Georgia’s House of Representatives easily passed a compromise bill Wednesday that would pay full tuition for the state’s highest achieving technical college students.
House Bill 697, sponsored by Rep. Stacey Evans, D-Smyrna, would create a Zell Miller Grant Scholar designation for tech students earning at least a 3.5 grade-point average. The bill passed the House by a vote of 172-2, and it now heads to the Senate for consideration.
The legislation is part of Gov. Nathan Deal’s plan to expand the HOPE grant program, but it differs from Evans’ initial proposal that would have paid full tuition for all recipients of the HOPE grant, which requires at least a 2.0 GPA.
The compromise grant expansion is expected to cover about 20 percent of the students, or 16,000, currently enrolled in the Technical College System of Georgia. About $7 million for the expansion is included in the fiscal 2015 budget that the House passed this week. Evans’ proposal would have cost about $35 million.
The expansion restores some of the losses the Technical College System suffered in 2011 when Deal and the Legislature increased eligibility requirements and lowered award amounts to prevent the HOPE scholarship program from going broke. The Technical College System lost more than 20 percent of its students because of the changes, Evans said.
"We're not going to recoup everything, but I think this is a step in the right direction," said Rep. Earl Ehrhart, R-Powder Springs, the bill's co-sponsor.
Deal has long been criticized by Democrats, including his gubernatorial challenger, Sen. Jason Carter, D-Atlanta, who say the changes hurt the state's technical colleges.
“Georgia is facing a skills gap. We have jobs that are unfilled. … Many times skills of workers don’t match the jobs,” Evans said. “Most of the time, the skills that are lacking are those students can gain in our Technical College System.”
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