By Camie Young
[email protected]
LAWRENCEVILLE — State
officials hope taking out scholarship money for books and fees and other program
tweaks are enough to save Georgia’s scholarship program without attaching it to
standardized test scores.
Legislators Tuesday got their first look at a
long-awaited bill to save the cash-strapped HOPE scholarship funded by dwindling
lottery dollars.
While the bill, which comes from the report of a bipartisan
study committee, does not attach an SAT score to the requirements, it would stop
the scholarship from going toward fees and books, change some of the grade
requirements and check the grades of scholarship recipients every spring,
instead of after completing a year’s worth of academic credits.
“We’ve got
some big pressures financially on HOPE,” said Sen. Brian Kemp, R-Athens, one of
the bill’s sponsors. “I think all Georgians understand how important this is. We
need to put politics aside and protect the program for Georgia.”
Kemp said
the SAT requirement wasn’t placed in the bill because committee members didn’t
unanimously support it.
“They can debate that as a separate issue,” he said.
“The bottom line behind all that was just to tighten all this up.
“We’ve got
to get this bill passed.”
Economists warn that costs for the scholarships and
technical college grants are growing faster than lottery receipts. If nothing is
done, they say, lawmakers would need to dip into lottery reserves by 2007 to
cover the scholarship costs. By the end of the decade, all the money could be
gone.
In the Gold Dome the debate is far from over.
This isn’t the only
bill circulating about the HOPE scholarship, and state Rep. Tom Rice,
R-Norcross, said he expects someone to try to amend the study committee’s bill
to include the SATs.
The lieutenant governor is pushing for a tuition freeze,
blaming the money problems on wasteful spending, and Rep. James Mills,
R-Gainesville, who represents parts of northern Gwinnett, wants all freshmen to
pay for their first year of college, with reimbursements from the lottery fund
coming only if they keep a B grade average.
Rep. Scott Dix, D-Lilburn, says
he’s curious about a party plan to force scholarship recipients to stay in the
state after they get their degrees.
“Everybody agrees we need to do
something,” he said. “You usually can get a solution when everyone agrees there
is a problem.”
But Dix, like many lawmakers, hasn’t decided which idea to
support.
“I don’t know what the answer is, quite frankly,” he said. “I think
it’s going to need a multi-faceted approach.”
What students say
Yvonne Layer says she won’t miss money for books
much.
“Last semester, my books cost $750, and they paid $150,” the nursing
student said while taking a break at the Gwinnett University Center’s student
center.
“It’s a help but it only pays for my notebooks.”
Layer is one of
the more than 3,000 students at Georgia Perimeter College’s Lawrenceville campus
whose tuition is paid by the scholarship.
According to statistics from last
September, about half of the students take advantage of the lottery-funded
program.
Layer works to keep a B average, so she’s not concerned about
another proposed provision that would have grades evaluated every spring.
But
financial aid counselor Ellis Cottrell said that change would affect the
college.
In previous years, scholarship recipients’ grades were evaluated
every 30 hours, considered a full year of classes.
“Right now, students do
tend to stretch it over a few semesters,” Cottrell said. “Doing it every spring
will probably put more pressure on the process.”
According to Gwinnett County
Public Schools officials, 61 percent of the senior class of 2003 was eligible
for the HOPE scholarship, according to first semester grades.
Emmanuel Moore,
a senior at Collins Hills High School, plans on using the money to take welding
courses at Gwinnett Technical College and eventually study for a four-year
degree.
“I think the HOPE scholarship is really good for high school kids.
They have that hope to go to college and make something for themselves,” he
said. “It teaches good grades actually do help in the long run. Thirty years
down the road, you’ll be glad you had that B average.”
The changes, he said,
could take away that focus on grades.
Instead of working full-time on
classes, students may have to get a job to pay for books, he
noted.
“Scholarships are supposed to help you concentrate on your grades
more,” he said. “That’ll be a downfall.”
What lawmakers think
Many of the legislators are looking toward
constituents for this type of feedback.
“I received an e-mail today from a
father whose daughter is at Parkview High School, and I agree with him,” Sen.
Mary Squires, D-Norcross. “These kids have worked so hard to qualify for this
program, and it’s not fair to cut the program now, just before they graduate. We
need to find a better way than cutting benefits to save the program.”
Squires
also remains undecided.
“I haven’t made any final decisions, but I am open to
talking about limiting lottery funds to strictly HOPE expenses, and I am
discussing further strengthening the B average to a 3.0 in an attempt to save
the program. But I am against any cuts to HOPE, including cutting book and fee
expenses from the program.”
Rice, though, says the SAT requirement has
benefits other than saving HOPE funds.
He said it could strengthen the
state’s performance in the national standings, where Georgia ranks second to
last.
“For a long time, I’ve said I don’t think our kids are 50th but that’s
the perception,” Rice said. “And perception is unfortunately the
rule.”
According to Rice, who sits on the House Education Committee,
lawmakers are considering an SAT standard of 900 because only 15 percent of
those who score below a 900 will graduate college.
“I really believe it will
help encourage young people to improve that score,” he said.
Besides, Rice
said, the system was designed to keep high-performing students in state colleges
and universities.
“The desired effect is there, but we have to remember it’s
for kids who are performing at higher levels,” he said.
For now, though, an
SAT requirement isn’t on the table.
According to the HOPE study committee’s
report, the changes proposed this week could save the system more than $850
million by 2009.