HOPE falls short of meeting scholarship needs for low-income students, report says

Georgia's public colleges are increasingly out of reach for low- and middle income students, according to a new report.

The lottery-funded HOPE Scholarship, which students are awarded based on grades and test scores, helps hundreds of thousands of students. But for many it's just not enough, and harder to hold onto for students who must also work to pay their way through college, according to Georgia Budget and Policy Institute senior education policy analyst Claire Suggs.

"Paying for college is now a struggle for many students and their families, especially those at the lowest income levels," Suggs wrote.

Now it's time for Georgia to focus on building need-based scholarship programs, especially if the state is to have the kind of educated workforce needed for the jobs of tomorrow, according to the GBPI report.

Suggs found that HOPE Scholarship money disproportionately goes to white and Asian-American students, and disproportionately less to African American and Hispanic students when she analyzed statistics from the Technical College System of Georgia and the University System of Georgia. Also left out: older students, the analysis found.

The Technical College System of Georgia is the state's system of publicly-funded technical colleges, including Athens Technical College; The University System of Georgia, which includes the University of Georgia, is the state's publicly-funded system of 29 colleges and universities.

Median tuition and fees at state public four-year colleges is now 44 percent of the median income of families in the lowest 20 percent of income, according to the report.

Only 30 percent of low-income students receive either the HOPE or Zell Miller Scholarship, while 42 percent of middle and upper income students do; and low-income students now are about 48 percent of students in the university system, Suggs found.

The HOPE Scholarship covers about 84 percent of tuition costs, and the Zell Miller Scholarship, harder to get, covers 100 percent of tuition, but neither covers the additional fees colleges charge, nor other expenses such as food, shelter and books. Many students from modest or low-income families also get a federal Pell grant to help pay for college — including about two-thirds of black students and more than half of Hispanic students, compared to about a third of white students, Suggs wrote.

The numbers of students who need help has also increased sharply, Suggs found. About 27 percent of students in the university system as of fall 2006 got a Pell grant; by fall 2014, 44.5 percent were receiving Pell grants, Suggs found.

But the average Pell grant of $3,634 only covers about 22 percent of what it costs to attend the average state public college, and only about 15 percent at research universities such as the University of Georgia. About 97,000 students had unmet financial need in 2013-14, even with scholarships and a $5,500 subsided loan.

And while poverty has been growing in Georgia, tuition costs have risen steeply as the state legislature cut back on education funding. Tuition and fees now account for about half the cost of operating the university system, up from about 25 percent in the 1990s, Suggs found.

Adding it all up, Suggs found an unmet student financial aid need of $660 million as of the 2013-2014 school year — compared to $28.8 million available in need-based aid.

One result has been increasing student debt levels as students and their families borrow money to make it through college.

And money is a major reason students are forced out of college — state colleges and universities dropped about 13,000 students from fall 2014 to fall 2015 because they couldn't come up with money for tuition and fees, Suggs wrote.

Students can work, but researchers have found when students work too many hours, they're more likely to drop out.

Suggs also found:

• 20 percent of black students and 36 percent of Hispanic students receive either a HOPE Scholarship, or the Zell Miller Scholarship. About 46 percent of Asian students and 45 percent of white students get HOPE or Zell Miller Scholarships. Nearly two-thirds of students who get HOPE are white, or 64 percent, while 78 percent of the Zell Miller Scholars are white, though whites now make up only about 52 percent of the students in Georgia colleges, down from 65 percent a decade ago.

• A higher percentage of low-income students have gotten access to merit-based aid in the Technical College System of Georgia, according to the report. But like the HOPE Scholarship, the HOPE Grant falls short of meeting what students actually need to attend technical college, according to Suggs' analysis.

"The limited reach of Georgia's financial aid portfolio is not sufficient to meet the state's workforce development goals in today's rapidly changing and fiercely competitive global economy," Suggs wrote. "In a quickly diversifying state that also struggles with widespread poverty, students need more options to gain valued skills and enter successful careers, regardless of their families' background or bank account."

The report also proposed three potential remedies, beginning with creating a state needs-based financial aid program, independent of the HOPE program.

Lawmakers could also restore the HOPE Grant in technical colleges to its original form, when it paid full tuition and fees, instead of just a portion.

Lawmakers could also expand the HOPE Scholarships eligibility to include people who have been out of high school more than seven years, the GBPI report suggests. That would help older students in their 20s and 30s, and fit with a state initiative that encourages older people who dropped out of post-secondary school to go back and finish, Suggs wrote.

Follow reporter Lee Shearer at www.facebook.com/LeeShearerABH or https://twitter.com/LeeShearer

Source: HOPE falls short of meeting scholarship needs for low-income students, report says