Chris Lawrence and Alex from Marginal Revolution have interesting posts on the Hope Scholarship Program in GA.
About ten years ago, Zell Miller inititated the Hope Scholarship Program. Using funds from a new state lottery, Miller enabled every student in the state with a B average or better to get a free ride at a state college. The idea was to increase the number of poor, but smart students in college. How has it all worked out?
Well, not so great according to Chris and Alex. Middle class students who were planning on going to college anyway are the main beneficiaries; they seem to be using their savings to buy cars. It hasn’t increased the number of poor students, though their parents are probaly financing the middle class students by purchasing lottery tickets. It has resulted in grade inflation in high schools. The only benefit is that it may keep smart students instate. Disaster.
The lessons of this implementation is that if you’re going to aim a program at a certain population, then you have to make it airtight so that the soccer moms keep their hands off. But more importantly, any school reform has to start at the youngest of grades. It is too late to attempt to reform education at the high school level. Better to use all those lottery dollars and dump them into state of the art nursery and elementary schools targeted at certain communities.
Apt. 11d 
I think you’re dismissing too quickly the benefits of keeping smart kids in state. Some states don’t need it, some could benefit greatly from it.
Education reform may start at the lower grades, but if you talented middle class kids are leaving there will be no tax base to pay for reform.
LikeLike
Just wondering why you mention soccer moms? Not to jump to conclusions, but don’t many children have two parents? And aren’t the cars being purchased by the students themselves?
LikeLike
I browsed thru a couple of the research papers at http://www.terry.uga.edu/hope/research.html
and there was no mention of students buying cars.
Those studies did prove, however, that students take a lighter courseload and are quicker to drop classes to keep their grade points up, since you need to maintain a B-average to keep the Hope scholarship. I don’t see where the proof is that the program is worthless. I’m envious of Georgia college students, because they will be graduating with less debt than is the norm elsewhere. I sure wish that Iowa would think of using lottery proceeds to fund higher education.
LikeLike
The car issue came up in by the bloggers that I mentioned in the beginning of the post, but I didn’t check it out.
In the original program, there was a $66,000 income cap, but Miller took it off after a couple of years. Greatful suburbanites then reelected him.
Look, it is great if middle class school loan debt is lessened, but I would like to see more lower income kids taking advantage of this program. To get more smart lower income kids in college, you have to start helping them earlier than high school.
There is also something icky about the lottery, which is a poor tax, being used to help middle class kids. Why not keep the money in the neighborhood?
LikeLike