After four months of trying to figure out how to save the HOPE scholarship, Louise McBee knew the changes her study commission proposed for the program last week would only be a beginning.

"I have a feeling when the Legislature starts, we'll start all over," said McBee, chairwoman of the state House's Higher Education Committee. "They might not agree to any of it."

"They" are McBee's 235 colleagues in the General Assembly, who will spend the first few months of 2004 trying to debate and legislate HOPE to fiscal health.

When the General Assembly gets back in session in January, the real fight to fix HOPE will begin.

It promises to be a battle between two political parties trying to avoid the appearance of damaging a scholarship that many of them consider the most popular state program ever. It's a battle between Democrats, who kept their political dominance during the 1990s in part because of the program they created, and Republicans, who have a say in how it's run for the first time.

"I think everybody is very cautious about dealing with HOPE," said House Speaker Pro Tem DuBose Porter (D-Dublin), who sponsored the bill creating HOPE in the early 1990s. "This has been the most successful education program in the country, and for the first time, people are saying, 'Let's do things like Georgia.'

"No one wants to have it as their legacy that they ruined that."

Getting bills of substance passed was difficult last year because, for the first time since Reconstruction, there was a split state Legislature. The Governor's Mansion and Senate are in Republican hands. The House remains a Democrat stronghold. For 2004, throw in an election year that may determine the political trend for the General Assembly over the next decade, and approving major HOPE legislation may face even longer odds.

"My fear is that the Legislature will want to make this a partisan issue, a lock-down divide," Republican Gov. Sonny Perdue said in an interview Friday.

Senate President Pro Tem Eric Johnson (R-Savannah) said legislators can't afford to do nothing where HOPE is concerned.

"This will be one of the major topics that we deal with," he said. "We can't put it off much longer. It may be that we cannot reach closure this session, but we don't have much time."

If changes aren't made, HOPE and Georgia's lottery-funded pre-kindergarten program are projected to begin dipping into financial reserves in the 2006-07 budget year. And the programs would sink $434 million into debt two years later, according to state projections.

Currently, under the decade-old HOPE program, students with a B average or higher receive full tuition, mandatory fees and money for books to attend a Georgia public college. Technical school students are also eligible, and students at Georgia private colleges can receive a $3,000 annual grant.

Last week, McBee's commission of lawmakers, parents, students and educators recommended a series of changes that could save nearly $1 billion over the next five years, according to state estimates, and keep the program in the black into the next decade.

The changes included eliminating fee and book money, kicking poor-performing college students off the scholarship faster, and using the 3.0 GPA standard used by colleges for a B average to decide whether high school students have the grades needed to get a HOPE scholarship. The last recommendation could keep thousands of potential scholars from getting a HOPE scholarship because it would make a B average tougher to attain than under the current system used for HOPE.

In addition, Perdue is pushing hard for his proposal to require high-schoolers to get a minimum 900 on the SAT, along with the B average, to earn a HOPE scholarship. Students without the 900 would get a scholarship for one semester, then lose it if they didn't maintain a B average in college.

The commission was split on the proposal, but Perdue aides are lobbying for it to be included in any final HOPE legislation. That is guaranteed to bring opposition from Democrats, who argue it would have a particularly damaging effect on black and Hispanic students because, historically, they have scored much lower than whites on the SAT.

Republicans say they expect complaints about the racial impact of such proposals.

"People who make accusations like that are missing the point and that is that the average Georgian wants this scholarship saved. Period," said Senate Majority Leader Bill Stephens (R-Canton). "They expect us to take responsibility for doing that."

Sen. Kasim Reed (D-Atlanta), an African-American, said he doesn't fear raising the academic bar for students.

"Raising the bar is an easy solution. The hard part is improving our schools," he said. "If you only take the one step of raising the bar, families, regardless of race, without substantial resources, aren't going to be able to provide the resources to get their children over that bar."

Reed and other leading black legislators want the General Assembly to consider cutting costs by going back to income caps. In its first year, HOPE was only available to students from families earning less than $66,000. That was increased to $100,000 the next year, and then the cap was removed. Reed said returning to some kind of income cap --- which would cut off the scholarship to children from wealthier families --- would save the program big money.

"Sixty-five thousand dollars may not be the right number; $100,000 may not be the right number," Reed said. "But you cannot tell me that people who have incomes in excess of $250,000 and up should be getting HOPE."

Researchers at the University of Georgia have found that more than 90 percent of HOPE scholars would go to college even without the award. And many who get the scholarship come from families that are wealthier than the state average, according to a review by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

A recent poll has found voter support for restoring an income cap for the HOPE program. Nearly 38 percent of respondents to the poll, conducted Thursday and Friday, said the scholarships should only go to students whose families make less than $100,000. The next most popular solution was imposing a minimum SAT, supported by 22 percent of respondents to the poll of likely Georgia voters conducted by Zogby International.

When asked if the scholarship should go to all qualified college students, or only to students who could not otherwise afford college, a slim majority --- 50.7 percent --- favored giving the money only to needier students. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.

But many lawmakers from both parties oppose the return of income caps, as does Perdue and the commission.

The Republicans who hold a majority in the Senate have been supportive of the commission's recommendations. The Democrats who hold a majority in the House have been more cautious.

Democrats are particularly sensitive about making changes in part because they created the program, nurtured and expanded it until it became a middle-class entitlement that researchers say helped the party maintain power at election time. That expansion is also why costs will soon exceed available revenue, state officials say.

For years, lottery sales far exceeded HOPE's costs, and lawmakers looked for ways to spread the scholarship's wealth to more families. They expanded the program from covering two years of tuition to four. They made it possible for students who lost HOPE to gain it back. They agreed to fund college fees, increased book expenses and quadrupled the amount of scholarship money for students attending private colleges.

// Only once, in 1996, did officials attempt to make it more difficult to earn a HOPE scholarship. That year, high school students were required to earn a B average in core classes --- such as geometry or biology --- rather than all subjects, to qualify for HOPE.

Researchers predicted a 25 percent drop in freshman HOPE scholarships in 2000, the year the change went into effect. But thanks to a quirk in the calculations, students could flunk and retake core classes and still remain eligible for HOPE. The program saw no discernible drop in the number of HOPE-eligible students. That loophole will close in 2007, when F's will also be calculated into the HOPE grade point average.

Shelley Nickel, a study commission member and head of the state agency that oversees HOPE, said the program has moved away from its initial mission of rewarding Georgia's brightest students.

Now, Nickel said, the dramatic changes --- while perhaps politically unpopular --- are necessary.

"This is not about tweaking HOPE around the edges," she said. "I'm concerned they [legislators] won't change it enough to save it."

Nickel said HOPE needs a "major overhaul" if it is to survive. "Otherwise," she said, "we're going to have a broken program."

--- Staff writer Rhonda Cook contributed to this report.

GEORGIANS' VIEWS ON HOPE
Which of the following do you think is the best way to modify the HOPE program?
> Pay less college expenses for all HOPE students..... 15.8%
> Give scholarships only to students whose families
make less than $100,000............................... 37.6%
> Toughen the required grade point average............ 17.3%
> Include SAT as part of the eligibility requirements..22.0%
Do you think HOPE scholarships should be given to all qualified college students regardless of need, or only to those could not otherwise afford to attend college?
> All qualified college students.......................47.5%
> Only students who could not otherwise afford50.......50.7%
--- NOTE: Results based on a poll of 401 likely Georgia voters conducted by Zogby International on Thursday and Friday. The margin of error is +/- 5 percentage points.