would much prefer that my kids get the heck out of Georgia and settle as adults in a state with a better reputation for education and a higher statewide IQ. Now there is little or no incentive to stay here.
I know I sound snarky, but the truth is the truth. Income cap Hope and watch job producers move out of Georgia. Also watch executives of what could be huge job producers choose other states over Georgia when deciding where to locate offices. But.. whatever… so long as the “vile rich” suffer (which they won’t suffer – they will just take their money elsewhere), I guess it’s what’s best for Georgia.
This weeks roundup January 23, 2012 » Junk Yards in GA
January 23rd, 2012
9:12 am
[...] Most kids could get less HOPE so a few can get more. Seems unfair to me. – Atlanta Journal Con… [...]
AJinCobb
January 23rd, 2012
10:05 am
@East Cobb Parent,
Although your anecdotal survey of Westminster families found that “None were applying to GA or GA Tech. All applied exclusively to Ivy League Schools,” according to the Westminster website, more of their graduates go on to UGA than any other single college, by far.
http://www.westminster.net/admissions/frequently-asked-questions/index.aspx (click on What colleges do Westminster graduates attend?”)
yes i am worried
January 23rd, 2012
10:08 am
Flipper
Do you understand that HOPE saves you only about 8000-10000 dollars a year. You are basing where you live on the availability of HOPE?
yes i am worried
January 23rd, 2012
10:13 am
Opps posted too soon.
In most states, in state tuition costs are higher (sometimes much) than GA to begin with. Most states don’t have HOPE or anything like it. A large handful of states do have programs for the very low income students, but otherwise families are pretty much on their own.
UNC Chapel Hill and UGA cost almost exactly the same for in state residents. You stay in GA and get any discount with HOPE and you are ahead. University of Alabama tuition is actually cheaper — perhaps you should move there.
What HOPE has done is allowed middle class and upper class families to forgo saving for college. These same people probably vote the “personal responsibility” platform on almost all issues.
Maureen Downey
January 23rd, 2012
10:31 am
@AJ, Thanks for noting that. A large number of top private school grads end up at Tech and UGA for the same reasons that large numbers of strong public school grads do — good schools at a reasonable cost.
Warrior Woman
January 23rd, 2012
10:53 am
Not only is it fair, it is right to reward the best and brightest, and thereby keep them in the state.
The change that needs to be made is to require full funding by the lottery corp.
To Atlanta Mom from Good Mom
January 23rd, 2012
11:19 am
$60,00o a year is barely middle class. As a matter of fact, middle class is defined as $54k to $110K.
$60,000 a year for a family of four is barely getting by. There is no more money for saving for college.
The middle class is the one getting the shaft. The poorest of the poor get grants for school. The middle class, without Hope, will have to rely on student loans and with college costs going out of control, one cannot borrow enough money to get through college without going for a degree that gets you a job that pays very very well.
Now take the professoin of teaching. If you want a good teacher you can’t get one because no one is going to borrow boat loads of money to get a degree that won’t guarantee them a very good salary so only the worst, those who can do nothing else, will go into important jobs such as teaching and social work.
The real criminal here is not the Hope scholarship. It is the outrageous cost of college at State universities. We need to ensure a State school is afforable to all American citizens. Private schools can do whatever they want within the law but the backbone of education is a public education and a public university.
We have to keep our eye on the ball.
Hey Craig from Good Mom
January 23rd, 2012
11:26 am
Hey Craig, how many lottery tickets do you buy?
Put your money where your mouth is. If you want Hope, buy a bunch of lottery tickets. If you don’t want Hope, don’t buy them. That’s how you can spread your influence.
What you are really saying, if you thought about it for more than a moment, is that college costs are too high. If college costs were affordable, you wouldn’t be complaining.
What we need to do is to ensure State colleges are affordable for all citizens, not just affordable for you and your children.
To Prof from Good Mom
January 23rd, 2012
11:30 am
Prof makes a good point “Whatever the student pays in tuition does NOT cover the full cost of the student’s education, whether in-state or out-of-state.”
Even when paying the “full” tuition price in or out of state, state colleges are subsidized by everyone. College belongs to all of us and we need equal access to education, which means, tuition has got to be lowered so that everyone can afford it who will do the work, with or without Hope.
Prof
January 23rd, 2012
1:15 pm
@ Good Mom. My point was that as long as our state legislators keep demanding budget cuts from the USG schools because they lower appropriations of funds, those schools are going to be forced to raise their tuition. …especially when each year there are higher student enrollments. Blame the state legislature for the rising tuition, not the schools.
reformed gambler
January 23rd, 2012
1:35 pm
I stopped buying Georgia lottery tickets last year when they changed HOPE. There was no hope for poor kids anymore and no hope for me: a poor person getting poorer buying Cash 3, Cash 4, Georgia 5, PowerBall, MegaMillions, Fantasy five, Decades of Dollars and countless scratch off tickets. I watched as people in line with sometimes barely enough food for their kids would spend their last dollar on a chance.
Never again. I’d rather assist the children that I know with tutoring so that they can get better grades and land full scholarships to colleges and universities outside of Georgia. They don’t need to get any loans to enrich banks and they do need to get a better education so that they can haver a better community and the number of crimes in our communities can go go down tremendously.
We need to make sure that our children are educated about personal finance in public schoosl at an early age so that they won’t grow up and buy lottery tickets.
reformed gambler
January 23rd, 2012
1:39 pm
Oops, I was typing too fast. “…so that they can have a better community.” “Go go?” “schools” sorry
flipper
January 23rd, 2012
2:03 pm
@yesiamworried, no, we moved here because we both went to (private) colleges here and ended up setting down rootsbefore we had kids and realized was a pathetic state this is as far as education. We have been teetering on moving several times, but stayed b/c our kids are in some of the very few good schools in the state and because Hope made sense for us. Now it no longer makes sense, especially now that we are fully aware of how bad the education system is. It will only get worse as Hope is cut b/c more and more quality students with means will flee. Soon all that will be left will be the rich and stupid or the poor and smart. Believe it or not having a few around who are both rich and smart is not a bad thing… but Georgia can chase them off if it thinks that would be best. Each year, there is less and less reason to stay around, and it is quickly tipping in the direction of getting out while the getting is good.
We are not the only ones thinking this way… just ask around.
Better Future
January 23rd, 2012
2:06 pm
@yes, I am worried- Since the middle class and wealthy pay the bulk of property and income taxes that allow the public school system to exist, I see no harm in rewarding theiir children for their efforts in achieving high marks in high school. Poor children have an opportunity to work hard and apply themselves and attain a Hope scholarship. The standards don’t exclude the poor. It is exhausting working 50 plus hours a week to support my family and all the families who receive welfare, food stamps, an education, etc. from the taxes my spouse and I pay. I was raised in a low-income family, as was my husband, but we have achieved a lot through hard work. We put in 100-plus hour workweeks between the two of us. How are we rewarded? Well, the government takes a huge chunk of our income and redistributes it to people who sit at home collecting welfare while watching Jerry Springer and drinking soda and eating chips which they got with food stamps. If we were taxed less, it would be a lot easier to save for our children’s college. if our children win a Hope Scholarship on merit, great!
FYI
January 23rd, 2012
3:35 pm
@ Better Future. You can’t get chips with food stamps.
Better Future
January 23rd, 2012
4:17 pm
@FYI, there is rampant EBT abuse. Google it. Here’s just one example: http://boston.cbslocal.com/2011/12/13/ebt-card-scam-shut-down-in-lynn/ . @ Yes, I am worried, BTW, even though I expect my children to qualify for Hope, I am being “personally responsible” and not counting on it. I am saving for my kids’ education and my retirement. Look to Greece if you want to see what happens when people put their faith in the government picking other people’s pockets.
Ole Guy
January 23rd, 2012
4:48 pm
Where’s the unfair? It’s called COMPETITION…something which this younger gen had best start learning.
Mom
January 23rd, 2012
5:14 pm
My daughter will be a Zell Miller scholar. She has a 4++ gpa (never made a B), is a National Merit Scholar, 1500 SAT, AP Scholar, yadda, yadda. She has gotten many lovely offers from out of state schools, including at least three full tuition/fee scholarships. She wants to stay in state and go to Tech because she wants to live and work in GA when she graduates, Tech is a great school, and with the Zell Miller–even the full rides to the other schools are not better deals.
If it were not for that Zell Miller scholarship, we would insist that she make a different choice. It would be silly for us to pay for her undergraduate education, or her to take out loans to pay for it, when she has earned so many great scholarships. No doubt she will have many loans at some point for graduate or professional school.
At this point, however, I am concerned that the Zell Miller will not be here for her in four years and the gpa requirement (3.3) at Tech means she might lose it anyway. Those out of state guaranteed 4 year (and 5 year) full rides with lower gpa requirements are looking better to me everyday.
As an added note, I feel like UGA and Tech do not give out generous university scholarships because they do not have to–we have the HOPE. But if my daughter were a student in a different state, her grades and SATs would merit her a full scholarship to her flagship state university–and it would be a guaranteed 4 year scholarsihp. So for super high achieving students, there are actually some down sides to HOPE right now.
a reader
January 23rd, 2012
6:05 pm
You can’t have a “Hope” GPA above 4.0, since an AP “A” is 4.0 as is a regular A. They only let grades B and lower be adjusted for being AP grades. People are supposed to uninflate all those school district inflated grades. The Hope GPA of 3.7 may actually be tougher to get to than the ACT/SAT requirement.
Of course if the state is seeing extra Zell Miller scholars, I do wonder if folks are double inflating their grades (some schools will bump up the numeric grade before assigning a letter grade (and that’s very hard to unwind), so a 77 becomes an 82, which is a B, and then add 0.5 for AP), so it’s a 3.5 when it really should have been a 2.5).
catlady
January 23rd, 2012
6:09 pm
Prof: the legislature is starving the k-12 schools, too. Too bad we can’t up fees and tuition.
I put the majority of the rise in tuition on the starvation from the state. Secondly, the HOPE has encouraged the rise, even before the state starvation. Finally, students seem to have some pretty high expectations: private rooms, fancy workout facilities, great technology, state of the art sports teams, yada yada.
em
January 23rd, 2012
6:33 pm
If you go to the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement (http://gaosa.org/University.aspx?PageReq=108&SchoolId=ALL&FromSection=report&SY=2010), I think this will help explain why HOPE is running out of money. Only 32% of Georgia’s students retain HOPE after 90 hours and only 52% graduate after six years. Maureen, I think this is the problem with HOPE. Too many dollars have been spent and are being spent on students who are probably not equipped to handle the rigors of higher education and too many teachers have probably succumbed to the pressures of NCLB by inflating grades. Having struggled to pay for my own college education, I see HOPE as a wonderful gift to the citizens of Georgia. Perhaps, though, it is time for HOPE to become a reimbursement program in order to preserve it for future generations.
MB
January 23rd, 2012
7:54 pm
@EastCobbParent As noted, Westminster sends plenty of kids to GT and UGA. Most Ivy and near-Ivy League schools don’t offer academic scholarships (everyone would qualify, lol). They only offer need-based aid; thinking you might need to reconsider the veracity of your sources. If they’re that “upper income,” why would they have aid?
Atlanta Mom
January 23rd, 2012
8:19 pm
@MB,
As long as you make less than $200,000, you are eligible for “need based aid” at both Harvard and Yale. It’s all in how you define “upper income”
MB
January 24th, 2012
6:59 am
@ATL Mom Actually household income is only part of the equation for “need-based aid” for those top-tier private schools. You have to complete a very extensive CSS profile which includes your equity in your home, investments, retirement, etc. My income is about $60K and my son got zero “need-based aid” because we planned for the future and had little debt. Kind of strange, eh?
Frankie
January 24th, 2012
8:48 am
I may be wrong but it seems as though the students, parents as well as the colleges in Georgia are all waiting on the HOPE scholarship…
If a student has a 3.5 -4.5 GPA and is in the top 3 percent of his/her class the Georgia Colleges should be offering them a full scholarship without assistance from the HOPE FUNDs. But I do not think this is the case.
THere are plenty of scholarships out there other than the HOPE Fund and every parent should be seeking out those instead of waiting on the HOPE FUND..
The whole HOPE FUND needs to be re-evaluated because a 3.5 -4.5 GPA should be the same everywhere and private school or public school should not be a factor..but living inthe real world I know that parents on both sides do everything they can to position their child for these funds.. I do not agree to taking money from one group of students to add funds to another group no matter what the scores are…
Steve
January 24th, 2012
12:40 pm
@flipper-You are spot on about considering a move out of state. My wife and I are also considering a move out. We are both professionals(teacher and nurse) and also are frustrated with the uncertainty of Hope. We are now considered “rich” because we have made sound financial decisions and have worked hard. Our youngest graduates from high school in 2016 and the viability of HOPE will be one of a number of deciding factors on what we do then. The UNCERTAINTY is what’s killing parents. Why can’t anybody just make up their mind and then grandfather that years class in ? The reasons to reside in Georgia are getting fewer and fewer. Think about the scenario of many middle class professionals leaving the state in droves and taking their tax revenue and bright kids with them.
yagottabekiddingme
January 24th, 2012
5:52 pm
I work in college counseling. If you want a really good deal for your soon-to-graduate high schooler, with “decent” grades/SATs, look out of state and private. Especially Ohio privates. Although their price tags look like $50K, their AVERAGE financial aid package (mostly scholarships and grants) is over $25,000. There are some terrific smaller liberal arts schools who will fight over your southern-born chillun with REAL $$. Just sayin’
Latest Student Loan Deferment News | debt infos
January 24th, 2012
9:49 pm
[...] students waiting in a two hour line to get their $ a thousand … Go through a lot more on Atlanta Journal Constitution (web site) Posted in student loan Tags: deferment, Latest, loan, News, student You can leave a [...]
Free Zumba Online
January 25th, 2012
7:44 pm
This is my third time to your website, I love it every time!
Communists?
January 26th, 2012
9:10 am
I do not think that word means what you think it means, Paul Murphy. Oh well, you’re behind a computer screen, so why would you care how you denigrate the English language? It’s not like I can confront you face-to-face and chide you.