<p>All UF Class of 2015 admits please be aware of the following two developments that occurred over the last week. The Florida Legislature is set to consider a variety of legislation that will consider amoung other options an up to 30% increase of tuition at state universities, effective immediately. The UF president proposed this last week to the Faculty Senate who voted against the measure. Secondly legislation will be filed in the Florida House and Senate by various legislators on Tuesday, March 8, 2011 that will seek substanial cuts in funding to Bright Futures, immediate reduction in the annual amounts, means testing for actual need, raising the requirements GPA and SAT/ACT wise, requiring receipients to stay in Florida for employment after graduation or pay it back and in the case of some legislators the total abolition of the program. Contact your legislator by phone, e-mail or letter and express your opinion. The intent is to ram this through the Florida Legislature and get it signed by Gov. Scott as stealthly as possible.</p>
<p>They honestly need to correct how they hand out BF scholarships, if I’m not mistaken you need like 1270 M+V SAT, 28 ACT and a 3.5GPA. They need to raise all of their standards to a 4.0UW GPA, 33+ACT and at least 2100 SAT. That way we can ensure that money is being awarded to students who are academically gifted and put in the work needed to achieve those stats. I could walk into the ACT or SAT testing center, and guess and still achieve higher scores than the BF requirements.</p>
<p>Many students with 33 ACT are not going to go to school in Florida. They are going to go out of state to the Ivies or other top schools.</p>
<p>lol a 33? The average ACT for stanford, Harvard, and yale is a 32. Why would the bare minimum to get only TUITION covered be higher that what it takes to get into the best schools in the nation? That makes no sense. Do you understand that the best school you can get into using BF is UF? And BF only gives you $5020 MAX?</p>
<p>I think those stats are just a little too high…</p>
<p>They should just higher the standards for receiving bright futures. And I hope that last bit about having to be required to stay in state for employment will not be enacted.</p>
<p>Overall, the intentions of the Bright Futures program were good and its pretty sad to see it dwindling away due to lower funds.</p>
<p>
What’s more sad is that the funds are depleting because the government is using funding that was earmarked for the Bright Futures program (that’s what one of the news articles said). So because of the government’s inefficiency, the people pay the price.</p>
<p>Isn’t the maximum BF scholarship for those graduating this year $125 per credit hour or $3750 for 30 annual credits? Just trying to confirm. I saw someone type $5020 as the max.</p>
<p>Nevermind - I checked at the highest is $3750 per year.</p>
<p>I wrote Governor Scott just a bit ago. We don’t need more “need based” aid since there is already federal programs for needy students. We need to reward those kids who have worked hard and are actually college material.</p>
<p>This is absolutely atrotious form on behalf of the government and UF. Obviously BF is going extinct quickly. It has been forseeable. It has been a huge elephant in the room for quite a while. The fact that BF had gone far beyond its original purpose of keeping bright students in the state of Florida for their college education has been completely ignored. Obviously, in response to that problem, you have to make cuts; preferably multiple small cuts over long periods of time, ie “phasing out”. Instead of properly warning incoming students, APPLICANTS, and current students; they pull the rug and send emails over the summer informing us of yet another large cut. </p>
<p>Not saying it isn’t the student’s job to use intuition in determining the value of the Florida Academic Scholarship; but it is wrong to continue advertising the availability of this program to high school students. And all of this in light of the OBVIOUS solution of simply raising standards to keep the program available.</p>
<p>The BEST solution is for the state to just send this money to the universities themselves so they can hand out merit based awards as they see fit.</p>
<p>@jenaS62: your post came awfully close to insinuating that poor people weren’t actually college material and that need based grants were permitting those lower folk to dirty up your stomping grounds with their grimy hands.</p>
<p>need based scholarships are much more important than academic scholarships. if you can get into a good school and pay for it, you’re already way better of than people who can get into a good university and can’t pay for it.</p>
<p>
I don’t think he/she came close to insinuating it… I think it clearly was insinuated.
Since when does being need-based have ANY bearing on one’s work ethic or being worthy of college?</p>
<p>Anyways, it’s highly insulting, and I’m already regretting having spent these couple of minutes dwelling on it.</p>
<p>My son will be starting UF in the Fall of 2011. Does this mean he can get BF for a year or two then they just pull the rug out or add other requirements, or if you qualify now, do you get “grandfathered” in on your BF award as long as you have the grades to continue to receive the original award?</p>
<p>there are no concrete plans for eliminating BF. everything at this point is speculation.</p>
<p>the ramblings around the campus newspaper are pushing for a grandfather option, but this may be unrealistic.</p>
<p>i wouldn’t say to plan for them to eliminate BF, but its definitely something thats on the table.</p>
<p>more commentary from me: i think that getting rid of BF would be sort of humilating for florida. as ironic as it is, its not a terrible idea to tax the dumber people (the lottery is sometimes referred to as the stupid-tax) to pay for education, but having a lottery that only feeds into the general fund is.</p>
<p>^ Don’t you have to re-apply each year? If so, then he wouldn’t be grandfathered in, I assume.</p>
<p>Yeah, you have to re-qualify every year based on grades but don’t have to re-apply. That’s why I was wondering if it will be based on your original award date or if they can just change everything at will regardless of what you qualified for in the past.</p>
<p>No changes for BF in the past have grandfathered anyone. It is unlikely, once changes are made, that there will be grandfather clauses. This is unfortunate. When there are budget cuts that needs to be made, they are generally needed immediately.</p>
<p>Sorry everyone! Upon re-reading my post, I can see where I left a negative impression. I did not write that very well. I did not mean that need based students are not college material. What I meant was that there are already need based program and that BF should be for high achievers with no bearing on financial need. I am all for doing away with the lower level scholarship (and I have two kids that would fall in the range) and keeping the high level scholarship for those that have worked hard throughout highschool.</p>
<p>The requirements for bright futures are already high enough. You guys need to realize that Florida has a HUGE URM population. Roughly 2 percent of AA’s 5 percent of Hispanics would qualify for 100 percent bright futures. It’s not like the government is handing out bright futures scholarships like candy. IMO, Florida’s economy is already down the drain. Raising the standards won’t make a difference, bright futures will get cut anyway.</p>
<p>Does anyone realize that the intent of approving a lottery in Florida was to fund education.</p>
<p>The person who said that the top of the line scholarship for bright futures should be an unweighted 4.0 should take the needle out of his arm and wake up to the real world.</p>
<p>Basically speaking this scholarship’s intent was to give everyone a chance whether is was a 50% or a 100% award to get a college/tech school education. </p>
<p>There are so many on this site who look down their long noses at people who are not in the 1% of the population who get all a’s in high school/college. Take heart people, you with the 2350 sat scores that have the audacity to come on this site and ask people if you should take the sat again…grow up!!! Apply to Harvard and get a full ride, get out of the state. </p>
<p>This is to give us normal folk a few bucks in our pockets to get a higher education.</p>