Here is the Governor’s proposal on HOPE (full AJC coverage here:
1.) Public college students with a 3.0 GPA or better get a 90% tuition payment. Private students will be given a set amount of $3,600.
2.) Students with a 3.7 GPA and a 1200 (or better) or 26 ACT score will get a full tuition payment. It’s being called the Zell Miller Scholarship. Private college students will get $4,000 in this case. Sudents will also have to keep a 3.5 GPA in order to maintain the full coverage.
3.) HOPE will be decoupled from tuition hikes and funding for books, fees and remedial classes will be eliminated. The future funding amounts will be based on lottery revenue.
4.) The payout is capped at a 127 hours and 63 semesters; those pursuing post-secondary degrees will not be eligible.
5.) Beginning this fall, high school freshman will be required to take more “rigorous” classes.
6.) The Pre-K school day will be reduced from 6.5 to 4.5 hours a day. In doing so, 5,000 additional slots in the program will be opened. This covers over half of the 9,000 currently on the waiting list. Additionally, the Governor proposed increased funding for transportation and extended day programs.
7.) Low-interest loans (around 1%), given around $10 million in funding, for students who can’t maintain a 3.0. This loan can be forgiven for those who teach math or science in Georgia; one year of forgiveness for every year spent teaching in Georgia.
8.) The lottery is also targeted. As stated here:
Deal’s proposal also targets the lottery by capping the bonuses paid to employees at 25 percent of salary and reducing from 7 percent to 5 percent the amount retailers receive for selling winning tickets.
The lottery gave bonuses of more than $330,000 to its five highest paid employees in 2010 and typically awards more than $2 million a year in bonuses overall.
This proposal has gained support from House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams and University System Chancellor Erroll Davis.
If one thing is clear, it is that this has been well-thought out. All sides have been examined and the sacrifices will be made across the board if this plan is implemented. Governor Deal’s energy since he’s been office has, for obvious reasons, been focused on HOPE and the budget. The energy and efforts are on display here.
These changes are expected to save $300 million. No proposal on this matter will ever be perfect and there is no way to avoid being somewhat hurt by these changes. But I support this proposal. Remedial funds are being eliminated, the standard isn’t being raised and the focus is still on HOPE being an achievement-based scholarship.
Kudos to our state’s leaders for a thought out plan that has bipartisan support.
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And Governor Deal, who by all accounts was suppose to be an unmitigated disaster, continues to impress this skeptic.
I continue to be pleasantly surprised.
I agree.
I guess a Tropical Depression is a pleasant relief when everyone had predicted a Category 5 Hurricane.
/smart-@ss comments
As does this doubter. These are logical and sensible reforms.
I have to agree with you as well. I really was expecting another do-nothing Governor. I am surprised. Good for him. I must say that I actually do not regret my vote for him, and I thought the possibility of that was pretty high.
A well thought out, fair solution. It’s too bad that good programs like HOPE become “entitlements” that draw howls and protests at any adjustments no matter how sensible.
The Democratic House Caucus capitulated without a fight: http://gapolitico.com/?p=17491
It’s not a compromise if you just accept the Republican plan, that is a capitulation.
Or maybe it’s possible to just be realistic, realize what can and can’t be done and act in the best interest of Georgia.
I don’t think that’s too much to ask.
You can’t die on every hill.
How about they just pick ONE hill to die on then instead of rolling over for everything.
The biggest insult here is calling the 1200 SAT score thing the “Zell Miller Scholarship”.
Zell’s original proposal as sold to voters gave a full scholarship to any B student whose parents made under $100k. In today dollars that would be approx $157k. That should be the Democratic proposal – guarantee the original scholarship indexed to inflation and if there is more money left over give everyone over $157k an equal amount of the surplus left each year.
The Zell Miller Scholarship – what horsesh*t. My guess is SAT scores over 1200 correlate very nicely with households that make over $157k – the exact people that didn’t qualify for Zell Miller’s original scholarship.
Perhaps this will prompt you to reconsider your belief that government exists to help the poor?
As an additional exercise, divide the state budget by the number of Georgia families living at 150% (or so) of the poverty line …. This is especially instructive if you use numbers from the mid 2000′s.
He will reconsider his belief that government exists to help the poor when you begin to question the wisdom (fiscal, social and otherwise) of government giving benefits to affluent people who can easily afford to pay for said benefits themselves. If you are making $157,000 a year, you should easily be able to pay for your child’s college without any taxpayer help.
Giving poor people taxypayer money because they are poor is bad enough. Giving rich people taxpayer money because “they are good real Americans who deserve it” is a recipe for a society that is going to collapse within a couple of generations.
Have you any idea how many students are driving BMW’s? If you can afford a BMW, you can afford to pay college tuition.
I drove a beat-up 2001 Ford Focus that I BOUGHT MYSELF with the money I earned. I NEEDED HOPE. They didn’t.
No Chris, horsesh*t is what you libs must be smoking, b/c you think everything the gov’t does should be to equalize any disparities among every different group in the population. There are a HUGE amount of federal $’s at the (Pell Grant..etc) that already exist to provide assistance for hardworking poor students who have the desire but not the means to go to college. “Politico”, I don’t care what car you or your rich buddies drove. Your so wrapped up your liberal mantra you fail to realize the benefits of HOPE of keeping “exceptional” students within USG or at least in the state. Its actually one of the few non-need based scholarships out there, and the only one with this purpose.
Additionally, ANYONE can maintain the required gpa/SAT and ANYONE is eligible for HOPE, if you are unable to get the grades, its a lack of motivation, NOT your typical liberal nonsense excuses we hear over and over again. It wasn’t too long ago I graduated HS, I stayed at an instate college, b/c of HOPE, of course. And I see the reasons my peers don’t succeed, and believe me, it has little to nothing to do with the excuses the libs make.
How about the fact that the voters of this state approved what I proposed above, does that mean anything to you?
We’re taking a program that already exists and benefits everyone equally and structuring it so it will benefit those that need it less.
You assume too much Gerald. I do not support median voter/middle class welfare. If you bothered to crunch the numbers I allude to above you would realize that government collects more than enough to ensure that there are no poor people. The problem is that the money collected does NOT go to poor people.
Here’s the simple math. At it’s peak the GA budget was about 21 billion. According to UGA we have about 210,000 families living in poverty. So our state government collected about 100k per family living in poverty. Had the government simply sent the 100k to the poor families, their would be no poor people, because the previously poor people would now have 100k.
Did I miss something?
Grift,
It’s the Democrats’ job to be perpetually outraged by things like this. Just like it’s the Republicans’ job to be perpetually outraged about things like messicans, gayz, and aboreshun.
GALib, er, GAPolitico just wants them to stick to their pertually outraged guns.
Personally, I’d rather them raise the min. GPA from 3.0 to 3.5.
Or simply make it “Dean’s List”…..which is 3.0 at GT and 3.5 at most others. :>)
I think that would remove a lot of potential engineers from the HOPE rolls.
And probably a bunch of those do-nothing “Art” majors.
B)
I was specifically referencing Tech’s academic rigor and they do not have Art majors.
I’m completely in favor of this. As a high school student, I think this is not only fair, but it makes the significant changes necessary to preserve the scholarship. I pulled up this post in my Physics class, and everyone who took a look at it approved of the plan, saying that they were good and necessary changes to the program.
Junior/Senior level text books in math/sciences are EXTREMELY expensive – so much so that the current book allowance usually only covered one book (in some cases not even that), and that was when I was in school 6 yrs ago. (Which feels weird, btw)
While most of the plan looks decent, I know as someone who fell into the crowd that couldn’t even afford the 10% + books/fees/etc that this will be a barrier to MANY who would go on to make much more money (and thus much more revenue for the State via income, property and sales taxes, among other “fees”) with HOPE than without it.
I also believe that just as an unintended consequence of HOPE in its current form is grade inflation, we’re about to see “major inflation”, with degrees such as liberal arts/business having even more of an edge of math/sciences than they already do. Why should I take a harder major where the books are outrageously expensive and risk losing what HOPE I get, when I can take an easier major where the books are FAR cheaper and not have to work as hard?
Personally, I’m stubborn when it comes to academics – I would go after the Computer Science option I took 6 yrs ago even under these standards. But even then, the VAST majority of those I took Programming 1 with did not walk with me (or even at our scheduled graduation 1.5 yrs earlier) as CS graduates, but had either dropped out entirely or switched over into the now-College of Business Information Systems program.
And seriously… you’re going to penalize me for taking Abstract Algebra, Discreet Modeling, and Real Time Systems and Programming while rewarding a guy taking Urine As Art?
I understand the sentiment about books. When I was in college (almost ten years ago), books per semester just for my technical degree were very expensive, but at least the college I attended allowed us to open up an account with the book store and setup a payment plan that must be paid off once I left school.
What I think should be an option is for low interest loans be allowed to students just for books. The loans should go by the same terms as traditional student loans and give you ample time to pay them back. I might just be grasping at straws here, but I think it should at least be discussed.
I have to agree with you there, Jeff. The costs of books is getting absurd. I remember several books back in my college days that cost upwards of $200, and I’d only get maybe $90 back. I don’t see why they don’t just move over to an e-book format (obviously the book stores on campus would lose quite a bit of money they get from buying books back for cheap and selling them back for premium prices).
I also agree with you regarding the “degree inflation” point. I remember quite a few students in college that quit science, math, and pre-pharmacy degrees and switched over to an art degree because of how easy it was.
Another thing I’d like to see is emphasis on students at cheaper schools. When a student can just as easily go to a cheaper school like Georgia Southern or Georgia Southwestern for the same things as they would at a larger institution such as UGA, I’d rather pay the full amount on the cheaper one. (At UGA, I’ve know friends that had costs [including room/board] per year upwards of $50,000, while at a smaller university like GSW or GSU it cost around $15-$25k per year).
On the cheaper school thing, I agree. Unfortunately, when you get out into the job market, that UGA grad is going to have the advantage just by sheer name recognition. That’s just a fact. Not that they’re any better; I’ve met plenty of Harvard and Yale grads who are no better or smarter than I am, but their teeny-tiny diplomas open many more doors than my gigantic Kennesaw State diploma.
/Protip: the larger your diploma is, the greater the likelihood that you went to a public state school.
I still don’t know how to react to a Governor who does (or attempts to do) stuff.
I must say that I am impressed that Gov. Deal has put forth a very detailed plan for HOPE and GA Pre-K. This obviously took a lot of time and effort by his staff as well as those who are in charge of the programs. The plan has sacrifices all on ends and its good to see the Governor tackle a major problem right off the bat.
I do applaud Governor Deal for putting forward a sound proposal.
I only have one concern. It seems as though the proposal would put a little too much emphasis on SAT scores. I would rather them raise the GPA requirement even more than he suggested but lower the SAT requirement a bit. Some kids don’t do well on Standardized tests. Case in point, me. I scored a 1130 on the SAT back in the day. But I maintained a 3.8 GPA throughout all 4 years of college.
I think GPA is a better indicator of a kid’s work ethic and potential than SAT scores any day of the week.
Maybe it is in place to try and combat grade inflation. Simply raising the GPA will also raise grade inflation and in the long run not control expenditures the way they want to.
I think the SAT scoring has since changed to a different scoring scale. A 1200 isn’t what it used to be.
Mike Stucka of the Macon Telegraph is following up on this, as are we.
The working assumption here that we’re trying to confirm is that this is for the English and Math portion of the SAT, and does not include the recently added written section in the total score.
As a current GT student, I can tell you that raising the GPA requirements of HOPE will earn the state vastly few engineers. A 3.0 as a Landscape Design major at UGA is different than a 3.o as an Aerospace engineer major at Tech. I’ve worked hard for my measly 3.0 GPA, much harder than I would have if I was at a different school
Andrew,
That’s a good point. I meant to clarify that I was talking about the GPA requirement coming out of High School. I am aware that there are some high schools that are tougher than others, but the discrepancy is far less than that of an Aerospace Engineer Major and a “Housing” Major. Raise the initial GPA requirement to begin recevieving the scholarship, and maintain the 3.0 requirement for students to continue receving the scholarship. Acceptable?
In that case, yes. I definitely agree. Raising the GPA for qualify able highschoolers would allow less “room for error” in students that will lose HOPE after their first semester. I also wouldn’t mind seeing them get rid of the HOPE forgiveness thing, where you can get back HOPE if you lose it…no pun intended.
I don’t think an 1130 is that bad really, I just barely got 1200…though I did go to a Clayton County High School…
It is a welfare program. Don’t mend it, end it. That is the conservative position. Or at least it used to be before welfare programs that primarily benefited the middle and upper classes were created …
Martha likes it and I agree with her.
HOPE Scholarship Fix: Not a Bad Start
By Martha Zoller
Expect the worse, hope for the best is no my usual way of approaching things. I’m a “half-full” kind of gal, but I had been prepared for big changes in HOPE Scholarship and I was pleasantly surprised. First, I was impressed by the bi-partisan nature of the announcement by Gov. Deal, but primarily but the protection and the preservation of the program.
Let’s back up with a little history. Our fourth child is attending Georgia public universities. My husband and I are a blended family and as such, had to start over financially when we married 21 years ago. We made the decision then we would save for retirement and pay for college out of pocket for our 4 children. We encouraged them to do well and we told them they could go to a state university and we would pick up the costs or they could go anywhere they wanted and pay the difference. Two have gotten advanced degrees from the University of Georgia, one is a Mechanical Engineer from Georgia Tech and our youngest is a first year student at the University of Georgia. The costs have gone up. It costs about twice as much as it did in 2000, but we’ve had kids in college almost every year since then, sometimes three at one time, and we’ve been able to manage it, thanks to HOPE scholarship.
Immediately after the press conference on Tuesday, John Clark of the Georgia News Network called in to fill us in. He painted a pretty good picture. The changes would protect HOPE and provide up to a 90% grant for tuition to public universities in Georgia to most students who have traditionally qualified for HOPE and to the best and brightest, the possibility of full tuition coverage. Then I read the AJC online headline, “Drastic Cuts to HOPE.” This didn’t seem drastic to me.
For private universities in Georgia the HOPE scholarship, there would be some cuts but awards would stay in the $3600 dollar range for most students and the possibility to get $4000 a semester if you qualify to be a Zell Miller Scholar. Under the new legislation, Zell Miller Scholars will include the top 10 percent of HOPE scholars under the present system based on both a 3.7 GPA and a 1200 SAT or 26 ACT score. These scholars attending any public college or university in the state will be awarded full tuition scholarships, while those attending private institutions will receive the full private HOPE award.
“Facing bankruptcy of the lottery program in 2013, I worked closely with members of the General Assembly to save Georgia’s prized jewel, the HOPE scholarship, for the next generation of Georgians,” Governor Deal said. “With this plan we are going to maintain one of the most generous scholarship programs the United States has ever seen or will ever see. Even in the tough economic times we are facing, HOPE is going to endure, it’s going to thrive.”
Deal assured all of Georgia’s HOPE partners that all three of the lottery-funded programs — Pre-K, HOPE Scholarship and HOPE Grant — have been protected and current funding ratios for these programs will remain the same.
It’s rare that I quote the Reverend Jesse Jackson, but as he said in 1988 at the Democratic National Convention in Atlanta, Georgia, “Keep hope alive.” There wasn’t a HOPE program in Georgia, then, but it was probably on the mind of future Governor Zell Miller. If Governor Deal can pass these changes, he will keep HOPE alive.
Here are some other details of the changes, including changes to Pre-K, as outlined by the Governor and provided by the Press Office:
Beginning this fall, students with a 3.0 GPA attending Georgia public colleges and universities will receive 90 percent of the FY ‘11 standard tuition rate. To ensure that limited resources are used to best honor the original intent of theHOPE program the legislation will: Eliminate funds for books and fees, eliminate funding for remedial classes, cap eligible hours at 127 and ensure that HOPE scholars are prepared for college-level work by requiring these students to take a certain number of high school rigorous courses.
When discussing Georgia’s youngest scholars, Deal said Pre-K will continue to receive one-third of all lottery-funded expenditures and will remain a voluntary, universal, free program serving 4-year-olds across the state regardless of a family’s economic status.
In order to make several programmatic changes to Pre-K, Deal announced that the state will move from a six-and-a-half hour day to a four-hour day.
“By removing rest time and creating new efficiencies, we can minimize the decrease in instructional time and bring our program more in line with other states and many private preschools,” he said.
Deal closed by citing a verse from one of his favorite hymns: “Strength for today and bright HOPE for tomorrow.”
“We are taking the appropriate steps today to strengthen the HOPE balance sheet, ensuring that future Georgians are afforded the same great opportunities as today’s college and university students. Make no mistake, even after these needed reforms are implemented, Georgia’s invaluable HOPE will endure and continue to set Georgia apart.”
So does this mean that if you never got a 3.7 gpa in high school you can never get the Zell Miller Scholarship.
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