Drawbacks of HOPE -- What Drawbacks?

Monday, February 7 2005 - 0 Comments

I caught a link over at Marginal Revolution that exposes some problems resulting from the Georgia HOPE scholarship. As a recipient of the HOPE scholarship when I attended (and eventually graduated from) UGA, it's hard for me to think of the program as a bad thing.

I know it's just one anecdotal data point, but I chose to stay in Georgia for my education because my tuition would be paid for by HOPE. I received a B.S. in Physics which, for me, was damn challenging. I maintained the HOPE scholarship the entire time but ran over in credits so I had to pay for a couple of hours at the end out of pocket (HOPE provides only 4 years of tuition assuming a full-time schedule -- I think that's 120 hours still). I knew plenty of people that lost their scholarships after the first year.

My point is that there do exist students who studied relatively challenging subject matter even though it might have been easier to keep HOPE doing something else. Also, I find myself now done with school with zero debt -- a very difficult task to achieve these days.

There might be something to the High School grade inflation thing though. I know enterance GPAs at UGA have crept up steadily since I was admitted, and I've often remarked that I couldn't get into the school today if I applied. However, at least when I was there, the University didn't seem to make it any easier to swing a B in any classes. Of course, I don't have a pre-HOPE record to compare it to.

I would say that the HOPE scholarship has genuinely increased the quality of the students at UGA and over time, the faculty and reputation of the University as a whole. There was a time, not too many years ago, when the school didn't have a very well thought of academic program. They've come so far in that regard, but I think public Universities in general have over the last 15-20 years, so it's hard to subtract out the "rising tide" effect and look at HOPE's contribution alone.

I think it's also worth reiterating that the HOPE scholarship is funded by lottery money, so it's not a direct tax.

All in all, I'd say I benefitted greatly from the program without gaming the system.

Posted by Ben at February 7, 2005 08:53 PM

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