Georgia lawmakers scale back HOPE scholarship program
ATLANTA (AP) — The nation’s most sweeping lottery-funded scholarship program was scaled back by Georgia lawmakers Wednesday out of fear that its exploding costs will soon outstrip the lottery’s ability to support it.
The popular HOPE scholarships — which cover books, fees and tuition for B students at state colleges and technical schools — will get new qualification rules in response to warnings the program is growing out of control.
It went from costing $21 million in its first year in 1993 to $440 million this year and a projected $502 million next year. Economists warned the fund would be bankrupt by the end of the decade if changes weren’t made.
About 300,000 students currently benefit from the program. And the exploding costs came mostly because lawmakers kept adding on to HOPE in its early years, when the lottery was literally making more money than lawmakers knew what to do with. The public fell in love with HOPE, other states copied the program and even former President Bill Clinton oversaw creation of a federal college savings tax credit called HOPE in 1997.
“This is landmark,” said Rep. DuBose Porter of Dublin, the House’s second-ranking Democrat. “This is a very, very big deal, and we’ve got to be very careful when we talk about changing it.”
Lawmakers spent nearly a year squabbling over what to do to trim costs. On Wednesday, the last day of the legislative session, lawmakers finally struck a deal they hope will keep the HOPE fund solvent but not hurt students who have come to depend on free tuition.
Among other things, lawmakers approved a new rule for deciding whether high school seniors qualify. Currently students need an 80 numeric average, but in many school systems an 80 mark is a C, not a B. That means some C students receive HOPE because they had an overall average above 80.
The scholarship will start requiring a 3.0 grade point average instead by 2007. That would be the biggest cost-cutter because up to a third of HOPE recipients are thought to have grades that fall below that mark.
The bill also sets up a slow peeling back of the books and fees currently paid for by the scholarship.
If the year-end balance of the state scholarship fund drops, students would have their book payments slashed in half. If the fund continues to lose money after several years, HOPE would also stop covering all books and mandatory fees, which can top $1,000 a year per student.
Both parties ceded important points they argued during the long debate over the future of HOPE. Republicans wanted to require a minimum SAT score to get HOPE, which they believed would encourage students to take the test more seriously and raise Georgia’s abysmal average scores.
Democrats suggested a return of an income cap. In its first years, HOPE went only to students whose parents made under $100,000 a year. Lawmakers removed that limit in 1995.
Lawmakers ultimately decided not to tie HOPE to a test score and also backed off an income requirement, both of which went over poorly with the public. The compromise must still be approved by the full Legislature, but because the leaders of both parties support the compromise, it was thought unlikely to fail.
“They have taken huge strides in preserving the HOPE scholarship for future generations,” said Derrick Dickey, a spokesman for Republican Gov. Sonny Perdue.
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On the Net:
HOPE scholarships and grants: http://www.gsfc.org
Read House Bill 1325: http://www.legis.state.ga.us
Federal HOPE tax credits: http://www.ed.gov/offices/OPE/PPI/HOPE/index.html