Mark Taylor: Losing HOPE

Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor came to Georgia College & State University Oct. 15 to educate students and faculty on how Georgia’s “uninformed officials” plan to get rid of the HOPE Scholarship.

Senator Faye Smith introduced Taylor as a “loyal friend to both the university and the community”. The lieutenant governor quickly jumped into the issues he came to discuss. He said education, specifically higher education, should be one of the main priorities in Georgia’s government.

“Education is no longer a top issue… we’ve got to focus on education,” said Taylor.

Taylor said he made several strides to help protect the HOPE Scholarship and funding for higher education and explained that education does not only affect college and college-bound students. It affects every voter as well.

He reminded the audience that education impacts jobs, income and quality of life for everyone, not just the college student. Taylor said that’s why voters should pay attention to their representatives if they want to keep the benefits for higher education.

One way to encourage higher education is to continue to fight for the HOPE Scholarship and against tuition increases.

“I think it’s a victory… to defeat mid-year tuition increases,” Taylor said.

Taylor told the audience the scholarship program has helped to build Georgia’s reputation of being a well-educated state. He made the point that more businesses are now moving to Georgia to take advantage of the educated population.

Taylor explained that the HOPE Scholarship is unlike any other scholarship program because it was developed to help students as much as possible. HOPE not only covers tuition costs, but also includes some fees and a book allowance. In the next two years, Taylor said the book allowance will be completely eliminated and in three years the fees will no longer be included.

Taylor said he understood it is already difficult to pay for college and the recent threat of another increase does not help the situation. He commended students for petitioning against the mid-year increase and advised them to put the right officials in office.

“You made a difference last week,” said Taylor, “and you can make a difference in November and January.”

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Oct 22 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