HOPE Scholarship in Georgia

Changes in the HOPE Scholarship

The HOPE Scholarship program was created as a result of Georgia’s voters voting yes to an amendment to create the Georgia Lottery in 1992. Governor Zell Miller established three programs, which were to be funded by the lottery. The HOPE Scholarship, Georgia Pre-K program, The HOPE Grant.

The Hope Scholarship since its inception has provided benefits to 1.2 million students pursing post-secondary education, totaling more than five billion dollars.

In recent years the increased enrollment of students and the rising tuitions, was requiring more money to be paid out than the lottery was bringing in. In order to prevent the funds from running out of money (which was estimated to be in 2013) and to preserve the HOPE Scholarship for future generations the Georgia Legislative body made revisions to the program to support this effort.

These changes will not only affect the students seeking admission to the University System of Georgia for fall 2011, but also those students currently enrolled in the system. A large number of students currently enrolled in the system protested to the changes which affected them, as they felt they should have been grandfathered in. However, the change was made and applied to all students.

For information regarding the changes, you can go to the Georgia Student Finance Commission website : http://www.gsfc.org/gsfcnew/HopeProgramm.CFM?sec=3 and click on GAcollege411.