HOPE dwindles future for colleges

Georgia’s exceptional HOPE (Helping Outstanding Pupils Educationally) Scholarship program is one that rewards students with financial assistance at eligible Georgia public and private colleges and universities, and public technical colleges.
Starting in 1993, HOPE has rewarded over 700,000 students with over $2 billion to contribute towards higher education. However, 11 years later, the program is now in danger of exceeding its budget.
In order to avoid going into debt, changes must be made concerning HOPE Scholarship eligibility requirements. If changes aren’t made, HOPE and Georgia’s free pre-kindergarten programs are predicted to be forced to use reserves from their 2006-07 budget year. The outcome would be $434 million in debt two years later.
According to Suzanne Buttram, director of financial aid at Georgia College and State University, currently three major proposals are being debated, which will possibly affect HOPE Scholarship recipients.
The first proposal is the recommendation to eliminate students’ current $150 per semester book allowance and HOPE’s coverage of student fees. This will affect GC&SU’s HOPE recipients by taking away $286 per student per semester. Eliminating book fees and student fees would save HOPE about $125.6 million next year.
Buttram expects that this change would disappoint students: “$150 for books per semester per student isn’t enough to buy all of [his or her] books, but it does help, and I think that it will be missed,” Buttram said.
The second proposal suggests a modification to the checkpoints when students are evaluated for continuing HOPE eligibility. Currently, students are judged after each 30 attempted hours. However, if checkpoints are modified, each student will be judged after each year. This idea is still “being tossed around,” Buttram said.
The third proposal is to change the requirements for incoming freshmen to earn the HOPE Scholarship. This means it would be tougher for students to enter college with HOPE because students’ high school GPAs would be computed differently, and there could be an emphasis placed on SAT scores.
Since standards for a B average differ among high schools in Georgia, should the new proposal pass, the definition of a B in all high schools would mean a 3.0 grade point average.
According to Board of Regents estimates, about a third of HOPE recipients entering public universities do not have a standard 3.0 GPA. This proposal would reduce HOPE funds by about $33.5 million or more.
“I think raising GPA standards would be good because it would encourage students to read more and work harder in school,” Brandi Dent, a sophomore psychology major, said.
Requiring a minimum SAT score of 1000 would save the HOPE program about $44.3 million a year. However, many commission members argue that this proposal wouldn’t be fair to those students who don’t test well. “Standardized tests are not a fair measure of intelligence,” Dent said.
According to Atlanta Journal Constitution writers James Salzer and Andrea Jones, “Perdue has since softened his proposal, calling for students with a B average who can’t make a minimum SAT score to get the scholarship for one semester.”
According to the financial aid department, the number of students currently receiving the HOPE Scholarship at GC&SU is right at 2,800.
It is predicted that the possible changes to the HOPE program will affect the number of students receiving financial aid at GC&SU.
“Nothing is definite yet. Anything could actually happen,” Buttram said. “I think it will be interesting to watch.”
Also in Salzer and Jones’s article, State Representative Louise McBee said, “Our final recommendations will be based on what is best for the students and for the budget. We want to make sure it is equitable and fair for all.”
Buttram hopes a final decision will be made soon because financial aid will be awarded to the upcoming freshmen in February. When asked what will happen if no verdict has been made by then, Buttram said, “We’ll make assumptions and then later have to make adjustments when something is definite.”
Buttram suggests that students check their Bobcat e-mail on a regular basis so they can stay informed about any future decisions made concerning HOPE. “As soon as we know what’s going to happen, we’ll communicate through students’ Bobcat e-mail accounts,” she said.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Jan 16 2004. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry