Make students pay out-of-pocket for first year - reimbursed at the end of the year by HOPE (Jackson: low income, roughest)

[dichloromethane]

It seems the majority think it's best to leave HOPE as is.

[gtcorndog]

Originally Posted by dichloromethane

It seems the majority think it's best to leave HOPE as is.

FAIL.

Currently I see 10 that think it should stay the same and 10 who think it should be changed in one form or another.

That does not make a majority.

[Mishap]

HOPE should not be a purely merit (w/ an incredibly low bar) scholarship when we've got stretched resources. Two students w/ the same GPA can vary widely in academic capability even if they're from the same school simply b/c of course choices and teachers.

Students w/ the super high stats already have plenty of options (and generally have more financial resources) to fund college. By ignoring financial need and ratcheting up the requirements to reduce the # of students, you simply subsidize college for those who can already well afford in-state tuition (which is already subsidized by taxes). Take HOPE away from a kid whose family earns six figures and that kid is still going to wind up at UGA or Tech b/c the in-state tuition is an order of magnitude cheaper than making the jump to Emory or Vandy. If the kid happens to have a 99th percentile SAT then they're getting scholarship offers from tons of #10-20 schools and need-based scholarships from the Ivies they get into. We should be focused on the people on the edge of affording college and providing greater resources for them. Yes, there are plenty of people w/ junk GPAs (and are poorer) still getting HOPE and promptly flunking out but funding more of them most likely makes a bigger difference in the long term economy of the state vs. giving upper middle class kids a discount just because. Yes people who are 1st generation college students tend to bomb out at a higher rate but getting through also raises their social mobility far more than someone whose parents are fourth generation UGA grads.

I'm not against rewarding success...I'm just thinking that we already do that and we should try to focus on those who are on the border of being able to afford college vs. everyone that can fog a mirror to get a 3.5 in HS these days.

[dichloromethane]

Originally Posted by gtcorndog

FAIL.

Currently I see 10 that think it should stay the same and 10 who think it should be changed in one form or another.

That does not make a majority.

Currently*

No change to HOPE was in the majority when i looked at it. Regardless, no change is still more popular than any one form of modification.

Mishap, yes, that's a great point, but I'll play devil's advocate here. A need-based HOPE also creates less of an incentive for students to stay in state and attend UGA or Georgia Tech. We WANT these bright kids to stay at UGA and Georgia Tech, and we want them to stay in Georgia after graduation. It's about quality just as it's about quantity. That's sort of the point of state universities. At GHSU's medical and dental school, there is a huge emphasis on "what will you do to provide for Georgia."

Those top tier Alpharetta students who get scholarships from #10-20 schools would probably be less likely to stay in-state if HOPE is taken away from them. Yes, they have Zell Miller, but HOPE also is an incentive.

And I'll also add that changing HOPE to need-merit based won't do much to increase social responsibility among students. That's what I'm really getting at. What's stopping those poor kids who receive HOPE from failing out and effectively destroying their chances of moving up the social ladder?

Actually, a simple fix may be to simply increase the standards for retaining HOPE in college, this end of freshman year award business will only help foster responsibility for freshman year, granted that's when students party the most. I'd say let's move the 3.0 to match the high school's 3.2 GPA.

We could also make HOPE need-based. This would encourage the top tier students at feeder schools to work harder for scholarships and Zell Miller.

[researchnerd]

Originally Posted by dichloromethane

Students should definitely receive HOPE for freshman year up-front. Poor students cannot afford the outrageous cost of tuition, and they'll leave a lot of talent out in the cold. However, if they lose it for freshman year then they ought to pay back the money HOPE gave them.

I don't disagree with this in theory, but good luck getting that money back from the students who fail to meet the minimum. If they don't care enough to keep their GPA up, they're not really going to care about paying back HOPE.

[dichloromethane]

Originally Posted by researchnerd

I don't disagree with this in theory, but good luck getting that money back from the students who fail to meet the minimum. If they don't care enough to keep their GPA up, they're not really going to care about paying back HOPE.

But I wonder if it would do more damage to them than it would to the state? I'm beginning to think that the answer to all merit scholarships is to increase the requirements and standards to foster stronger responsibility and greater achievement among students.

[residinghere2007]

On the OP topic (if we should make freshman pay HOPE back) I disagree and voted to keep as is. But on the whole I think we need to have an income cap for the HOPE scholarship.

From my understanding, HOPE was originally a way to give poorer students an opportunity to afford college, not necessarily keep higher income people in GA. When income caps were raised, this is when HOPE started losing money because many students from middle and upper class families can now take advantage of it even though those families can actually afford to spend some money or their children's educations.

In regards to Pre-K, I feel it should remain as is as and that no matter the income level all families should benefit from it. Many families I know who make more money chose not to send their kids to state funded Pre-K, those who want to, no matter their income should be able to. But I don't feel the same way for college since it is substantially more than Pre-K and many families actually do save for their kids college education who have the wherewithal to do so. Most poor people do not save for college and I feel ample money should be available to poorer, academically successful students.

I also don't get the point in the complaining about not having a high GPA when you take AP classes. If you don't think you can maintain a certain GPA with AP classes, then you shouldn't take AP classes. This is actually one of the reasons why I am not all that "into" AP or IB programs since I feel it puts unnecessary rigor on students, most of whom should not be taking those classes in the first place. If anything, I would think the student who takes basic courses and aces them has more sense than someone wanting to "challenge" themselves by taking courses that are too much for them. And FWIW, I took a boatload of AP courses and they were rather easy to me and I took them so I could have a GPA over 4.00. If I had achieved a B or less in a class, or even thought I was going to get a B or less, I would have dropped the class, because I was very much into my GPA and needing it to be at a certain level. But I know families who have opted not to have their kid take AP classes due to wanting to maintain a competitive GPA. I also know students, not in this state but in TX where they have a program similar to HOPE that gives scholarships to the top 10% of each school in the state who moved their kid to a lower performing school in order to give their kid an edge lol! That is smart thinking on my part and actually, I wouldn't mind having a similar program here as I think it would give an equal opportunity to all of our state's top public school students for receiving HOPE.

And on standardized testing with ACT and SAT, I don't feel they should be in the picture in regards to HOPE since not all students are able to get test prep classes due to cost so poorer students may do as well on those test as middle or upper income students who get test prep. Also some students are not good test takers but may perform well in the classroom.

[Mattie]

Why is it ok to subsidize families who can afford to pay for pre-k, but not those who can afford to pay for college? In this day and age, college is at least as important, if not more so.

At least with HOPE for college, there is a standard that must be met, grade-wise.

[moneill]

3.0 in Industrial Engineering at Georgia Tech is not the same as a 3.0 in Humanities at Georgia State. Seems to reward the kids who choose to do easy, liberal arts program and punish kids that are working towards a more difficult degree.

[moneill]

If you make HOPE geared to income of parents you create another entitlement program, and that we don't need.

The families that would get hit the hardest are upper middle class AGAIN. They would probably make too much but they want to be able to send their kids to college like the least fortunate.