Despite the lackluster academic performance and dismal SAT scores of Georgia students, more than half of the state's high school graduates boast the B average necessary to qualify for the state's HOPE scholarship. As a result, the surge in HOPE recipients is outpacing lottery proceeds to fund the program, and a financial meltdown is predicted by the decade's end.

The obvious solution is to tighten eligibility standards for the program, which pays full tuition to a public college and also covers books and fees.

Proposals include linking the scholarships to SAT scores or imposing income limits on recipients. However, income thresholds won't pass a Legislature that realizes HOPE is one of the few government programs that middle-class voters love because it disproportionately benefits their children. Mandating a minimum SAT score of 1000 -- which still trails the national average -- also won't fly, as it penalizes low-income African-American teenagers who don't do well on the college admissions test.

But with a $200 million shortfall looming in seven years, HOPE cuts have to be made somewhere, and a commission has formed to figure out where. The HOPE Scholarship Study Commission is likely to recommend that HOPE no longer cover books, which would save $55 million annually, or student fees, a savings of $60 million a year.

But the commission will have to go beyond books and fees to balance the ledger and will most likely find itself debating thornier questions about the scope and purpose of HOPE. In its considerations, the commission ought to adhere to the original intent of HOPE and protect its proven successes.

Chief among those successes is the transformation of higher education in Georgia. Because HOPE entices our best and brightest high school graduates to attend state colleges, the University of Georgia is fast becoming one of the best public colleges in the country. HOPE has also enhanced the status of Georgia Tech and added luster to Georgia State and Georgia Southern.

However, the commission should look hard at reducing HOPE grants, an ancillary scholarship that pays for technical school training in fields from welding to cosmetology. The grants are available to anyone, regardless of when they graduated from high school or their grade-point average, and there's no limit on how many grants a person can obtain. In fiscal year 2003, $95 million of HOPE funds went to technical schools, while $222 million went to public colleges.

At the very least, the state ought to limit the number of grants a student can get and bar college graduates from taking advantage of the free training, a cost savings of about $3 million. Lottery proceeds should not be used to reimburse lawyers and accountants for the cost of learning how to lay brick walkways on their lake houses.

Few people recall that HOPE actually stands for something -- Helping Outstanding Pupils Educationally. Whatever changes are made, the academic incentives of HOPE have to be preserved and, if possible, enhanced.