Hope Scholarships
Hope, standing for Helping Outstanding Pupils Educationally, was part of the US state of Georgia's original lottery spending proposal.
Georgia is a rather low ranked state in primary education (public schools, K-12), and has a rather large population that cannot afford to send students to college.
Over the past decade or so there have been attempts to change the education problems. The most succesful so far though has been the HOPE scholarship. Given as of now to about 600,000 college students and totaling up to 1.5 Billion in grant money.
Yes, you must live in Georgia for a time to get the scholarship. Let me list the information on how one is eligable.
- A student now must have a 3.0 GPA (yes that's only a B average), upon graduating from a Georgia High School.
- If they graduated before 1993, they must have a 3.0 after 45 credit hours of college.
- A student receiving a GED (diploma able to be gained by a high school dropout) is able to receive $500 for the first year, and will then be able to receive full funding after a 45 credit hours with a B average.
- It is said to be possible for out of state students attending school in Georgia to gain the HOPE scholarship, but that might be a myth. I can't tell you, as I was a Georgia resident for just barely long enough in high school to qualify for the HOPE.
In public colleges, students have the ability to get tuition fully paid. Even in private colleges, grant money through the HOPE and other Georgia grants can reach $4000 a semester.
Most agree it is a fairly easy program to get into and goes far to equalize the learning gap in Georgia.
It should be noted that the US government approved a HOPE scholarship a few years ago also.
Please see:
http://www.gsfc.org/hope/
which incidentaly was the source for my specific information.