With respect to the Hope scholarship tuition award, I will set the 2010-2011 tuition rate at 1.00 since it is the base line used for future tuition awards. Next each subsequent year’s tuition award amount will be calculated. It is a little complicated since tuition rates increase every year due to tuition inflation and the Hope Scholarship award amount is tied to a fixed tuition amount from the 2010-2011 school year, the actual Hope Scholarship award amount must be normalized to account for the tuition inflation rate occurring every year since 2010-2011 and the fixed 90% of the 2010-2011 tuition rate.
School Year Hope Scholarship Coverage

2010-2011       1.0 (Tuition) Plus mandatory Hope qualified fees and $300 in book allowance
2011-2012        tuition increase of 3.0% or 1.03 in terms of 2010-2011 tuition
2011-2012        =0.9/1.03 or 0.8738 (Normalized to 2010-2011) No mandatory Hope qualified fees and No book allowance
2012-2013        tuition increase of 2.5% above 2011-2012 for most universities but higher for UGA (5%), Ga Tech (6%), and Ga State (3.5%). I will use the University of Georgia rate of 5% since this is the largest university in the state of Georgia. Given this, in terms of 2010-2011, the rate is 1.0 * (1.03) * (1.05) or 1.0815
2012-2013        0.9/1.0815 or 0.8322 (Normalized to 2010-2011)

In terms of percent of tuition, it looks like this:

School Year Hope Scholarship Coverage
2010-2011 100%
2011-2012 87.38% (Note, the coverage was never 90% due to inflation rate in tution of 3% from 2010-2011 to 2011-2012)
2012-2013 83.22%

This is only the tuition amount and does not include the $300 book fee and Hope qualified mandatory fees that were eliminated in the 2011-2012 term.

As you can see, tuition inflation is quickly eroding the tuition coverage and the rate of the Georgia Hope Scholarship tuition coverage continues to drop each year due to the multiplicative effect of year over year tuition inflation. Also, each college and university is adding to or increasing mandatory fees which becomes an additional component not covered by this exercise.

We can easlily project the Georgia Hope Scholarship tuition award amount for the next five years. If the tuition rate increases 5% year over year, the coverage looks like this:

School Year Hope Scholarship Coverage

• 2010-2011 100%
• 2011-2012 87.38%
• 2012-2013 83.22%
• 2013-2014 79.26%
• 2014-2015 75.48%
• 2015-2016 71.89%
• 2016-2017 68.46%
• 2017-2018 65.20%

In other words the Georgia Hope Scholarship will support less than two thirds of the tuition rate by 2017-2018 which is a short 7 years from the 90% of the 2010-2011 tuition pegged by the Georgia state legislature. If the University System of Georgia continue the 5% year over year tuition rate of inflation for an additional 5 more years, the Georgia Hope Scholarship tuition coverage will drop to around 50% of the tuition rate in the 2022-2023 school year. This does assume that lottery funds actually provide the money required and that the state of Georgia does not change the Hope program.
What does this mean for the Hope Scholarship? Either the Hope tuition coverage will need to be reset to a percentage of a future school term tuition amount, or the requirements for the Hope Scholarship will need to be tightened considerably to reduce the number of eligible students being awarded the Hope, or the University System of Georgia will need to stop the over the top inflationary spending which drives up tuition rates higher the normal inflation.

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What does it mean: Scholarships in Georgia?

First, what is scholarship?  If you search for the meaning of scholarship, you will find two major definitions:

1. Academic study or achievement; learning of a high level.
2. A grant or payment made to support a student’s education, awarded on the bases of academic or other achievement.

Please, note the words “academic study” and “achievement” and “awarded on the bases of academic…”.  These all, unequivocally, bind scholarship with academic merit and not with other measurements such as financial, being left-handed, from a particular ancestry, or other measurements not having to do with the two bullet points listed above.

In order for there to be scholarships in Georgia, there first have to be scholars, and these scholars must be rewarded in such a way as to pay for or support the student’s education in the state of Georgia.  It really is a simple definition easily understood by all.  However, when we begin to mix the political correctness of denying the fact that merit actually does separate people into two groups, those that have achieved excellence and those that have not, we cut down excellence and fertilize mediocrity.

My hope is that the citizens and legislature of the state of Georgia, hold to the true meaning of scholarships in Georgia which excellence in academic achievement that is awarded to those who attain it.

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