Fixing HOPE: What would we do if we could just start over?
Imagine you could take the wayback machine to 1993 and try to shape the HOPE scholarship based on what we know now about its growth and the state of its finances, but before public expectations were set.
You could report to the governor at the time, Zell Miller, that his brainchild would become wildly popular. You could tell him it would help lower-income students further their education and would keep many of Georgia’s brightest high school graduates in the state for college and beyond.
But you’d also have to tell Miller that HOPE’s promises would, within two decades, far exceed his lottery’s ability to pay for them. You would have to explain that having the Legislature write a blank check from its lottery account, for an ever-increasing amount set by the Board of Regents, had become as unsustainable as third-party-payer health care (another topic of contemporary interest).
And you could offer Miller your services in constructing HOPE to avoid those problems.
You could tell him of a proposal about to be made by one of his successors, a man with whom he worked for years in the state Senate, Nathan Deal. You could tell him the meat of Deal’s plan, as reported by the AJC, is to cap tuition payments at 90 percent of their 2011 levels and stop raising them in tandem with tuition.
You could tell him that this “decoupling” of HOPE and tuition, while painful, was necessary because of the third-party-payer dynamic. You could tell him that HOPE was so popular that across-the-board cuts might be the only politically feasible option in 2011.
Miller, who had won five statewide elections by 1993 and may have foreseen that removing HOPE’s income cap would help him win a sixth in 1994, may have understood that future political dilemma. But he also may have asked: Will Deal’s plan fix HOPE for very long?
You’d tell him you didn’t know, but that chances were good. Then he might ask: What effect would the plan have on those lower-income students and those brightest grads?
Again, you wouldn’t be able to say for sure, but it probably would depend on how high tuition rose — and that yet another increase likely lay ahead.
And then you might speculate that, over time, some of the lowest-income and highest-achieving students might disappear from Georgia’s colleges. And when he frowned, you could offer this alternative, an idea of how you’d design HOPE in 2011 if time and politics would allow for a do-over:
What if Georgia promised “B” students that it would pay the amount of tuition charged by the state’s two-year colleges, such as Georgia Perimeter, and those four-year schools known as “state colleges,” such as Gainesville State? Students could use the money at any college in Georgia, but they would only get as much money as those schools charged for tuition. In 2011, that’s less than $2,700 a year (compared with $7,070 at, say, Georgia Tech).
You could make the promise subject to review if those schools’ tuition rose faster than inflation over, say, five years.
That would leave the state with a good bit of money. After putting some in reserve, you could award extra money to students with, for example, a 3.5 GPA in high school and a set score on the SAT or ACT (you’d have to explain to Miller the grade inflation HOPE caused).
The college GPA requirement would remain a 3.0, so as not to discourage students from pursuing the more difficult majors.
It wouldn’t exactly fit Miller’s vision, but it would provide access to college and help retain the best students.
I wonder what he’d have said.
– By Kyle Wingfield
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154 comments Add your comment
@Bill
February 19th, 2011
2:16 pm
Nice work on your measured, reasonable posts, even if I disagree with much of what you said. We need to get to the point where we can stop the name calling and ignore the nuts on both fringes of political views. Peace.
Lee Howell
February 19th, 2011
2:20 pm
@Dr. Craig Spinks/ Augusta
February 19th, 2011
11:37 am
Great questions! I wish the AJC would ask them of the General Assembly and the governor.
Hillbilly Deluxe
February 19th, 2011
3:10 pm
A.J. Green gave us plenty of enjoyment and made Georgia plenty of money, but the money spent on him could have easily gone to a mid-range athlete with fewer pro prospects and who actually will earn a degree.
But a mid-range athlete wouldn’t ahve made near the bucks for the University. It’s a business and it’s all about $$$.
If I had a wayback machine, the very first thing I would do is MANDATE rather than SUGGEST that the lottery corporation pay 35% of profits to education each year.
Agreed.
I might look at tuition, too. Some of these colleges appear to have built a lot of very nice buildings using HOPE money.
I drive by one, all the time, where they’ve been buildings non-stop for the last sevearl years. They’re still building.
jd
February 19th, 2011
4:46 pm
Buildings are built with bond money (state supplied) and donations – not hope dollars. HOPE is only 1 of 8 tuition dollars for the University system, even less for research universities… compared to the technical colleges where HOPE is 60% of the revenue stream and you don’t even need a GPA to get HOPE at your local technical school — Hardly the vision Miller had. And, if you are a top student, a two-year school is not your goal — you are being recruited by the IVY’s and the like…
Will
February 19th, 2011
5:40 pm
Take a look at this picture:
The children of Georgia’s multimillionaires receive the same HOPE benefits as the children of the poorest citizens of Georgia.
When originally proposed, I thought lottery proceeds would give Hope to children who could not afford college tuition, not save millionaires money.
Silly me. I should have understood that the poor are less likely to vote for republicans, therefore the Georgia republican government is less likely to help the poor and more likely to provide for their more likely voters.
Schrodinger's cat
February 19th, 2011
5:54 pm
punish the upper middle???..stop it…we went from a mill to a 100k in little time (on these blogs) anyway, actually I’d guess that tuition increases tracked the hope output…It makes me wonder how I worked and paid for my first degree….just how much is in-state tuition these days at 1st and 2nd tir schools
Schrodinger's cat
February 19th, 2011
6:01 pm
Will…so what?…why are they less deserving?
Dr. Craig Spinks/ Augusta
February 19th, 2011
6:03 pm
Has The Georgia Lottery Corporation ever released to the media the results of a comprehensive financial audit conducted by a competent, disinterested, out-of-state organization? One of the many questions answered by such an audit should be: Why has the percentage of proceeds distributed by The Georgia Lottery to The Hope Scholarship declined over time from 35% to about 26%?
Gail
February 19th, 2011
6:51 pm
Will,
Do you really think that the children of Georgia’s multimillionaires are staying in state and using the HOPE scholarship? I don’t.
I Report (-: You Whine )-: mmm, mmmm, mmmmm! Just sayin...
February 19th, 2011
7:03 pm
Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist government murdered some 6 million Jews and waged a bloodthirsty war for world domination under a “Thousand-Year Reich.” Governor Walker has proposed that government employees in Wisconsin pay 12.6 percent of the cost of their insurance premiums, which in the minds of Wisconsin Democrats apparently amounts to more or less the same thing. President Obama, himself fresh off lecturing the nation about its tone, chimed in with a predictably tin-eared characterization of this modest initiative as an “assault.”
Nobody ever claimed that the dummycrats were very bright…
catlady
February 19th, 2011
7:11 pm
Don’t get it–I believe before Karl Marx, it was also in the Bible. The Gospel of Matthew, I believe. One of the parables Jesus told.
I am one of those who has done okay. I benefited from having 2 college-educated parents, a fairly rare thing in that time (1940s), who did not engage in “early family formation”, worked hard, et al. They also benefited greatly by having parents (my grandparents, born around 1890) who revered education. One of their parents “passed” for a teacher with an 8th grade education, one had a 6th grade education and became an LPN(her mom died from childbed fever after baby number 13), one who went through 10th grade, and another who finished high school and went off for 2 years of “finishing school.” My mother also benefited by very low college tuition and my father went through EE at Duke in 3 years thanks to his military service in WW2. A further benefit was the GI assistance with buying a home (wealth building) and a tax system that rewarded their home ownership.
So, while I can certainly claim to have worked hard (PhD from UGA), 3 children all born well after marriage, I cannot with decency claim any special virtue for my success. I have been lucky. With other parents, with other grandparents, with no GI Bill and no tax structure supporting wealth building, I would not be where I am today.
When I hear people say, “Look at me. I did it all myself and those other slobs don’t deserve anything” I think of how I have benefited from roads, libraries, schools, churches, regulated doctors, medicines, clean air, water and food, etc. You see, no one in this country can claim to have done it all themselves. Living in this country is by far the biggest, unearned benefit we have, but we have so many other benefits that the rest of the world would love to have, and we give little thought to how much it has helped us be successful to the degree we are.
Are there many poor folks who make lots of stupid decisions? Absolutely. Should we be working to see that they are “encouraged” to make good decisions, and that our policies not reward bad decisions? Absolutely. But to say, “I deserve this because of all the good decisions I have made” overlooks the absolute fact that you have also been very, very lucky.
catlady
February 19th, 2011
7:25 pm
Dr. Spinks: Because it has been allowed to. Because the legislature has bought the baloney that there wasn’t anything to be done about it–that the GLC is a private business. NOW they seem to be realizing it is a quasi-governmental agency–a corporation given an exclusive state charter by the legislature, who should be providing oversight, to operate. It is very simple. The Lottery Corporation has not fulfilled its responsibility, so yank its charter. Very easy. And there would be many, many willing to step in and follow the charter.
Those that have claimed we have to allow the GLC to give out these massive bonuses because they are doing such a great job–1) We have no way to know–others might do even better, and 2) until they meet the conditions of their charter, they are NOT doing such a great job. I believe I remember that in NO YEAR have they ever put in the full 35%. (Someone check on that?) It doesn’t matter that the amount they have given has grown. Until the full 35% is in, and the YEARS of “shortages” to the HOPE program corrected, they are in violation of their charter.
If the parents of prospective HOPE recipients would start demanding action from their legislators, we could see an improvement in the bottom line.
Hillbilly Deluxe
February 19th, 2011
7:58 pm
catlady
Being a Quasi-governmental agency, is in my opinion, like being a little bit pregnant. They are a governmental agency and always have been. It’s time to jerk the leash and get them under control. They aren’t fulfilling their mission, as you say. They did make Rebecca Paul pretty well off, though.
Michael H. Smith
February 19th, 2011
8:55 pm
“You see, no one in this country can claim to have done it all themselves.”
Therein is a golden nugget of truth.
But to say, “I deserve this because of all the good decisions I have made” overlooks the absolute fact that you have also been very, very lucky.
For some reason this brings to mind a few other golden nuggets of truth from providence, as it rains upon both the fields of the righteous and the wicked, the rich and the poor: “Where much is given, much shall be required”.
The HOPE scholarship is truly providence created by virtue of the State’s rights, so no one is any more or less deserving or undeserving. The State is not splitting the baby in this case, as though it were making a Solomon’s choice. Then does the question turn to asking the design of divine providence for the answers: Where little has been given to one should the requirements be equal to those where much, or much more, has been given to the another?
If I must error, then I shall side with the long standing judgments of providence rather than with the long failing prejudice of mortal men.
vuduchld
February 19th, 2011
9:52 pm
Jawjians, don’t fret about HOPE. You have a bankrupt gubner supervising it’s coffers, HOPE will go broke regardless.
Michael H. Smith
February 19th, 2011
10:41 pm
Good thing HOPE doesn’t have a Union supervising the Governor and Legislators in this right to work State, like in New York and Wisconsin or HOPE would already be broke regardless.
Only in the public sector can the workers unionize, bankrupt the public coffers and hire or fire their supervisors. Now that’s what you’d have to call real financial genius worthy of the public’s trust and confidence.
Old Physics Teacher
February 19th, 2011
11:29 pm
Much of the increased cost of a college education (at UGA, anyways) is due to “administrative expenses.” That means student support. The kids that have had their grades inflated (not mine!) need “support” so they don’t flunk out because they don’t have the skills necessary to pass a college-level course. Their high school teachers have inflated their grades to unbelievable heights, and because of that, the kids think they know how to study – they don’t.
I asked my kids yesterday to raise their hands if they read their textbook last night. Only 4 raised their hands – that’s FOUR KIDS – in a high-level course 11th grade course! My bet is that two of them just flat lied. The rest didn’t even bother to try to lie. And these kids expect A’s and B’s for listening to every third word. The sad thing is that due to the whining of their parents, their teachers give it to them and give it to them.
The only solution is to set a minimum SAT or ACT score and STICK TO IT NO MATTER THE WHINING FROM THE PARENTS. Everybody knows these tests are valid predictors; that is everyone except the whiny parents trying to make excuses for their kids.
GPA only predicts two things – how willing the student is to jump through the hoops to get a grade, or how well the teacher “likes” a kid. I can’t count the times I’ve seen a “gifted” student with a GPA of 3.6, or better, start with a pre-med and drop it after the second semester because he/she does have what it takes to make a college “A.” One of our valedictorians from a few years back made straight “A’s” her entire high school career. She failed freshman biology (simple Algebra I math skills).
On the other hand, the STAR students seems to usually graduate with their undergraduate major unscathed. Minimum SAT/ACT scores (500 per section) will level the “playing field.” A poor kid who refuses to “play the game” and wants to learn can score well enough to overcome the grade inflated kids.
eatmotacos
February 19th, 2011
11:47 pm
@ Michael H.Smith
“Good thing HOPE doesn’t have a Union supervising the Governor and Legislators…..”
You ARE talking about our insolvent Governor, who fled Washington in the middle of the night, to avoid facing The Office of Congressional Ethics charges? The anti-immigration candidate who supported an Arizona style law on illegal immigration on the campaign trail?
Yeah, he’s a “real financial genius and worthy of the public’s trust and confidence.” I can see why you wouldn’t want anyone supervising him, and his cohorts, for fear of bankrupting the public coffers.
OTOH
February 20th, 2011
1:46 am
Actually the Hope was not intended for the poorest of the poor as Pell grants and other aid was already available to them. It wasn’t intended for the 4.0, perfect SAT either as there were plenty of scholarships for them too. It was for the bright middle. It has, frankly, washed up on unintended but easily foreseeable rocks. Grade inflation. Tuition inflation.
It has become an entitlement – look at all the comments from people making $100,000 and whining they should not have had to save enough money for their child to go to college because they are entitled to other peoples’ money. Another foreseeable unintended consequence.
BTW for those of you who want to make sure your special snowflake keeps Hope for more than 1 year, send them to Gainesville for their first 2 years. Easier A’s plus less campus life and then they can transfer to UGA. It is easier to get into UGA as a junior than a freshman and the degree does not mention those two years at an exceptionally easy school.
bob from account temps
February 20th, 2011
5:11 am
any bonus money paid to lottery employees is based on hitting sales goals and $$ given to the education fund. bonuses are about 1/10 of 1%.
I Report (-: You Whine )-: mmm, mmmm, mmmmm! Just sayin...
February 20th, 2011
7:33 am
Atlanta Journal Constitution, Credible, Compelling, Complete- Urinal
Good Lord, I haven’t laughed like this in a long time.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart, Urinal, for bringing such gales of joyous giggling to an otherwise mundane winter morning.
You socialists are the bomb.
I Report (-: You Whine )-: mmm, mmmm, mmmmm! Just sayin...
February 20th, 2011
7:38 am
New routine helps official drop pounds
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has cut more than the state budget his first year in office: The heavyset head-of-state has also dropped a few notches in his belt. Exactly how much weight he’s lost he won’t reveal, but he credits three-times-a-week workouts with a trainer. -Urinal
Hot damn! This dude is going to run for president!
Bring it on!
Mission accomplished!
I Report (-: You Whine )-: mmm, mmmm, mmmmm! Just sayin...
February 20th, 2011
7:42 am
House vote to cut out $60 billion sets up clash
Senate backing unlikely, leading to worries over government shutdown. -Urinal
60 Billion is squat, it is the tip of the iceburg that is directly in the path of the Titanic, er, America, it is not even a beginning of what needs to be done, but the AJC whines and moans about this pittance, so I guess we must be on the right track.
Here, here, happy cutting!
Michael H. Smith
February 20th, 2011
8:54 am
@eatmotacos
February 19th, 2011
11:47 pm
Stop whining because you lost an election and do your job as a voter by supervising what this governor does in office until the next election. In this state the voters supervise, hire and fire their elected officials not the ethically challenged unionized GUB’MENT employees protecting their conflict of interests. There is nothing you said that has not been aired publically before Ad nauseam. If you don’t like him, the elected legislators, the voters or this state per se’, then you have 49 other states from which you can choose to reside.
~
Oh heaven forbid some of the poorest poor might actually be brighter than the brightest of the bright middle. How dare that grungy sniffling lot be given advance beyond the aspirations of the more promising prosperous middle.(snort) HOPE was designed to finance Pre-K and be an academic scholarship, period. Not an entitlement, not a grant. Scholarships, are in general terms, meant to serve people from lower incomes primarily. The lower their income, as in this case probably, the better they are served.
There are a number of issues and items that various commentators herein have brought to fore, mostly for the good, which deserve at the very least evaluations and some of them implementations in order to make HOPE the best that it can be for all. However, to my socialist liberal fellows who always bemoan inequality in results as though equal results were protected under the Constitution as equal rights and to my fellow conservatives less flexible, suffering from hardening of the heart and head, who always demand nothing more or less than fulfilling the acceptable equal rights, no matter the results or their impact on society, as though justice whereby has been rightly served in securing those ends, the means thereof remain wanting for a ‘representative republic’ that must always tend to the needs of the least among us, is the reasoning behind this pressing advocacy for safeguarding the means somewhat differently perhaps than the original intent of HOPE.
Since the subject matter is about amending HOPE in keeping with Senator Miller’s vision in mind, it would be derelict to forget the heart and soul of a poor mountain boy who has never lost sight of the poor and those of lesser means in greater need.
eatmotacos
February 20th, 2011
9:16 am
@ MichelleHSmith
I didn’t lose an election. The voters didn’t participate in the election – it was predetermined.
Michael H. Smith
February 20th, 2011
9:26 am
@eatmotacos
February 20th, 2011
9:16 am
Oh sure it was and Al Gore was really elected President but the Supreme Court predetermined George W. Bush would sit in the oval office.
You lost, get over it.
Michael H. Smith
February 20th, 2011
9:40 am
Oh speaking of Ol’ Al, here’s one for you to stow away for your next blog on the so-called man made Global Warming, Kyle.
Solar Scientist Proves Global Warming Fraudsters Wrong, Predicted Europe’s Winter of Discontent
Solar scientist Piers Corbyn from Weatheraction, a company specialising in long range weather forecasting, has been telling global warming fraudsters all along that charged particles from the Sun are almost entirely responsible for what happens to global temperatures. He was right.
“World temperatures drive carbon dioxide levels and not the other way around,” explains Corbyn. He also debunks the common assertion that global warming pseudoscientists make who claim that the reason for such weather extremes is due to global warming. “It is complete nonsense, its fiction, it comes from a cult ideology. There’s no science in there and no science to back them up.”
“They’ve fiddled the facts in order to justify a political attacks, carbon trading, extra taxation on the public,” stated Corbyn.
“The antarctic has been cooling for the last 30 years. We are just past the peak of a world temperature rise and we are now falling and its going to carry on falling in general for the next 25 years,” he concluded.
WeatherAction long-range forecasts are produced using Piers Corbyn’s Solar Lunar Action Technique (which now supersedes his Solar Weather Technique) which is the most advanced and reliable long-range forecasting system in the world.
http://preventdisease.com/news/11/010311_solar_scientist_proven_right.shtml
Ponder
February 20th, 2011
10:00 am
James West February 18th, 2011 8:33 pm
However, rather than impose a hard income cap, as the original plan did, it would be more fair and practical to save money by instituting a sliding scale, with HOPE support diminishing as income rises. Depending how the numbers work out, it might even be possible to guarantee a minimum HOPE benefit for even for the most affluent students, as a reward for academic achievement.”
Again the words “fair”, “affluent”, and now “sliding scale”, and the continuing endorsement of the concept of penalizing success and rewarding failure!!! According to you Karl had it correct — “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need”…
tar and feathers party
February 20th, 2011
10:49 am
From the Washington Post, here is another reason not to elect blacks to public office: “Several weeks after Kwame R. Brown was elected D.C. Council chairman in November, city officials were asked to order for him a “fully loaded” Lincoln Navigator L with a DVD entertainment system, power moonroof and polished aluminum wheels.” I wonder how much of the Hope Scholarship management fee goes to buy fancy cars and suvs for the hired help?
Michael H. Smith
February 20th, 2011
11:41 am
Ponder
February 20th, 2011
10:00 am
“From each according to his ability, to each according to his need” is a false application where nothing has been taken from anyone as is the case with the progressive tax. Playing Lottery is completely voluntary, no police powers of the State forces people to participate. However, the case can be truthfully made supporting “From those of greater need with less means, to others of greater ability with less need. For the people of lower annual incomes are the ones who usually play the Lottery the most, where as people in the higher annual incomes tend to play the Lottery the least and in some case they don’t play the Lottery at all. Yet, they take advantage of benefits that lower annual income people have provided. (Robin Hood in reverse)
The issue is not fairness or about attempts to achieve equal results. It is however, an effort to provide opportunity to those individuals that have, by reason of income, less options at their disposal to take advantage of than others. Which speaks in the voice of providence to the morality of conscience and of justice served: Where much has been given, much shall be required.
eatmotacos
February 20th, 2011
12:08 pm
@MichelleHSmitten
You lost – you just don’t have the cognitive capacity to realize it. Do you still believe in Santa and the tooth fairy?
Why do you thank Georgia is 49th in education, awash with illegal aliens, out of a potable water supply and has a third world highway system, but no drank’n on Sundays?
getalife
February 20th, 2011
12:18 pm
First they came for the unions.
And the cons bowed down.
catlady
February 20th, 2011
12:29 pm
Temp Bob: I meant a maximum of 10% of their salary, IF they meet increased sales for 2 years in a row. That wouldn’t be anything like $300000, would it?
It would also have been good for Miller to have TALKED TO financial aid administrators and researchers before devising the program. He didn’t. Thus many of the “unintended consequences” which could have been predicted by the administrators and researchers.
How many of you are aware that, with the institution of HOPE, the state quit participating in a federal program that paid half the award for poor students’ financial aid? It was strictly income based, and Georgia dropped it in favor of a merit award that to a large degree, rewards students who would never have met the income requirements for the federal program.
ATF
February 20th, 2011
2:53 pm
The purpose of Hope was to expand opportunities for education in Georgia. Wealthy families have always been able to afford the best educational opportunities for their children. The purpose of Hope was to provide more of those “best educational opportunities” to more of Georgia’s people.
Means test Hope. There is no reason why those who could always afford to give their children all the educational opportunities should be subsidized. Especially, we should not subsidize those who can afford education when we will simultaneously reduce educational opportunities for those who cannot afford it.
Dim HOPE
February 20th, 2011
3:18 pm
Reinstate the income cap and control the increase of tuition beyond the inflation rate.
Linda
February 20th, 2011
4:00 pm
Parents who pay for their 18-year-olds’ college tuition are just as stupid as parents who give their teenagers new cars. HOPE is for the kids, not the parents. The pre-requisites should have nothing to do with the parents’ net worth nor income. Kids should earn scholarships & work hard to maintain them. Both kids & adults appreciate what they earn much more than what they are given & eventually feel entitled to.
Jody Beaumont
February 20th, 2011
4:53 pm
Coming from a family of educators, this is a statistical tragedy:
Only 5 states do not have collective bargaining for educators, 3 of which have deemed it illegal. Those states and their rank on ACT/SAT scores are:
South Carolina: 50th
North Carolina: 49th
…Georgia: 48th
Texas: 47th
…Virgina: 44th
& Wisconsin? 2nd.
Just when I think I am a fiscal conservative… EDUCATION IS OUR WAY UP GEORGIA!!!!!!
Michael H. Smith
February 20th, 2011
6:15 pm
eatmotacos
February 20th, 2011
12:08 pm
Georgia is ranked 49th after 8 years of Republicans rule? This is your line of thinking and you speak of lacking cognitive capacity?
Democrats holding power for over Georgia for 100 years is more responsible for Georgia being 49th in education, out of a potable water supply and has a third world highway system, but no drankin’ on Sundays. Now the socialist liberals are leading the charge to keep the State awash with illegal aliens.
I’ve voted consistently to keep Democrats “Socialist Liberals” out of power in this State since 2000 and they have consistently been losing year after year since then. I shall continue to vote against them in the coming years with no guarantee that who I’ll vote for will be Republicans but they surely will not be any form a Liberal. The right change for the better may come slowly but it will come now that Georgia has chosen the right path that leads away from the Democrats and their 100 years of failing the people of this State.
Enjoy your losing streak, it is a pleasure to take part in seeing that it goes unbroken.
ProgressForwardGeorgia
February 20th, 2011
6:45 pm
Two ideas that will bring an endless stream of revenue to the Hope Scholarship Program without raising taxes.
1.) Allow the GA Lottery to contract with MGM Mirage or Harrhas to Run, Oversee, and Operate, TWO Las Vegas style casinos gaming licenses (Slot Machine, Peri-mutual Wagering, Card, and Table Games), one in Downtown Atlanta, and the other one outside of Savannah and implement a $10 per person daily entry fee to the casino floor.
2.) Allow ALL Profits and $10 Daily Entry Fee to Fund the Hope Scholarship without changing it’s current rules and also make up the shortfall in Education Funding.
Come on Governor Deal and the Georgia Legislature, this will be a WIN WIN for both Tourism and Georgia’s Youth!
Michael H. Smith
February 20th, 2011
7:02 pm
ProgressForwardGeorgia
February 20th, 2011
6:45 pm
Thanks but no thanks.
I might favor expansion of gaming to fund other things, like healthcare but no more public money to support the present public education monopoly school system and I don’t favor public funding of higher eductaion beyond offering limited scholarships like HOPE.
Michael H. Smith
February 20th, 2011
7:17 pm
When public sector workers who have the protection of an anti-competitive government marketplace can unionize, bankrupt the public coffers and hire or fire their supervisors as in Wisconsin it is no longer “collective barging” that is being negotiated by the honest broker of labor.
It is nothing short of legalized strong arm extortion akin to the Mafia being executed to shake down the taxpayers of a State. Which is something no conservative, fiscal or otherwise, could ever support.
I Report (-: You Whine )-: Credible, Compelling, Complete....Bwahahahaha, just sayin...
February 20th, 2011
7:44 pm
PRINCETON, NJ — Ahead of Presidents Day 2011, Americans are most likely to say Ronald Reagan was the nation’s greatest president — slightly ahead of Abraham Lincoln-Gallup
Amazing, considering that their teachers hated the guy.
He was that good for America.
Question Man
February 20th, 2011
10:09 pm
If you could do it over again, what about more transparency, more oversight (maybe from elected people), and sensible limits/restrictions on management compensation?
vuduchld
February 20th, 2011
11:10 pm
@tar and feathers party
Keep your head where the sun don’t shine – MAGGOT
tar and feathers party
February 21st, 2011
3:30 am
Yo vuduchld: R U a jungle thing? I thought so, insect.
MiltonMan
February 21st, 2011
8:28 am
Oh yes, the libtards are in full force on this one. Class warfare at its finest – sock it to the rich; don’t let them participate in HOPE.
How about no HOPE for the thousands of kids who are on HOPE but need remedial classes once they are in college. The best students is this state come from wealthy districts. So according to libtards – let’s punish successful students are are rich but reward those who come from districts that teachers change test scores.
MiltonMan
February 21st, 2011
8:32 am
Jody – thinks that collective bargaining & successful students are mutually non exclusive. Typical teacher logic.
JF McNamara
February 21st, 2011
8:42 am
I’m with Bookman on this one. This should absolutely be need based. It’ll probably cost me more in the future, but that’s the right thing. We want those with the least access to get a college education. It’s assuming the rural and poor have equal access to the alleged meritocracy.
For those who say that some rich people won’t send their kids to school, then you don’t have kids. There’s no way you could. Only the worst parent in the world would deny their child something as valuable as a college education out of selfishness.
JF McNamara
February 21st, 2011
8:49 am
Yes Miltonman, it is class warfare. We can either help those with the with ability and the least opportunity, improve our employee base, and ensure our place in the new intellectual economy or we can subsidize rich people education. Which will we choose?
When you’re paying out of the nose for real welfare because we have 25% unemployment because our workforce isn’t educated enough and can’t apply for non-manual labor jobs, you’ll compain about that.
We’re all better off with more college educated students even if the rich subsidize the poor. Ask yourself, what Tech company is moving to a state with a low percentage of college graduates? None. They’ll go to a state with a high level of education and do the production overseas.
saywhat?
February 21st, 2011
8:54 am
I think the best way to fix HOPE is
1) Make the lottery pay the 35% they should be paying. If the current lottery corporation won’t pay the 35% they are supposed to, fire them. There are plenty of others willing to run the lottery.
2) Make HOPE a loan for any semester a student fails to maintain grades, or for students who fail to graduate. Waivers could be given to those who leave due to medical reasons or for other hardships.