HOPE scholars will face spring hurdle

Last week, many students received an email from the Office of Student Financial Planning and Services announcing changes to the way eligibility for the HOPE scholarship program is calculated.

The email, sent to students Feb. 2, states, "As of spring term 2005 the HOPE regulations require all students be checked at the end of each spring term.

"This means spring term will be a checkpoint in addition to the 30, 60 and 90 hours checkpoints."

This new requirement eliminates the ability of students to ration the number of hours they take each semester to draw out HOPE funding for as long as possible.

"It was specifically a money-saving procedure," said Marie Mons, director of Student Financial Planning and Services, referring to the new checkpoint implemented by the state legislature.

An overall GPA of 3.0 or better qualifies students for HOPE funds, which covers tuition as well as $300 toward books. Because of the popularity of the program, state politicians have sought to keep the program and decrease spending.

Through the current plan, the required 3.0 average has not changed, and funding for students has not dropped.

The compromise is that with students being checked each spring in addition to every 30, 60 and 90 hours, more students are likely to lose HOPE earlier than expected.

Mons said that students who take fewer than 15 credit hours in the fall and spring semesters and don't maintain a 3.0 average throughout the year, have a somewhat unfair advantage due to the 30 hour rule.

Under the old system, these students would not be checked, and they would get an extra semester's worth of HOPE funds.

The concept of the new regulation is to eliminate this unfair advantage so that more money can be made available to students who maintain the 3.0 average.

"The only thing that's changing is that we're giving freshmen a year instead of a year and a half to do what they need to do," Mons said.

Students seem to be taking the changes without much reaction.

According to Mons, there haven't been any outraged complaints from the student body.

Considering the alternatives of either cutting the money for books and tuition or raising the grade requirement, some students shrugged off the new checkpoints.

"It's only going to hurt the people who try to slip through the system. just keep your grades up and you won't have to worry about it," said Warren Keith Smith, a first-year transfer student and Architecture major.

Mons said that keeping a 3.0 at Tech is no easy achievement.

In this case, raising the grade requirement would only hurt students and encourage them to attend less academically challenging institutions in order to receive aid.

There are other modifications to the program that will make it easier for the state of Georgia to fund more students attending in-state schools.

Such modifications include applying HOPE funds to high school programs such as Joint Enrollment.

There have also been changes in how attempted hours are calculated. If students sign up for a class with the intention of possibly dropping that course, even those dropped hours will count towards the hourly checkpoints.

The scenario has come up where students will sign up for 21 credit hours with the intention of dropping a few courses before the drop/fail deadline.

While this may not hurt students' averages, it only decreases the time to pull their grade up to a 3.0 if necessary. Mons said that students should communicate with their academic advisors in order to prevent cases where dropping courses is necessary and to prevent any other problems.

While students can lose the scholarship at the new spring semester checkpoint in addition to the old 30, 60 and 90 checks, the only points at which a student can regain the scholarship remain the original 30, 60 and 90 credit hour checkpoints.