In 1993, Georgia inaugurated the
Hope Scholarship and Grant Programs, providing residents with very low-cost schooling at Georgia's public colleges, universities and technical schools. Since then, several other states have also instituted so-called "merit-based" scholarships for public post-secondary education. MonsterLearning spoke with Bill Flook, Director of the Scholarship Grants Division for the Georgia Student Finance Commission to learn more about Georgia's program.
MonsterLearning: What are the Hope Scholarship and Grant programs?
Bill Flook: Think of them as two programs put together.
People are eligible for the Hope Scholarship if they graduated from a Georgia high school with a B average and they maintain a B average in college. It pays all the tuition at a Georgia public institution, all mandatory fees and $300 per academic year toward books. Qualifying students can also attend a private college in Georgia and receive a flat award of $3,000 a year. The program's goals are to encourage students to work harder in high school, thus raising academic standards at the high school level, and to encourage those students to go to school here in Georgia, making Georgia colleges academically ber.
The Hope Grant is available to any resident of Georgia attending one of our 33 public technical colleges seeking a technical diploma or certificate. It doesn't matter when you graduated from high school, your grade point average in high school or the rest of your educational background. You could have a master's degree or a PhD. None of that matters as long as you're a resident of Georgia. The grant benefit is exactly the same as for the scholarship.
ML: What makes someone eligible for the Hope Grant?
BF: Eligibility begins when you've been a resident of Georgia for at least 12 months. You could be 50 years old and have lived in Pennsylvania all your life. If you move to Georgia and become a legal resident for 12 months, you can go to the local technical college and seek a technical diploma or certificate in photography, carpentry or whatever you'd like to study, and you can earn as many of those certificates or diplomas as you'd like.
ML: Do only high school seniors of traditional age (late teens) qualify for the Hope Scholarship?
BF: Students who graduated from a Georgia high school in 1992 or thereafter with a B average are eligible for the Hope Scholarship regardless of when they begin college. If in 30 years they decide they want to start college, the Hope Scholarship would still be available to them.
Students who graduated from high school before 1992, graduated from high school in another state, or graduated in 1992 (or after) without a B average, can still become eligible for the Hope Scholarship if they go to college for one year and earn a 3.0 average. The Hope Scholarship then becomes available for their sophomore, junior and senior years.
ML: The Hope Program was designed, in part, to benefit business in Georgia. How does that work?
BF: Companies benefit from the Hope Program in two ways. It means companies located here can tell an employee that if their children graduate with a B average they can get Hope benefits. In addition, companies know they can train and retrain their employees here and have the costs covered by Hope.
Betting on Hope
While the cost of this program may seem like a gamble, Georgia's Hope Scholarships and Grants are funded by the state's lottery, and according to Flook, "We're in our 10th year and haven't had any problems."
Since the Hope program started, other states have also begun merit-based programs aimed at enhancing educational quality and attracting businesses.
If states begin competing for educated workers by underwriting more of the cost of their education, perhaps those soaring costs will become less of a headache for students and employers. Until then, find out where your state stands on merit-based scholarships. Or consider moving -- the weather's pretty nice in Georgia.
Join Monster Learning's Continuing Education Forum
Add to:
