The Committee to
Preserve HOPE Scholarships has issued a new report saying that in 2018,
funds for the general HOPE Scholarships will start to decline. By 2022, funds for full-tuition Zell Miller
Scholarships will exceed HOPE, and by 2028, HOPE could be in the red despite an
expanding lottery.
“While the Georgia Lottery remains popular, the lottery
proceeds cannot grow as fast as tuition at Georgia colleges and universities,
along with other uses such as the state’s Pre-K and HOPE Grant programs,” explained
Michael Wald, an independent economic analyst who reviewed the data that
supported the report’s conclusions.
The report estimates that annual increases of 7.5% in
tuition costs and 6% in Zell Miller Scholars, while expecting a 2.5% increase
in lottery funds.
"Despite a tidal wave of cash from the Georgia
Lottery, demand for tuition assistance among Georgia families is overtaking the
ability to fund the scholarships as intended," according to Chip Lake,
President of the Committee to Preserve HOPE Scholarships as reported on WXIA-TV.
“The Committee to Preserve HOPE Scholarships is a private
entity with no affiliation with the Georgia Student Finance Commission (GSFC).
We just received this report and look forward to analyzing it over the coming
days. As with any long-term projection, it is critical to understand that there
are many factors that can impact program costs – tuition, enrollment, etc.”
A 2013 study by David Sjoquist and John Winters on “The Effects of HOPE on Post-Schooling
Retention in the Georgia Workforce” listed the objectives of the HOPE
Scholarship program as:
• Increasing academic achievement of high school and
college students by promoting and rewarding academic excellence.
• Increasing the percentage of high school students who
attend college by making college more affordable.
• Increasing the percentage of the “best and brightest”
students who stay in-state to go to college.
• Increasing the quality of the workforce, in part by
retaining the “best and the brightest” after they graduate from college.
Their study concluded that “HOPE altered the composition
of students enrolled in the USG [University System of Georgia] and that the
students who enrolled in the USG because of the HOPE Scholarship are less
attached to living and working in the state after college than students who
would have attended the USG regardless of HOPE. Policymakers should be
conscious of post-schooling retention probabilities when making efforts to
attract certain students to attend college in their state.”
A 2011 study by James Condon, published in the Journal
of Student Financial Aid found that “the HOPE Scholarship Program has been
a tremendous asset to the state of Georgia. The program has been so successful
that other states have attempted to model their own programs after it.”
If The Committee to Preserve HOPE Scholarships is correct
that the HOPE program will run out of money by the time current kindergarten
students are ready to enroll in college, the question remains whether the HOPE
program has proved its value and should be preserved or be allowed to phase out
as funds fail to keep pace with costs?
