Georgia’s newest public scholarship was intended to benefit all of the state’s best and brightest college-bound students. At least that was the plan when Gov. Nathan Deal created the Zell Miller Scholarship last year.
Instead, it favors those students who live in Atlanta’s affluent suburbs.
Those most likely to afford college without the state’s financial help are benefiting the most from the full-tuition scholarship, while students from low-income homes and the first in their families to attend college are least likely to get it, according to an analysis by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
An investigation of enrollment, eligibility and scholarship data obtained by the AJC through the state’s Open Records Act also found:
● Schools in the five most populous metro Atlanta counties — Cobb, DeKalb, Fayette, Fulton and Gwinnett — graduated almost half of the students eligible for the Zell Miller award. The proportion tipped beyond when a smaller metro county, Forsyth, was added, even though those six counties account for just one-third of the state’s high school seniors.
● Metro Atlanta students from seven ZIP codes, including those for Alpharetta, Marietta and Lawrenceville, received a total of $8 million in Zell Miller Scholarships. That’s about 15 percent of the money in the program awarded by mid-January. The average award for ZIP codes was $75,566, with some receiving far less.
● All of the 15 high schools graduating the most Zell Miller scholars are within about 45 miles of Atlanta.
Deal defends the scholarship. His spokesman, Brian Robinson, said the governor “will climb any mountain, swim any river, cross any desert when it comes to finding ways to give every hardworking student a chance to go to college.”
Others question the way the scholarships are being given. During debate over the new program some critics argued it would benefit only a small number of the state’s students even though it is funded by the Georgia Lottery through tickets sold statewide.
The Zell Miller award pays all tuition for the state’s highest-achieving students. Lawmakers created it to counter the diminished payouts of Georgia’s popular HOPE scholarship, which is available to more students but pays less toward tuition.
Zell Miller scholars must graduate high school as the valedictorian or salutatorian, or with at least a 3.7 grade-point average and a 1200 on the SAT’s math and reading sections. While in college they must maintain a 3.3 GPA. HOPE scholars must maintain a 3.0. So far, 11,600 Zell Miller scholars receive payments through the program.
Some experts said the distribution of Zell Miller Scholarships was predictable, given that metro Atlanta boasts the state’s top high schools and the most affluent communities.
“I think this is somewhat expected, but going forward it raises policy implications,” said Alan Essig, executive director of the nonpartisan Georgia Budget and Policy Institute, which has suggested changes to the program. “How much of the limited lottery funds should go to the wealthiest families in the state? What we have are middle- and upper-class entitlements.”
Robinson said the scholarship exists today because of the bipartisan support for last year’s legislation. While some may say the governor was choosing between HOPE reform or status quo, Robinson said the choice was between reform and bankruptcy. The solution, he said, “created a merit-based system that treats all Georgia students equally — everybody plays by the same rules.”
“For the sake of the entire state, we need to incentivize our best and brightest to stay here for college,” Robinson said. “If they leave, they don’t come back, and those minds are crucial to our economic development. Why should taxpayers pay for a genius student’s k-12 education and then export that resource to Boston, Charlottesville or Chicago? That makes no sense for Georgia.”
Democrats, however, have said the state is more likely to benefit from helping students from all corners of the state. The Zell Miller Scholarship, they said, would be better spent on promising students who could not otherwise afford college — even if that meant changing the academic requirements.
Robinson rejected that idea. “HOPE is not entitlement for anyone. HOPE is earned,” he said. “In fact, it is detractors of the current law that want to create an entitlement.”
Deal has said it is imperative for the state to have a more college-educated workforce. About 40 percent of Georgians have a college degree, but studies show the state will need to reach 60 percent by 2020 to meet workforce needs. Deal said last year he wanted the Zell Miller program to be “distinctly Georgian” and a “point of pride for every resident of our great state.”
Georgia Tech sophomore Graham Goldberg is a Zell Miller scholar and received another scholarship from the college. The Dunwoody native expects to graduate debt-free and may even have left some of the college savings his parents set aside for him. While the average high school identified 18 students eligible for Zell Miller, Goldberg’s alma mater — Dunwoody High School — had 161.
“I don’t think it’s fair that I get the same scholarship as someone whose family makes less money,” Goldberg said. “But knowing I would get this money helped me decide to come here.”
About 20 percent of the students at Georgia Tech and the University of Georgia are Zell Miller scholars. Yet only 1 percent of Georgia State’s students are. The three schools are all research institutions, a designation that allows them to attract the most accomplished students.
But Georgia State enrolls more low-income students who are the first in their families to attend college. For example, more than half of the students at Georgia State are eligible for Pell Grants, a federal program to help students whose families earn less than $35,000 a year. Only about a quarter of students at Georgia Tech and UGA are eligible for the same grants.
Tim Renick, associate provost for academic programs at Georgia State, said his campus emphasizes high school transcripts over SAT scores. He said the SAT is a better predictor of home ZIP code than it is of college success.
“If Georgia is to move the dial it will be through the type of student Georgia State works with and not the privileged, upper students who will be well taken care of at any college,” Renick said. “HOPE has been great for our students, and if the state wants to continue that success they will target these students,” including with the Zell Miller Scholarship.
Then-Gov. Zell Miller created the HOPE scholarship program in 1993 to keep Georgia’s top high school graduates from leaving the state. If students graduated high school with a 3.0 GPA and maintained that mark in college, they received a full-tuition scholarship at one of Georgia’s public colleges.
Miller and lawmakers launched the state lottery to pay for HOPE, among other education programs. It has become one of the nation’s most generous merit-based scholarships and a model for other states. But while the lottery is one of the most successful in the nation, it cannot keep up with the demand of rising enrollment and tuition costs.
Deal and lawmakers last year reduced HOPE award payouts and implemented other changes to keep the program from going broke. At the same time, Deal created the Zell Miller award, which is paid for through the same pool of lottery revenue.
Sen. Charlie Bethel, R-Dalton, said it’s not surprising that metro Atlanta dominates the Zell Miller awards, but it is worrisome.
“I would say that’s an indictment — and I’m saying this as a non-metro person — on those of us outside the metro area, that we have failed in our public education system to qualify enough people,” Bethel said. “That’s not a reflection on the scholarship program. That’s a reflection on the state. We need to do a better job across the state in educating our children.”
Lindsay Gribble will attend Georgia Southern in the fall, and while she is on target to graduate with a 4.0 GPA from North Murray High in Chatsworth, near Dalton, she may not get a Zell Miller Scholarship. She’s not good at standardized tests and is struggling to reach the required 1200 SAT score on the reading and math sections.
She will still get a HOPE scholarship, but that won’t pay all her tuition — plus, the HOPE award amount is projected to drop almost every year she’s in college. The Zell Miller Scholarship guarantees full tuition payments even if tuition goes up.
“Other people can pay to have someone come to their house and teach them the ins and outs of the SAT so they can get a higher score,” Gribble said. “My friends and I can’t do that.”
Concerns about the Zell Miller program come as lawmakers and policy analysts are rethinking state scholarship programs.
The institute Essig leads proposed this month that students whose families make more than $100,000 receive a reduced Zell Miller Scholarship, one that covers just 70 percent of tuition. The think tank, which released a report calling for several changes to lottery-funded education programs, wrote that a reduced Zell Miller award would still give elite students a strong incentive to remain in state while providing resources to students who need the most help financially.
Representatives from rural Georgia said they were troubled by how few of their students received the scholarship. Sen. George Hooks, D-Americus, said residents of Dooley, Macon and Quitman counties spent nearly $15 million on lottery tickets in 2010, but that local high schools typically saw only two or three students receive the Zell Miller award.
“When I look over the data of the counties I represent in rural Georgia, we get very little back from the Georgia Lottery,” Hooks said. “The poorer areas are buying disproportionate amounts of lottery tickets and getting very little in return.”
Bethel, however, said that happens every day across the Georgia. “I guarantee you a disproportionate amount of income tax is collected [in metro Atlanta] and it’s being shipped out to other parts of the state. That’s how tax systems and government programs work. It’s never always spent where it’s collected.”
Robinson said every community’s high achievers can get Zell Miller awards. As part of negotiations with rural lawmakers last year, the plan was amended so every valedictorian and salutatorian in Georgia would automatically be eligible for the award.
Deal two weeks ago unveiled an alternative to address concerns about college affordability for low-income students and the rising cost of college: The privately funded REACH Scholarship.
Middle school students will be paired with mentors and receive other support to help them graduate from high school. If the students maintain good grades and stay out of trouble they will receive annual tuition scholarships of $2,500 for up to four years.
The program will start small, with just 25 students from Bulloch, Douglas and Rabun counties. AT&T donated $250,000 to support the first scholars. Deal has encouraged other donors to fund the program. The first scholarships won’t be awarded until 2017.
In the meantime, Georgia has the opportunity to change the HOPE program so the state advances educationally and economically, Essig said. He doubted lawmakers will tackle this issue now but hoped they would next year after elections.
“We need to ask what is the best for Georgia.”
Georgia’s new scholarship: Top 5 counties
Five metro Atlanta counties accounted for nearly half of Zell Miller scholars, even though they have a smaller proportion of Georgia’s high school seniors.
Fulton: 3,370 Zell Miller scholars, 12.5% of total
Gwinnett: 3,181 Zell Miller scholars, 11.8% of total
Cobb: 3,169 Zell Miller scholars, 11.8% of total
DeKalb: 1,800 Zell Miller scholars, 6.7% of total
Fayette: 1,150 Zell Miller scholars, 4.3% of total
Source: Georgia Student Finance Commission
Note: Percentages are rounded
Unmatched coverage
Our experienced education and state government reporters analyzed reams of data while talking with students, lawmakers, university officials and experts to reveal for the first time where Zell Miller Scholarship money goes. It’s the kind of in-depth coverage you’ll only get in the AJC.
How we got the story:
Atlanta Journal-Constitution staff writers Kristina Torres and Laura Diamond requested and analyzed admissions, eligibility and enrollment data from multiple state agencies, including the University System of Georgia and the Georgia Student Finance Commission, which administers the Zell Miller Scholarship. They interviewed students both in and outside metro Atlanta, as well as lawmakers, university officials and policy experts to reveal for the first time where the scholarship money went. It’s coverage you will only get in the AJC.
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