parental income... / HOPE scholarship in Georgia

[shanoliver at aol.com]

  The HOPE scholarship in Georgia (funded by lottery sales) is great in some ways, but no system is perfect. 
 
 All students who have a 3.0 GPA in high school receive HOPE scholarships to cover tuition and fees at any Georgia public college or university. This works nicely in some ways, but also has led to grade inflation at the high school level and makes college admission reviews difficult. Nearly all high schools have huge numbers of students with higher GPAs than their scales supposedly allow (e.g. 4.3 on a 4.0 scale), which decreases their meaning and makes comparing applicants from 4.0 to 5.0 to 0-100 scales challenging.
 
 Students also have to maintain the 3.0 in college (reviewed each semester) to keep it and I believe there should be a mechanism in place to ensure that they keep up their grades to maintain the scholarships. However, at a school like Georgia Tech where the average undergraduate GPA is slightly less than 3.0 and it "only" takes a 3.0 to get on the Dean's list (due to the very high rigor of the school), a significant number of students "lose HOPE" (read into this multiple ways as students often do). Georgia Tech's rate of students losing the HOPE scholarship is actually not any higher than the system average, but certainly there are vast differences in the rigor of education at the various system schools and this is unfortunate for Tech students who are some of the "best and brightest" from Georgia challenging themselves more than others at less rigorous schools. 
 
 There is no need-based component to the HOPE scholarship and many arguments can be made on both sides. I personally believe that serious consideration should be given to some type of family contribution cap since there is not nearly enough financial aid to give out in the public colleges/universities. And the $3K-4K per student (per semester) scholarship really does not make a meaningful impact on students and families from higher socioeconomic status. My experience with many, if not most, parents today is that they want to be able to name-drop about the schools their children attend, quoting rankings that are as scientific as AP college basketball coaches polls, and to brag on merit-based scholarships like HOPE even if they aren't really needed.
 
 For what it's worth, I couldn't have afforded tuition at NCSSM and went to UNC because it was what I could afford (with Pell grants and help from extended family). Only years later did I realize how ridiculous it was to look at a school like UNC as a "back-up." I have ended up in Georgia and likely won't move back to NC as much as I love it there. I think we have to remember that all of us make various personal decisions as to what we think is best for our lives, so a program like tuition waivers for NCSSM isn't going to guarantee that anyone stays in NC but may help keep some in the state long(er) term. That seems to be a worthwhile goal to me, as much as many other state-funded programs that tax dollars supplement. 
 
 My husband and I pay an exorbitant amount of taxes in Atlanta and would love for our sidewalk to be fixed while downtown and Buckhead get amazing renovations all the time, but we wouldn't move to a town/neighborhood with covenants about what kind of car to drive and what kind of bushes to plant for anything. Such is life. Our child (due in September) will have a college fund started soon, but will also be expected to get a job no matter what!
 
 Shannon (Oliver) Sullivan '90
 NCSSM Alumni Board
 Asst Dir, Undergrad Admission at Georgia Tech
    
 -----Original Message-----
 From: supremegoddessofall at yahoo.com
 To: alumni at ncssm.net
 Sent: Mon, 16 Apr 2007 12:14 PM
 Subject: parental income...
 
  I'm agreeing with Jeremy here.  My parents made enough money that FAFSA said 
that they could afford to pay for me to go to Cornell and Duke.  But my parents 
told me that they weren't going to pay a dime for my education because it would 
"build moral character" if I did it on my own (and yet they still claimed me as 
a dependent - no, I'm not bitter at all!).  I ended up going to the school that 
gave me the best deal, which was in New York.  Would I have gone to UNC if they 
had given me a tuition waiver?  Quite possibly.  I did eventually end up back in 
NC anyway due to being tied to the military, but I doubt I would have otherwise.  
Parental income =/= kid's ability to afford a certain school.  I hope the grant 
stays, but I also hope that we move to a system more like Georgia has where 
*all* students with a certain level of academic achievement in high school get 
tuition waivers.

-Kimberly (aka KABB), c/o '96
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