<p>The Bright Futures Scholarship was first created in 1997, and was meant to emulate the Hope Scholarship. Originally the Program dispersed just above 42,000 scholarships for about $70 million dollars. Over the last decade the cost for the scholarship has balooned substantially. The Scholarship currently costs the lotterys coffers more than $436.1 million, with about 170,000 students taking advantage of the program.</p>
<p>The requirements for attaining the scholarship were meant to increase each year but have not, resulting in the current state of the award. </p>
<p>This is not a candy shop we are dealing with. A 970 on the SAT is around 50 points below the national average. At the very least: we need to change the 75 percent scholarship during the next legislative session. Giving scholarship money to students who are around the bottom 35th percentile is downright criminal. A good portion of the $400 million a year in annual expenses is wasted on students who need remediation.</p>
<p>National Embarrassment? More like National Envy.
Many states don’t have anything like that. It may not be perfect but it’s a lot better than nothing which is what many other states have.</p>
<p>They should split Bright Futures into two categories: 1) Merit-based, and 2) Need-based.
The merit standards should be made much, much harder than they are now.</p>
<p>Call it an embarrassment if you like, but the state is going to lose top students because of the changes already made. I know our family is exploring other options. Get rid of bright futures and lose even more students.</p>
<p>^ UF & FSU are two of the best deals in Higher Education.</p>
<p>In fact: UF is the 2nd best value in all of Higher Education according to Kiplinger. If Florida residents object to miniscule tuition increases then they would be better off going somewhere else. Also have to consider that cost of living in Gainesville is insanely cheap as well (by national standards)…</p>
<p>Floridians need to keep in perspective: that a college education is an investment, and not an entitlement…</p>
<p>If you want rock bottom prices then go to the community colleges that are being converted into 4 year institions.</p>
<p>It’s an embarrassment because it gives nearly the same amount of money to someone who scored a 970 as someone apt enough to score a 1600. Now, instead of raising the standards, they’re hurting the person who scored a 970 as much as the person who scored the 1600. To an extent, success in life is correlated with SAT scores, and so keeping in-state someone who scored in the top 1% is much more beneficial than someone who scored a 970. I hope that in the future the legislature raises the requirements to insure that there’s plenty of money to keep more of the top students in state.</p>
<p>I honestly doubt the best and brightest students would leave the state if the BFs merit requirements were made harder. Why? Because the best and brightest would still qualify for BFs even with harder requirements.</p>
<p>The program is a Godsend to those who are less fortunate financially. It is for that reason the bar is low for the Medallion scholarship. Many of these kids go to CC, and would not be able to go without this money. This is embarrassment . </p>
<p>It would be unfair to those who are disadvantaged to raise the bar. It would make sense to have a financial need to be able to take advantage of the scholarships. </p>
<p>For the folks in the Glades, Pahokee, for those in the Big Bend area, for those in Liberty City, this money is what gets them ahead in life. Leave the bar alone for SAT scores. These kids have no access to test prep, and will never score as high as others more fortunate. Adding financial need is what makes sense.</p>
<p>Top 1% students will have opportunities everywhere. It is those with potential that has not been recognized that will suffer if the bar is raised too high.</p>
<p>^ Yada yada yada - this could be construed as class warfare rhetoric.</p>
<p>The program wasted $436 million of Florida’s tax dollars on substandard students just last year alone. Sounds like a terrible investment to spend that kind of money on students who are below the national average. Raise the SAT standards for Pete’s sake.</p>
<p>The argument you always hear against raising the BF standards always comes down to being unfair to the economically disadvantaged. The problem with that argument is that BF is a MERIT-based scholarship…it is not NEED-based. That is why I advocate changing the BF to two different types…one for exceptional scholarship and one for the truly needy (but still academically qualified). As it stands now, there is way too much money wasted on mediocre students that are from families that can easily afford the tuition. If that money was re-directed, it could much more effectively utilized.</p>
<p>I wish more states had programs like BF. I see no reason to raise the test scores. These are the students who may most need these aid to make it to college.</p>
<p>How do you all feel about the Florida Gold Seal Scholarship? Do you think vocational students deserve a scholarship?
What about the Florida Resident’s Access Grant (FRAG)? Do you think Florida private university students deserve this assistance as well as receiving Bright Futures money?</p>
<p>Unless Florida’s economy improves soon, which doesn’t appear too likely, Bright Futures is going to get watered down more in future for everyone regardless if student is rich, poor, smart, or not so smart. The state of Florida is in big trouble money-wise and unfortunately public higher education in Florida is going to suffer even more. Florida too is going to lose many of its college graduates to other states that offer better employment opportunities.</p>