The House approved an overhaul of the HOPE scholarship Tuesday, making changes lawmakers say will preserve the award for future recipients while forcing many students and families to find new ways to pay for college.
Following a nearly hourlong debate, members voted 152-22 to approve House Bill 326. The bill, which was filed last week, moves to the Senate.
While the changes may be hard for some families, they are necessary because the program is outspending revenue from the Georgia Lottery, said Rep. Doug Collins, R-Gainesville, one of the bill's sponsors. This year, 236,124 students are receiving HOPE at a cost of $639.6 million.
"The reason we’re here is because the program is going broke," Collins said. "We cannot continue the path we are on. Changes must be made."
Since 1993, HOPE has covered all tuition costs for students who graduate from high school with a 3.0 GPA and maintain that high mark in college. But now the amount students receive will vary annually, depending on lottery revenue. For this coming fall, it will be 90 percent of current tuition levels, meaning it won’t cover the double-digit tuition increase expected at some colleges. Students also lose money for books and mandatory fees.
Only the brightest students, those who graduate from high school with at least a 3.7 GPA and 1200 SAT score, would see all tuition covered under a new Zell Miller Scholarship, named after the former governor who created the program.
Students would be required to maintain a 3.3 in college to remain a Zell Miller Scholar. At first lawmakers wanted these students to maintain a 3.5, but an amendment lowered it to be in line with colleges' honors programs. The average GPA of the Georgia Tech Honors Program is 3.34.
Collins said the bill allows HOPE to still reward the state's best and brightest students.
Rep. Stacey Evans, D-Smyrna, argued against the bill, saying it hurts a program that gives all students opportunity. Evans, a former HOPE recipient, argued for a sliding scale, using income to determine whether students could get more than 90 percent of their tuition.
Before the full House meeting, Republicans in the Rules Committee blocked Democrats’ attempts to amend the bill to limit HOPE to families with incomes of $100,000 and under.
"HOPE is a wonderful advertisement for college for our students," Evans said. "We deserve to keep that dream alive for them."
House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams, D-Atlanta, stood in support of the bill, telling the chamber that Gov. Nathan Deal made several concessions to make the proposal truly bipartisan.
"There must be shared sacrifice," she said. "HOPE does not belong to rich or poor. It belongs to all of us."
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