HOPE fee, book funds look secure
Bill sponsors pursue deal

By JAMES SALZER
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 02/25/04

It's looking more and more like HOPE scholars won't see their awards cut this fall after all.

The sponsors of legislation aimed at preserving the popular scholarship are expected to put off the elimination of book and fee payments to HOPE scholars for at least another year, maybe longer.

For the deal to work, Gov. Sonny Perdue and lawmakers would have to put $125 million in lottery funds into the budget for fiscal 2005, which begins July 1. The lottery is expected to sell enough tickets next year to allow the state to include those payments.

Senate Higher Education Chairman Bill Hamrick (R-Carrollton) and House Higher Education Chairwoman Louise McBee (D-Athens) spent Wednesday trying to work out a deal, in hopes of getting legislation through both chambers. Just a day earlier, key lawmakers had raised concerns that no HOPE legislation would come out of the 2004 session of the General Assembly.

Hamrick said the original legislation, which would have cut more than $1,000 from the scholarship for HOPE recipients at the state's top universities, "was dead" as long as it included the provision to end book and fee payments. If it had passed, HOPE would have paid tuition only.

Now, Hamrick said, a HOPE bill could be voted on by the House and Senate committees by early next week.

Changes in HOPE are being considered because state analysts project that the program, which is funded by the lottery, will begin eating into reserves in a few years. The number of HOPE scholars — and thus the costs of tuition, fees and books — are expected to rise faster than lottery revenues.

Students qualify for the scholarship by attaining and maintaining at least a B average.

In addition to eliminating book and fee payments, the bills sponsored by Hamrick and McBee would make a minimum 3.0 grade point average a requirement for the scholarship, a tougher standard than the current numeric equivalent used to determine a qualifying B average.

Further, the Student Finance Commission would check the grades of HOPE college students sooner, to make sure they were maintaining the required average. That change could cause poorly performing students to lose scholarships faster.

In addition, the use of lottery money for anything other than HOPE and pre-kindergarten classes would be barred.

Some Democrats, including Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor, stood firm against eliminating book and fee payments.

Under a change that Hamrick and McBee are considering, book and fee payments to HOPE scholars could stop once costs outpace lottery revenue and the state has to start using reserves to pay for the scholarships.

According to some state estimates, that situation could become reality next year or the year after.

Taylor said Wednesday that he was celebrating the possibility that HOPE scholars would get their full scholarship for the upcoming school year.

"It saves the books and fees for this year, and it prevents a very unfair shift to the students and parents in midstream," he said. "That would have been awful if we'd done that."