<p>Tina, I don’t think you’re looking at it from the right perspective. College is not a right in this country and to say that you would have to take out loans if bright futures didn’t cover the meager $4k/year that it costs to attend a state university completely ignores the fact that there are people taking out $100-$200 thousand in loans to attend some private schools.</p>
<p>Bright Futures costs the state a lot of money. As has been stated in this thread, the cost of running it has tripled since its inception and is becoming a real burden to the state. Therefore, it’s in the best interests of the state financially to give the students it deems most promising (that is, those who exceeded the current criteria for getting the scholarship by the largest amount) the scholarship. Politically, perhaps not so much benefit would be gleaned, however, but the original intention was to raise the standards as time went on.</p>
<p>As for your statement over the SAT not being a good indicator of how smart you are, please suggest a better alternative, and don’t say grades because those aren’t normalized across schools. Just ask Georgia how basing their Bright Futures on high school grades alone turned out with regards to grade inflation.</p>