<p> Make scholarships more difficult to win by raising the Academic Scholars SAT score from 1,270 to 1,290 in two steps by 2014. The qualifying Medallion Scholars SAT score would rise in three steps from 970 to 1,050 by 2014.</p>
<p> No longer allow restoration of scholarships to students who lose their grants because of low grades.</p>
<p> Reduce the number of covered credits from 110 percent of program requirements to 100 percent.</p>
<p> Limit each scholarship to a period of four years. The grants now can be spread over seven years of school attendance.</p>
<p>“— Make scholarships more difficult to win by raising the Academic Scholars SAT score from 1,270 to 1,290 in two steps by 2014. The qualifying Medallion Scholars SAT score would rise in three steps from 970 to 1,050 by 2014.”</p>
<p>That right there is the only one I fully agree with, but what about ACT scores?</p>
<p>“— Reduce the number of covered credits from 110 percent of program requirements to 100 percent” </p>
<p>What do they mean by this? It hasn’t even been 100 percent for awhile.</p>
<p>The article did not mention what changes to ACT scores are being proposed.</p>
<p>Below is information regarding the current 110% policy from the Bright Futures website. They are referring to the number of credits the scholarship will pay for:</p>
<p>A student may receive up to 110% of his/her program of study or 132 semester hours (or the equivalent in quarter or clock hours) toward completion of a certificate or a first baccalaureate degree, or for up to seven years from high school graduation (if the student was initially funded within three years after high school graduation), whichever comes first. This also applies to students in 3/2 programs who are classified as an undergraduate. Graduate or undergraduate classification is determined by the postsecondary institution. Unused hours may not be used for further course funding after a student earns a baccalaureate degree.</p>
<p>They mean they would cover 100% of credits for classes required for graduation at whichever scholarship level you qualify for. The current 110% level theoretically allowed you to take extra classes that you didn’t need for graduation (underwater basket weaving, anyone?).</p>
<p>Another article also mentions higher GPA and a financial requirement:</p>
<p>The Senate proposal (foreshadowed in a meeting last month) not only caps the tuition at current-year levels (even though tuition is likely to go up by as much as 15 percent for universities next year.) It also:</p>
<pre><code>* Raises the GPA and SAT requirements.
Shrinks from 7 years to 4 years the time in which students have to get their tuition covered.
Shrinks the maximum number of credits covered by Bright Futures from 110 percent of the number required for a degree to 100 percent.
Removes the provision that students who lose their eligibility because of a low college GPA can get the scholarship back. Once you lose it, you would be out of luck for the rest of college.
Requires Bright Futures students to fill out a financial disclosure form – suggesting lawmakers are moving toward turning it from a merit program to a need-based program.
</code></pre>
<p>I found an article with the proposed ACT scores:</p>
<p>The senate proposal would mandate students have a 1290 SAT score or 29 ACT for a full scholarship in 2013-14 school year. They currently need a 1270, plus a 3.5 high school GPA. The requirement for a partial scholarship would rise to 1050 SAT, or a 23 ACT, rather than the current requirements of a 3.0 high school GPA and a 970 SAT or 20 ACT.</p>
<p>The proposed bill by the state senate education committee changing Bright Futures has a long ways to go before it might become law. It is full of holes and will be kicked all over the place the next few weeks by legislators and Florida’s public. For starters the more drastic change for required scores for the 75% award will draw a lot of flak as being discriminatory toward minorities and poorer. As cybermom pointed out in above post, the bill has a change that FAFSA and EFC be submitted for Bright Futures eligiblity in future(lines 711-714 in below link.) Looks like financial need is more likely in future for Bright Future awards.</p>
<p>Another interesting change is allowing Bright Futures to be used for a semester of graduate school tuition if award is not all used up in undergraduate school (lines 872-879 below link.)</p>
<p>If you can’t crack 1050 on the sat, you don’t deserve a scholarship that is worth over $11,000 dollars. It doesn’t discriminate against those who are poor, but rather those who shouldn’t be taking public resources to attend college. Right now, people are receiving sub average scores, and taking their Bright Futures scholarship to community colleges, where they are put in remedial classes and/or not succeeding. That needs to stop, and I believe the proposed changes will stop it.</p>
<p>All of them seem pretty fair to me, although I don’t quite understand the 110% one. Either way it seems reasonable but I really don’t like the precedent by rolling back BF benefits every year while significantly increasing the cost of tuition. The majority party seems to think that the solution to every budget deficit is to slash funding to education, regardless of whether it’s at the elementary level or college level. We’ll see how far they try to take this in the coming years. My county’s public schools alone have lost around 150 million dollars in funding over the last two years.</p>
<p>I wasn’t even aware that Bright Futures gave us 12 extra credits. Good to know. </p>
<p>“No longer allow restoration:”</p>
<p>Fortunately, I’m not in a position where I’m close to losing my scholarship, but if you bomb a semester, then redeem yourself, you should be able to get it back.</p>
<p>Period of 4 years?:</p>
<p>I don’t get the purpose of that. Maybe five years. Some majors (IE: Engineering) are really difficult to graduate in 4 yrs because you can’t always get the classes you need.</p>
<p>^ Yeah, those are the parts I strongly disagree with. I typed up a short letter (3/4 page double spaced), but I don’t know if I should send it in yet or where exactly I should send it.</p>
<p>Sending a letter is a fantastic idea. You should send it to your representative in the state legislature. And get your parents and friends to send letters too. The only way to protect Bright Futures is to be an advocate for the program. If every college student in Florida called or wrote their legislators, they would quickly find a different way to save money. College students, after all, are old enough to vote! And politicians absolutely LOVE people who vote.</p>
<p>You do not loose bright futures if you have a bad semester. They look at it once a year only, so you have two semesters to average out. AND if you go summer, they WILL use those credits to pull up your GPA. If at the end of a school year when spring grades come out, and you are below 2.75 (composite/overall not just the semester or the year) you can go summer at your expense (even at community college near home) and pull up your overall GPA. If you have 100% and drop below 3.0 but above 2.75 you still get 75%. If you get 75%, a 2.75 is not that hard to keep, especially the longer you are in school. If you have a 3.2 average with 60 credits (ie half way through), it is hard to pull it down in one semester or one year, unless you are flunking out. In that case, you don’t deserve it anyway. I think the critical year is freshman year, and after that, it is hard to loose it if you really deserve it academically.</p>
<p>I agree it should be good for 5 years. With cutbacks, we see kids who need an extra semester to get classes that were full.</p>
<p>One provision snuck into the proposed bill (lines 666-668 in link below) that applies only to the Univ. of Florida allows UF to implement block differential tuition which would charge full time students the same tuition rate regardless of how many credits they enroll in up to 19. The reasoning is that a block tuition rate would encourage students to graduate quicker; what it really does is help increase revenue for UF to the tune of about $2 million extra per year.</p>
<p>The proposed bill must pass two more committees before even coming to a full state senate vote.</p>
<p>I’m not a fan of block tuition, but I do believe all the fees they tack on to tuition (such as athletic and transportation) should be block. I take 15 credits and therefore pay more than someone who pays 12 credits, yet we get exactly the same services.</p>
<p>I agree with matt, fees should be block, but tuition shouldnt. Sorry but block tuition doesn’t make me graduate earlier, because I work full time and can only take 12 hours a semester, i’m not just “being lazy”. Besides what is the rush? I never understood why people rush to get out of college. I want to get an education, not hurry and get my degree so I can get a job</p>
<p>Here’s my opinion, those who vote or want to make these changes to bright futures, beware. I will campaign and do everything in my power to make sure you do not have your job come next time you are up for re-election</p>