The fight to preserve the HOPE scholarship began in earnest Monday.

Key lawmakers filed bills in both chambers to cut out book-and-fee money for the scholars and allow the state to take the scholarship away sooner from students with poor grades.

However, the bills do not mandate that lottery money go for only HOPE and pre-kindergarten classes, as a special commission recommended last year. Senate Higher Education Chairman Bill Hamrick (R-Carrollton) saidthat change might be part of separate legislation. Lawmakers have spent more than $1.8 billion of lottery proceeds on things other than HOPE and pre-k in the past decade.

The legislation also does not include Gov. Sonny Perdue's proposal to link a full year's HOPE scholarship to a minimum SAT score, a proposal some lawmakers believed could stall any chance for changing the popular program.

The legislation sponsored by Hamrick in the Senate and House Higher Education Chairwoman Louise McBee (D-Athens) is expected to be put on the fast track to get through committees and onto chamber floors. Both said their bills could come before their committees Thursday.

However, McBee was realistic about the obstacles the bills face. "I would like for it to sail right through, but everybody you talk to has a different idea," she said.

If changes aren't made, officials have estimated that HOPE and the pre-k program will begin dipping into financial reserves in the 2006-07 budget year. Some recent budget proposals predict funds could run out next year.

Under HOPE, high school students with a B average or higher receive full tuition along with mandatory fees and a book allowance to attend a Georgia public college. Technical school students also are eligible, and students at Georgia private colleges can receive a $3,000 annual grant.

Perdue already has pre-empted lawmakers by cutting the book-and-fee money from his budget proposal for fiscal 2005, which begins July 1. Meanwhile, Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor, a political rival to Perdue, has announced his opposition to eliminating money for books and fees, a move that would cost some college students more than $1,000 a year starting this fall.

Legislators also are pushing bills in the House to make students wait until they get good grades in college to earn a HOPE scholarship, and to strip the award from students convicted of crimes, including some misdemeanors.

Democrats say Perdue's SAT proposal, which will be filed in a separate bill, might have doomed Hamrick's and McBee's efforts.

Perdue wants students to have a minimum SAT score to get the scholarship for a year. If they have a B average but don't get the minimum SAT score, they would get the scholarship for one semester. If they have at least a B average that semester, they would keep the award.

The Hamrick and McBee bills would eliminate book money and fee money this fall and set a minimum 3.0 grade point average as the requirement for the scholarship. About one-third of HOPE scholars entering Georgia's public universities do not have a standard 3.0 GPA but have the 80 average currently necessary for a scholarship, according to state estimates.

Also in the bills, grades would be checked for HOPE scholars each spring. Now, grades are checked after 30 credit hours. Some students take more than a year to accumulate those 30 credit hours, so they keep HOPE into their second year even if they have bad grades.