The facts about HOPE

As the end of the fall semester approaches, students are hitting the books hard to maintain their HOPE scholarships.
About 95 percent of freshmen from Georgia that enter GCSU are HOPE scholarship eligible and about two-thirds of those students keep HOPE through their first year, according to Suzanne Pittman, GCSU’s director of financial aid.
HOPE checkpoints are conducted at the end of the semesters in which students reach 30, 60, 90 and 120 attempted hours and after each Spring semester. Students must maintain at least a 3.0 GPA to retain the HOPE scholarship.
Cole Lewis, a sophomore, business major  thinks students need to realize that they have to focus on both semesters.
“I had to work extra hard spring semester last year to keep HOPE,” Lewis said. “I knew I had to balance some of my lower grades with A’s, so I kind of focused on the classes I knew I could do well in and made sure to pull out As in those to keep my GPA high enough.”
Pittman said that students really need to concentrate on course work.
“(Students) need to work especially hard to keep that B average,” Pittman said. “If they have any questions about studying and where they are, as far as financial aid goes, they can contact a financial aid councilor.”
Students can reach the financial aid office, located in Parks Hall, by phone at 478-445-5149.
Pittman also encourages students to take advantage of their resources.
“Check PAWS and see what your GPA is and how many attempted hours you have,” Pittman said. “Ask yourself ‘Am I on track?’”
The HOPE scholarship only covers students for up to 127 attempted hours in the semester system, defined by the Georgia Student Financial Commission as “all registered coursework attempted after high school graduation.”
This means that students who drop too many classes will not be covered by HOPE after they have attempted 127 hours. However, dropping classes does not affect the HOPE GPA.
Pittman said that there are other financial aid options available to those students who do lose HOPE, such as need based federal programs and scholarships available off campus that often are to merit based.
“Students can search for scholarships online as well as in the financial aid office,” Pittman said.
Pittman added that a lot of students are able to get HOPE back if they can get their GPA back to at least 3.0 at the 60, 90 or 120 hour mark.
“It has to be right at that moment in time in order to regain eligibility,” Pittman said. “But it can be done with some hard work and studying.”
Pittman said that most students realize how much money HOPE can save them.
“Having HOPE keeps me here,” said Cara Matricardi, a junior history major. “Otherwise I couldn’t afford it.”
According to Pittman, the HOPE scholarship saves the average GCSU student about $4500 per year.
“Really the only thing you are paying for then is food and residency,” Pittman said.
Pittman also wanted to make sure students understand that the changes to the scholarship that have been announced do not affect students who are already enrolled.
“There have been some changes to how they calculate HOPE GPA’s and who gets HOPE and who doesn’t,” Pittman said. “Students who are already in college do not need to concern themselves with that because it only affects high school students.”

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Nov 17 2006. 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