<p>My sister's husband lost his job so they need to move. He has job possibilities in Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia. Somebody told them to move to Georgia because of the Georgia Hope Scholarship. They claim that as long as a student has a 3.0 GPA, that they can receive full tuition to any public Georgia university. I have tried googling this and that appears to be the case but I find it hard to believe or otherwise, I would have heard a lot more about it on this board :) They have three kids, so this is quite a deal for them</p>
<p>Does anybody have any information on this? If this is true, why wouldn't somebody take advantage of this? Why don't more people move to GA for this? What am I missing?</p>
<p>It is true. Jobs are really hard to come by in GA. Only California lost more jobs between June 2009 and June 2010 than GA. If he has an offer, it is worth considering.</p>
<p>GA’s pubilc k-12 system isn’t the strongest and you have to do some work, and I believe spend some money, to find a decent public system. </p>
<p>GA has very few top tiered public universities, really only 2. University of Georgia and GA Tech. Tech is a great school for engineering, science and math, otherwise it isn’t a fit for most students. </p>
<p>Are they ok with 2nd/3rd/4th tier colleges and directional universities? Many parents here aren’t and if their kids don’t get into UGA (which is very competitive) they head out of state anyway. </p>
<p>This only covers tuition. The cost of attendance, even with HOPE, is about 8k-12K at UGA and/or GT. The other schools may or may not be less, depending on locations and housing options.</p>
<p>If I had children that were really strong students, I would lean towards VA or NC because their k-12 schools and their university systems are both better.</p>
<p>It just depends on what you are looking for. I have been happy with my school system and am not quite sure what lastminutemom means by spend some money.</p>
<p>Hope GPA is 3.0 and only your academic classes count toward that GPA. </p>
<p>I don’t believe that UGA and GT are the only options for good colleges and universities in GA and I also don’t agree that most people here send their kids OOS if they don’t get into UGA.<br>
It just depends on what you are looking for as a parent and as a student.</p>
<p>Thanks. You guys have been very helpful. It just seemed too good to be true. They are moving from Michigan with a very good public university system to GA. I know they expect their kids to go to good universities. Maybe not top ten, but very good. I did suggest VA or NC for that reason, but they feel that the Hope scholarship is too good to pass up. A 3.0 just doesn’t seem that hard to attain to be awarded full tuition. </p>
<p>By the way, how long do they need to live in Georgia for the Hope? Two of their kids are already in high school.</p>
<p>A Dependent Student meets the Georgia Residency requirements, for purposes of the State Programs, if his or her Parent has established and maintained Domicile in the State of Georgia for at least 12 consecutive months immediately preceding the first day of classes of the school term (semester or quarter) for which the student is seeking assistance from a State Program</p>
<p>I interpret this as you need to have established residency at least one year before you are eligible for applying for hope.</p>
<p>There is a whole layer of really solid students who aren’t getting into UGA who want a different experience than say GA Southern, N. Georgia etc. It isn’t to say these aren’t good schools, they just aren’t the same as a strong state flagship program. I happen to think that GA College and State University is a really big secret, but with no real sports program it isn’t what many kids are looking for.</p>
<p>To get into UGA, you need far more than a 3.0. The middle 50 percent of this year’s freshman class had a 3.72-4.03 GPA . Here are some other stats:</p>
<p>Mid-50% range for the SAT CR and M: 1220-1400
Mid-50% range for the SAT Writing: 580-680
Mid-50% range for the ACT: 27-31
Average number of AP/IB courses: over 5.5</p>
<p>If your niece/nephew enroll at a high school with lots of AP opportunities, they will need to take many of those courses if UGA is on their radar. (And from my experience, do well in them.) UGA does, of course, look at what classes are offered and doesn’t penalize students who come from high schools with just a few APs, as long as the student has taken a rigorous curriclum. </p>
<p>I believe that the book and fees will be gone from HOPE in the next few years. Soon enough, it will be tuition only. The book and fees amount has been steadily declining and the need to raise tuition at GA colleges and universities will necessitate some changes.</p>
<p>They need to figure out what they can afford for housing, where they will be working (because commute really matters here) and then start looking at schools. I don’t know the timing of their moves, but some systems start next week and by the 4th week of August, everyone is back in school! </p>
<p>GA HOPE is funded by lottery proceeds. The proceeds from the lottery fund both the HOPE scholarship, the HOPE Grant (for technical schools) and public pre-K.</p>
<p>Lottery profits have risen but so have the number of students using HOPE and the cost of those colleges/universities.</p>
<p>You also have to maintain a 3.0 GPA while in college to keep your Hope. So while a lot of students start out with Hope, they may not keep it the whole time in college. You would think those students would keep their grades up but you never know.</p>
<p>But my point was that if getting into UGA required a much higher GPA than 3.0, doesn’t that mean that everybody there is going for free? Except, of course, out of state students. I don’t see how UGA can handle that financially.</p>