Report on the Expenditure of Lottery Funds Fiscal Year 1996

HOPE and Other Scholarship Programs

• HOPE Scholarship Program

• Other HOPE Programs

• HOPE Lottery Expenditures

• HOPE Enrollment by Institution Type

• Post-Secondary Options Program

Helping Outstanding Pupils Educationally (HOPE) and Other Scholarship Programs

Scholarship Programs as a Percentage of the FY96 Lottery Budget

The Helping Outstanding Pupils Educationally (HOPE) Scholarship Program

The Helping Outstanding Pupils Educationally (HOPE) Scholarship Program provides financial assistance to Georgia students who meet eligibility requirements. Eligible students must be enrolled in a degree, diploma, or certificate program at a Georgia public or private college, university, or technical institute. The HOPE scholarship program has four primary components:

1. The Technical Institution Component. It provides every Georgian with the opportunity to work toward a diploma at any public technical institution in Georgia tuition-free.
2. The Public College Scholarship Component. It provides every Georgia high school student who graduates in 1993 or later with a "B" average the opportunity to attend a Georgia public college or university tuition-free.
3. The Private College Tuition Equalization Grant Component. Georgia high school graduates who attend a Georgia private college or university may receive $1,500 per year toward their education costs.
4. The GED Component. Georgia residents who earn an equivalency diploma receive a $500 GED voucher that can be applied to the costs of post-secondary education.

The HOPE scholarship program attempts to make post-secondary education affordable for every Georgia high school student. "[It] is designed to increase higher education participation and completion rates for Georgia students" (State of Georgia Budget Report 1996, 26). (For more information on the impact of HOPE on public college students, see the Council’s report, Evaluation of the HOPE Scholarship Program, 1996.)

Tables 3-6 respectively give greater detail about the technical institution component, the public college scholarship component, the private college tuition equalization component, and the GED component. Each of these components has specific eligibility requirements and other guidelines, which are described in the following tables. In addition, the tables show how each of the components has changed from year to year.

Table 3. HOPE: The Technical Institution Component

A Georgia resident who is accepted into a diploma program at any public technical institute may receive financial assistance regardless of his or her grade point average. The technical institution component of HOPE expanded in FY95 to cover mandatory fees in addition to tuition costs. In the same year students were also given a $100 voucher to defray the cost of books and other necessary supplies. No further changes have been made or are anticipated for FY97.

Georgia high school students who graduate in 1992 or later with a "B" average and enter a degree program at a public technical institute may attend tuition-free. HOPE will pay for mandatory fees and provide a book allowance to these students.

Table 4. HOPE: The Public College Scholarship Component

The public college scholarship component of the HOPE program has expanded dramatically over the last three years. Students who enter college with a HOPE scholarship and maintain a "B" average will continue receiving the HOPE scholarship until graduation. In FY94 school year HOPE covered only tuition costs. Now, the scholarship covers tuition and mandatory fees at all public colleges and universities. HOPE scholarship recipients also receive a $100 book allowance. In FY96, two significant changes occurred: (1) family income restrictions for HOPE eligibility were removed and (2) students who are already in public college or are returning to public college became eligible for the HOPE scholarship. No changes in this component are anticipated for FY97.

Table 5. HOPE: The Private College Tuition Equalization Component

The private college tuition equalization grant component of HOPE supplements the Georgia Tuition Equalization Grant of $1,000, which is received by all Georgia residents attending a private college. FY97 marks the first year that students who receive the HOPE scholarship for private college must meet the same requirements as the HOPE recipients in public colleges. All students must earn a 3.0 GPA in high school. To continue to receive the award, they must earn a 3.0 GPA in college. Students who received the HOPE scholarship before the new rules may be eligible for continued financial assistance from HOPE. These students must have attended private college for at least one school term between summer 1995 and summer 1996. They are eligible for financial assistance from HOPE through spring 1999.

Although the number of students who participated in this component has increased each year, this number is expected to decrease for FY97. With stiffer eligibility requirements, the number of students who are eligible for this component will decrease.

Table 6. HOPE: The GED Component

Georgia residents who pass the GED examination receive a $500 voucher that may be used for education-related purposes. These purposes include tuition, books, supplies and other expenses related to the furtherance of the resident’s post-secondary education.

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Other HOPE Programs

Four programs have been added to the HOPE scholarship since its inception. These programs are more narrowly focused than the HOPE scholarship components detailed above. They include:

• The HOPE Teacher Scholarship Program. Teachers who are obtaining advanced degrees in teaching areas with a shortage of prospective teachers are eligible for this program. The program provides loans that are forgiven after four years of teaching in Georgia public schools. The cost for providing HOPE scholarships to 1,527 teachers in FY96 was $10 million.
• The HOPE Promise Teacher Scholarship Program. College juniors who desire to become teachers and have a 3.6 or higher GPA are eligible for this program. The program provides annual loans of $3,000 that are forgiven after four years of teaching in Georgia public schools. It aims to attract high achievers into the teaching profession. The total cost of this program in FY96 was $3 million.
• Georgia Military College Scholarship Program. Sixty Georgia Military College students received this military scholarship in FY96. Eligible students received a low interest loan, which is forgivable with military service. The total appropriations in FY96 for this program was $336,000.
• Survivors of Deceased Public Safety Officers Scholarship Program. This program provides full scholarships to children whose parent was killed or disabled in the line of duty. Total appropriations in FY96 was $100,000.

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HOPE Lottery Expenditures

The HOPE scholarship program provides more scholarships to more students than ever before. As the scope has broadened and programs were added, HOPE expenditures have increased dramatically. When the program begin in 1993, it awarded nearly $47 million in grants and scholarships. In FY96, it awarded $162 million, a dramatic three-fold increase.

Figure 3 shows how the money is distributed among HOPE’s four components. In all three years, the public college scholarship component has been the component with the largest expenditure. The private college tuition equalization component has consistently been the second largest expenditure of the HOPE program. The technical institution component follows closely behind the private college component, while the GED component is the component with the smallest expenditure.

While each year all four components have grown, two of the components-- the public college scholarship and the private college grant components--have experienced a more than six-fold increase in expenditures. The total in FY96 for the technical institution component is five times what the total was in the program’s first year. The GED component has not grown as quickly as the other components, though still increased from $881,467 in FY94 to more than $2.2 million in FY96.

Figure 3. HOPE Expenditure by Component for FY94-FY96

Lottery expenditures have increased in part because more students are participating in the program. Figure 4 illustrates the increase in the number of students from fiscal year 1993 through FY96. More students are benefiting from the HOPE program than ever before. Nearly 130,000 students received a HOPE grant or scholarship in FY96, up from 40,555 students in the FY94.

Figure 4. Number of Students Participating in HOPE Programs, Fiscal Years 1994-1996

The component with the largest increase in expenditures from FY94 to FY96, the public college scholarship component, also had the greatest increase in the number of recipients. Four times as many students in public colleges received the HOPE scholarship in FY96 as in FY94. Nearly three times as many students received a grant to attend a public technical institute in FY96 as in FY94. The number of GED voucher recipients increased almost as much as the number of technical institute grant recipients. The private college grant component experienced the smallest increase in the number of recipients--with almost twice as many of Georgia’s private college students receiving a HOPE grant in FY96 as in the program’s first year.

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HOPE Enrollment by Institution Type

Table 7 and Table 8 show respectively the amount of HOPE revenues for each technical institute and the number of HOPE recipients at each technical institute.

Table 7. HOPE Revenues at Technical Institutions, Fiscal Years 1994-1996

Table 8. HOPE Students at Technical Institutions, Fiscal Years 1994-1996

Table 9 shows the amount that each two-year public college received in HOPE revenues by fiscal year. Table 10 shows the number of students that received a HOPE grant for each two-year public college.

Table 9. HOPE Revenue at Two-Year Public Colleges, Fiscal Years 1994-1996

* Formerly Brunswick College

Table 10. HOPE Students at Two-Year Public Colleges, Fiscal Years 1994-1996

* Formerly Brunswick College

The amount of HOPE revenue received by each of Georgia’s public four-year colleges and universities is reported in Table 11. Table 12 shows the number of students at Georgia’s public four-year colleges and universities who have benefited from the HOPE scholarship program.

Table 11. HOPE Students at Four-Year Public Colleges and Universities, FY 1994-1996

Table 12. HOPE Students at Four-Year Public Colleges and Universities, FY 1994-1996

In fiscal years 1994 to 1996 Georgia’s two-year private colleges received the following amounts in HOPE revenue (see Table 13). Table 14 shows the number of HOPE recipients at each of Georgia’s two-year private colleges for each fiscal year.

Table 13. HOPE Revenue at Two-Year Private Colleges, Fiscal Years 1994-1996

Table 14. HOPE Students at Two-Year Private Colleges, Fiscal Years 1994-1996

The amount of revenue received by each four-year private college or university is noted in Table 15. Table 16 shows the number of students at Georgia’s four-year private colleges and universities who have benefited from the private college component of the HOPE program.

Table 15. HOPE Revenue at Four-Year Private Colleges, Fiscal Years 1994-1996