Georgia's Hope Scholarship Bad for Education

Georgia's HOPE scholarship began in 1993 with funding provided by Georgia's participation in a state-sponsored lottery. For many years, South Georgia residents sent hundreds of thousands of dollars across the state line to Florida to participate in their state lottery. Proponents of the lottery system claimed Georgia needed a lottery to keep those dollars in-state, and the revenue could fund programs like the HOPE scholarship and Georgia's public pre-K program. Over a decade later, many Georgia residents have benefited from receiving HOPE scholarships to pay for higher education. However, few are willing to highlight the real costs of such a program.

Encourages Grade Inflation at All Levels
To be eligible for the HOPE scholarship high school students must achieve a 3.0 GPA in a college preparatory curriculum. For those hovering around a 2.9 heading into their final semester of high school this creates an extraordinary amount of pressure. The difference in an "A" or "B" in one class could cost the student and their family thousands in lost financial aid.

The pressure doesn't stop with the students, however, as teachers often feel pressured to inflate a student's overall grade to the next highest letter. In the example above, a teacher faced with delivering an "A" or "B" grade to a student riding the eligibility fence may be persuaded to give the higher grade. After all, would you want to be responsible for costing a student thousands of dollars in financial aid?

The Path of Least Resistance
Once in college, many students face tremendous pressure to maintain a 3.0 GPA to continue their HOPE scholarship eligibility. Students tend to shy away from tough disciplines such as medicine or engineering for fear they could lose their HOPE scholarship money. This contributes to the shortage of doctors, nurses and engineers that Georgia is currently facing, and increases the glut in the market of liberal art graduates with no real career path. Is this really the direction we want our state's higher education system heading?