<p>NC and VA have kept talented and motivated students in-state by having top universities at a public price. It seems to me that the money is best spent on the university level. Allow the universities to lure top students with merit scholarships and make educational and facility improvements.</p>
<p>Wyoming has the Hathaway program which is similar. But there are more strings attached and different levels of $$ rewards based on student qualification. Wyo is ACT and GPA based but there are also HS curriculum requirements as well</p>
<p>There are curriculum requirements in Math, Social Studies, English, Foreign Language, and Science to be completed before you can qualify for any money. The call it the Hathaway scholarship success curriculum.</p>
<p>to see the requirements Visit the site
hathawayscholarships it is a dot com site (seems you can’t post a link here)</p>
<p>It has really increased the number of Wyo HS students taking more difficult classes in High School by all reports. The better prepared you are for College the more Money you get.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Well put, Barron!</p>
<p>^^ The Hathaway program seems very well designed.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It keeps many of them from taking their promise and potential to Duke or Vanderbilt and settling down out-of-state.</p>
<p>gadad: Can you explain that? I don’t understand that sorry. I never thought about the implications on the overall gpa. I was just saying that I thought it was a lot given that Emory tends to be a lot more manageable for various reasons than say Tech. I expected the gap to be more like us at maybe 20% and them at 60%. Many of Emory’s intro. science courses (students at Tech and Emory, or any school are more likely to lose it if in the sciences) for example, are on par with Tech’s, but getting help is so much easier. I just thought that we would be doing better. Perhaps many overestimate themselves and perhaps don’t seek the help needed to be successful (after all they are “top students” that should be able to handle a simple little bio or chem. course). I imagine the same happens elsewhere, but there is really no excuse for it to happen in those numbers here because of the reason I stated. If one wasn’t gonna take advantage of these resources, why come? What would make an experience with Emory different from say Tech? If they had gone to Tech they would have at least had a whole semester’s tuition payed before losing the scholarship. Then again,a student attending here probably did not need HOPE. Nonetheless, the performance is less excusable. I’ve been through freshmen courses here (I took organic chemistry and biology together both semesters+ special lab sections and seminars all of which were rigorous), and I know for a fact Emory makes it very easy to at least get a 3.0 with all the learning resources in place (very accessible due to the smaller student body) without having to curve (freshmen science courses generally don’t curve here). So I have no idea what’s going on w/my Georgia peers, but I don’t think it’s good. They probably came as pre-meds hoping to dodge the rigor, of somewhere like Tech and slacked off.<br>
Anyway, I think Emory’s campus average for freshmen is like 3.01(or used to be). Again, keep in mind that Georgia students only compose like 17-19% at most for about the last 3-5 years.</p>
<p>HOPE was a good idea when it began but it was clearly a carrot to the middle class, though governor Zell Miller cared deeply about rural students of modest means but intellectual drive and talent. Gadad’s evaluation is very telling, undoubtedly true. HOPE helped transform metropolitan Atlanta and Georgia overall by keeping the fuel flowing to the state’s economic engine. But as well all know, gas is no longer cheap.</p>
<p>Incidentally, Gov. Mario Cuomo proposed a similar idea for New York State back in the 1990s called Liberty Scholarships. It never got off the ground, for lack of funding from the legislature. One can argue that both SUNY and CUNY colleges are already inexpensive, even with regular tuition increases. In recent years the State has given SUNY and CUNY more independence to set their own tuition scales.</p>
<p>I was down in Atlanta a few times in the late 1980s and felt that it was a boom area. Companies were moving down there to take advantage of the lower cost of living and several of my coworkers transferred down to our new facilities there. Was the HOPE
thing really needed to attract companies and workers?</p>
<p>When the lottery was designed and passed, the money was actually spent on three things, the college scholarships, a Pre-K program, and technology funding for public schools. The technology funding was a very small piece of the puzzle and has long since disappeared. </p>
<p>The pre-k program has been very successful, but certainly can’t keep up with demand. In the beginning, it was means tested but now it is not. In my opinion, it needs to be. Every time a poor child doesn’t get a spot, the state loses. </p>
<p>One of the biggest disappointments with HOPE is that the colleges and universities, other than Tech and UGA, have seen so little improvement in the caliber of their students or the outcomes at those schools. Most still have pretty dismal graduation rates. What seems to have happened is that many of the students who don’t get into UGA, but are near misses, are leaving the state for other opportunities. Alabama has a lot of the best and brightest of GA as well. I will say that in the last few years, Kennesaw and GA State seem to be really coming along as well as GA College and University, the public LAC. </p>
<p>It wasn’t until this year, that I learned that a student can lose HOPE and then improve their GPA to regain it. I am not a fan of this and think this should be the first change. I understand that freshman year is difficult but from what I can tell, most merit scholarships that have requirements generally don’t give you a second chance. We simply can’t afford too.</p>
<p>RE:</p>
<p>"I understand that freshman year is difficult but from what I can tell, most merit scholarships that have requirements generally don’t give you a second chance. We simply can’t afford too. "</p>
<p>At Auburn, you can get a Presidential Scholarship with a 33+ on the ACT. However, if your GPA is less than 3.0, you lose it – permanently.</p>
<p>Placido: I think it might be intended to give those at Georgia Tech a fighting chance. Some of those calculus and physics sections still have averages that hover only slightly above 2.0 and some are high 1.0 range average gpas. No surprise that 60% used to lose it in the first year (it might have gone down, but I’m sure it’s still a lot) despite how the quality of the student has continue to increase. Compare it to our intro. courses in bio, chem, calc. and physics where the lowest sections will probably be like a 2.5 now-a-days (bio used to be worse, but now it’s on par with chem. and physics). I’m not saying that Tech is grade deflated, but I’ve seen the material from even the easier calc. 1 and 2 classes and their intro physics course and it’s really difficult compared to most sections of our counterparts (we have them in bio and chem, but it won’t show in the gpa). With course sections that difficult in a large school like Tech (huge intro. courses), should one really expect most of the Georgia freshmen to stay 3.0+ in that first year? I suppose if they are smart and choose two courses where they are guaranteed an A, and then 2 science courses as expected, provided that they get at least a C in the science courses. But then the question arises on how to choose a class where one is guaranteed an A if you’re a freshmen that probably doesn’t know that grade distributions are public at Tech. One may assume, “oh you should take some English or Social Science/humanities course”, but I know many/most freshmen here get B-grades in the freshman English requirement and quite a few get C-grades in intro. political science/history courses and Bs in humanities. I had one friend who got As in Calc. 3 and linear algebra at Tech her senior year of HS, and barely held on and got a 3.1 her first semester here because she got a C+ in international politics. Given that, it they get a C-grade in the sciences, they’re screwed. I don’t know if non-science classes are the opposite and are cakewalks at Tech, but if not, I can see how losing a 3.0 at least the first year is probable for many.</p>
<p>BCEagle, there was a huge political component in cultivating public support for HOPE. As was said, the Governor promised that a lottery would fund HOPE. Back at that time, gambling still carried a stigma in more than one southern state. Even enlightened Virginia didn’t establish a state lottery until the early 1990s. Thus, political support for the adoption of HOPE was not assured. But to use a cliche, ‘money talks’ and the middle class citizens of Georgia were listening. Who can blame them?</p>
<p>It doesn’t sound like HOPE was the best use of public dollars but more of a way for incumbants to hold onto their seats. I guess that’s the way most of the world works.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>If it was a political move, then it didn’t work that well (probably because the original HOPE scholarship was implemented as an entitlement for lower and lower-middle class families). Many of the Democrats – who I think held majorities in both the GA House and Senate, and controlled the governor’s office at the time HOPE was passed – were not re-elected. When the legislature changed hope from a need-based to a merit-based scholarship, more and more of GA’s top students stayed in state, especially at GA Tech and UGA. From my perspective (which might be a little biased, since my tuition is paid courtesy of the HOPE scholarship) it has been a pretty effective use of public dollars that might otherwise have disappeared into the black hole that is the General Fund.</p>
<p>Given the high numbers of students that lose HOPE, wouldn’t better K-12 preparation have been a better use of funds?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The GA DOE has talked for years and years about its plans to improve K-12 education but it has not made all that much progress outside of a few schools/districts. IMO the only substantive difference in the past few years has been increasing the number of standardized tests administered, and those tests just show that GA lags further and further behind other states in various measures.</p>
<p>If we’re concerned about the # of students who lose HOPE, increasing the minimum GPA requirement might disqualify some of the students who will go on to lose HOPE.</p>
<p>An academic unweighted 3.0 GPA can be very different depending on the high school. South Georgia isn’t known for their academics. In my high school, a 3.0 is <em>not</em> given to you. You have to earn your grades. It is much easier to get a 3.0 if one takes all college prep courses than if one takes AP/Honors classes. When they calculate HOPE, there is no added weight for AP classes. I personally think there should be a required amount of honors or AP one has to take to receive HOPE. I know a lot of my friends would love to go out of state, but they’re not going to because who would pass up a free education? </p>
<p>After UGA and Tech, Georgia’s state schools aren’t that great. There is a huge gap after the two flagships. GCSU is a pretty good school, but Kennesaw, Southern & State aren’t that hard to get into. I have friends who go to the above schools and they didn’t take many honors classes at all. I am only considering GCSU and UGA. If you hate math and science, Tech isn’t a viable option. I do know many peers are starting to go to schools in Alabama and are getting pretty good scholarships. In my school, even if top students get denied to UGA they still end up instate. If they take away Hope, people may start going out of state and UGA may have to attract more OOS students. Being instate or out of state for UGA does not give an advantage right now. Also, if they take away HOPE many families won’t be able to afford tuition. Yes, tuition will be “low” but the low income students still couldn’t require it. I would make the GPA requirement a 3.2 and require more AP/Honors classes. However, most students who receive HOPE aren’t going to UGA or Tech. UGA has gotten a lot harder to get into the past few years. A lot of my African American friends aren’t interested in UGA because of the low diversity as a whole.</p>
<p>In my state (NH), there is little support for public higher ed and UNH still has to turn away a lot of students. It used to be a safety about ten years ago for NH students but it no long er is. Students want to go there from other states and from NH. I believe that there are some merit and need-based scholarships.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>I still think that improving K12 would provide more benefits overall, and even for those
that couldn’t afford tuition - many probably go to college and don’t get that much back
from it. Better K12 could give them the skills that they need to actually succeed in college (later) and keep them out of debt.</p>
<p>The idea is to get an education. Going to college is one way to get there but it shouldn’t be the current path if it is unaffordable and unattainable with current skills.</p>
<p>In MA, state school prices are going up and up and up as the state has to deal with more and more budget shortfalls. I imagine that this is happening all around the country. I do believe that it is ultimately cheaper for taxpayers and families to provide the proper foundation in K12 so that learning in college will be more efficient and effective.</p>
<p>Hardly nowhere outside of North Georgia/metropolitan Atlanta is known for academics or good schools. However, I can attest to the fact that I was in the magnet program and it was quite difficult. AP/honors teachers did not curve grades up even if the whole class would get below 70 a quarter or on an exam (some were so good as profs. though that you could get a C in the course but a 5 on the exam). I’ve heard different about some of the schools up here (Atlanta metro, I’m back on campus 
). They do tend to curve harder classes. Our school had students go on to awesome places as I have friends at Yale (one friend in my year) and Cornell. And guess what, none had a solid 4.0. Most top students at other schools get 4.0s due to the grading scheme, but it doesn’t work like that at my school. And I’m actually very fortunate to have had that experience because I actually outperform a lot of my peers from inside of these “top schools” in N. Ga. and some of those from outside of Georgia, especially in tougher science courses, where I guess people were hoping on a curve to save them if they slipped up.<br>
I will however agree that College Prep. courses are much easier here. Just because I was in S. Georgia does not make that situation any different. Fact of the matter is, AP/honors courses are much harder, especially when done right, which is what a majority of my teachers did. The school board adds 3-5 (honors/AP respectively) points for the sake of college admissions, however HOPE discards these points when considering people. I’m not sure if I agree with making all people take at least 1 AP course (I took like 10 total as I started off slow my junior year by taking 3), because I know that as easy as the CP courses are to me, I know they may not be easy to them. I would however agree with perhaps identifying those with 3.3+ (or may 3.5) who have only taken CP and perhaps letting/encouraging them to take 1-2 AP/honors courses because more than likely, the coursework is too easy for those people, and many could be intentionally dodging rigor even though they know they could make the grade. These students should be pulled into it to see if they have the motivation and will to work harder. It’s possible that the others (ones maybe having a slightly hard time keeping B average) will enter college with some fear that it’ll be tougher and thus work hard enough to keep the scholarship. Sometimes, going in knowing that something is hard and that you’ll have to work or do what you need to do to receive help leads to success, it helped me. The others who intentionally dodged high level courses may enter college on cruise control, that isn’t good. </p>
<p>However, this raises an issue. Most of the people at UGA and Tech are those who have taken several AP courses and probably have done well, yet many of those loose their HOPE. I’m pretty sure this even applies to many of those who came from schools in metropolitan Atlanta schools. I know for a fact that “cruise control” even applies to top students. Many did not have to seriously study in high school. They have had a rigorous workload, but exams were easy to them. What happens when the exams get harder at UGA? Or what happens when your workload increases “and” your exams get tougher at Tech (I’m sure that at Tech, many sit in physics and math courses, and initially say, “already did this”, but don’t adjust well to a) new material not seen in high school, or b) a different/less predictable method of testing the material)? I believe part of the failure is the complacency with the status quo. K-12 does have a lot to do with it. While I do perform better than several of my OOS peers here, most are clearly more well-prepared and used to both high-rigor and challenging exams. These students are more prepared in general. </p>
<p>Also, I don’t agree with judging schools by the people or percentage they admit. I agree with judging by the rigor versus the students admitted. I’m pretty sure that many places like UGA and even us have admitted much better students on paper, but why should this matter if the institution isn’t using it as an opportunity to bring more intellectual/academic rigor. I know we are trying, but many of my friends at UGA seem to make out as if it’s very easy (even sciences) ,and they were average students there in terms of stats. My point is, freshmen stats seem not to really matter above a certain point and their improvement seems to only marginally contribute to the “academic” environment at a university. For all I know, a place like Mercer, or GCSU could be tougher than UGA academically, even though the students at UGA are “more qualified”(I actually think that this may be the case). UGA is more reputable because it’s a large research university with a prominent sports program. One cannot say with certainty that the better student body has actually improved academics there. Many top students that are, say not in the honors program at UGA, could have gone there knowing it would be much easier than say Tech. This shouldn’t be the case. I think top student should not have to be in the honors program to be reasonably challenged, especially those in the sciences. UGA may have two different camps, those freshmen doing really well, and those not doing well at all. But I get the feeling that those not doing well are not because it’s tough, but because UGA has a lot of distractions (it has the whole party culture thing going on). Whereas at Tech, the difficulty is probably the primary reason for the struggle
Instead of spending money on construction projects, schools should be making a more challenging curriculum with respect to the caliber of the students there. For UGA that would create a more “academically focused” campus atmosphere that could be more conducive to success. Something that is kind of a middle ground between Tech’s rigor and current UGA rigor. </p>
<p>With Tech, better prep./education in the science courses at the high schools in Georgia is probably the best thing to hope for.</p>
<p>gadad - My kid is a testament that HOPE has kept top students in state. As class valedictorian with a perfect SAT, she was accepted at Duke,Vanderbilt, and 8 other top tier schools - with money (but not enough)
She chose UGA Honors program for undergrad so she could enter a top grad/med school with no debt.</p>