HOPEless story

When former Georgia Governor, Zell Miller, initiated the HOPE scholarship in 1993, ‘keep HOPE alive’ became a household phrase. Now, 18 years later, the University of Georgia’s ‘B’ students might have less to celebrate.

“Students right now are living in a very interesting time,” said James Mooney,

Associate Director for Operations in UGA’s Office of Student Financial Aid. “We’re going into one of the most volatile financial aid years I’ve ever seen.”

With budget cuts threatening the HOPE, the opportunities for many Georgia students to go to college are dwindling.

Juan Carlos Cardoza-Oquendo, a junior Foundation Fellow from Decatur, GA, does not want to see any cuts to HOPE.

“I want HOPE to be need-based,” Cardoza-Oquendo said. “Maybe put an income cap on it, $100,000.”

As UGA celebrates the 50th anniversary of its desegregation, Cardoza-Oquendo believes that the HOPE has since segregated the university.

“It’s facilitating higher education for upper-middle class people who on average tend to be white,” Cardoza-Oquendo said. “ The flipside of that is it’s closing the doors to lower class people who tend to be black. There are working white folks too, but it’s mostly black.”

According to “Merit-Based College Scholarships and Car Sales,” by Terry Economics Professors Christopher Cornwell and David Mustard, “household income is an important determinant of a high-school student's academic achievement, [thus] scholarship funding generally flows to those who would have attended college anyway.”

In “The Distributional Impacts of Lottery-Funded Aid: Evidence From Georgia’s HOPE Scholarship,” Cornwell and Mustard reiterate that scholarships are more likely to be awarded to households with larger incomes.

“In contrast, counties with large shared of African Americans receive relatively fewer scholarships to state institutions, which by far is the largest category of HOPE recipients,” Cornwell and Mustard said. “Counties with poorly educated African Americans receive less aid to all types of institutions.” [how do I quote from document?]

According to Cornwell and Mustard, black enrollment rates at four-year public schools rose 21 percent between 1993 and 1997 because of HOPE while white enrollment rates only increased by percent. Yet, since black enrollment rates were much lower from the get go, a slight increase in enrollment causes a disproportionately high percentage change.

“Although HOPE has raised the African American share of college students enrolled in Georgia institutions, it does not follow that the scholarship has created more racial diversity at the institutional level,” Cornwell and Mustard said. “Because African American enrollment gains have occurred primarily at less selective institutions (like Historically Black Colleges and Universities) and not at Georgia Tech and UGA, HOPE may actually increase the stratification of Georgia colleges and universities by race.”

Cardoza-Oquendo believes that a lack of support may explain why minorities and working people do not receive the HOPE as frequently as their white middle and upper-middle class peers.

“You know, maybe their parents didn’t go to college and they couldn’t show them how to apply,” Cardoza-Oquendo said. “If you’re the first person in your family to go to college, there’s a lot you have to figure out on your own.”

Imella Sanchez, Administrative Associate to Dr. Jack Houston, Jr. in UGA’s African Studies Institute, believes that those from less privileged backgrounds may have more problems keeping HOPE.

“Some students who receive the HOPE scholarship that are first generation college students who are sometimes unable to maintain receiving the scholarship because they come from a low income background that is not as privileged as some of their fellow students,” Sanchez said. “They have to take on part-time jobs which in the mean time makes their grades suffer, so they might not maintain the HOPE scholarship.”

[To be continued…]