That is NOT what I said cobrat. I will try again, for the third time, to explain. I cannot and do not wish to speak for other states or other peoples experiences, but was explaining that in OUR state the goal was to raise the abysmal SAT scores, and to do that the governor’s program should have made the offer of free access to the online SAT available to ALL students, regardless of where they attend school. </p>
<p>There are plenty of private schools in our state (especially those for students with learning or behavior problems, those in rural communities, some of the parochial schools, etc) that can additionally use all the help they and their students can get. What I said, and continue to try to explain is that in our situation the governor made a huge gaffe by touting his desire to improve the SAT scores for the state, but then only provide the state funded benefit to some of the students. It was wrong, and he realized it from the responses he got. But his solution was to kill the program. Not a good plan. He overlooked the homeschooled kids too. What he proposed was discriminatory and it was a gaffe.</p>
<p>So please stop putting words in my mouth, thank you. Please listen a little better and don’ t overgeneralize. I did NOT say anything about other states, nor the program in NY. I did NOT say or imply this
and wish you’d own your own opinion, separate from mine, thank you.** Our state has public magnet schools too. The program that the governor was offering was entirely different. These are apples and oranges. Do NOT conflate the two.**</p>
<p>Wrong. I filled out my own FAF and my family made $11K that year. </p>
<p>You shouldnt assume stuff about other peoples motivations. In fact in my experience people from poor backgrounds who overcome them are more likely to be skeptical of enablement programs that purport to help the poor.</p>
<p>I’m from a neighboring state that voted down a lottery.</p>
<p>I don’t disagree that low income residents have benefitted from the HOPE program. But if you look nationally, you will see that low income families tend not to go to college at the same rates as higher income families. Now, one of the reasons for this is simply the fact that college is expensive, so you would think that the HOPE would help low income students in this way. And studies have shown that HOPE has increased college attendance rates in GA relative to neighboring states without such a program.</p>
<p>On the other hand, students from higher income families are more academically successful in general than students from lower income families. Since the HOPE currently is based on GPA requirements (and I think SAT/ACT scores, but only recently??), it’s seems possible that higher income families benefit from HOPE more. </p>
<p>I’ve done some google search on this, and found a few claims that higher income families benefit more than lower income familes. </p>
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</p>
<p>Of course, that claim is now a decade old, and it’s the internet, and I’m not that invested in the workings of the HOPE program to find out more for sure. I’m sure there are some studies out there that suggest differently. </p>
<p>But at least it suggests the possibility that higher incomes families benefit more, and that it’s something the state should be looking at.</p>
<p>^ Arg, good for you.
In my family, the admonishment was always to separate what we had been able to accomplish from any assumptions everyone could do the same. More specifically, to watch out for that “bootstrapper” mentality: I did it, so why can’t he?</p>
<p>*Some people post “we’re middle class and won’t get any financial aid”. Presumably, this means an income of at least $235,000, since that is that is takes for a family of 3 with 1 in college to get $0 financial aid at Harvard (a favorite target school around here), according to [Net</a> Price Calculator](<a href=“http://npc.fas.harvard.edu/]Net”>http://npc.fas.harvard.edu/) . A family of 4 with 2 in college needs at least $275,000 to get $0 financial aid at Harvard.</p>
Not every job should be expected to support a middle class lifestyle for a family of four. Increasing the minimum wage (as was done in July 2009, during a deep recession) and imposing health insurance mandates reduces income and employment and prevents low-skilled people from getting work experience. Letting them do so would do more to increase their chance of someday earning a “living wage” than shoveling more money into education.</p>
<p>I’m wondering if one of the reasons your governor canceled the program was that he/his administration were concerned about limited resources being stretched to support private school kids, especially those from high SES families. </p>
<p>IMO, such a publicly program to pull up SAT scores should make the most of its limited resources by targeting groups most likely to need such services, children from poor, working class, and middle class backgrounds. </p>
<p>In short, income should be accounted for for the targeting and to avoid potential negative PR implications if the program was being viewed as mainly/solely benefitting those from higher SES backgrounds who have the wherewithal to pay for private services.</p>
<p>We had a mortgage bubble pop in the late 80s/early 90s in this area so people were aware that bad financial stuff could happen. Things went really well here leading up to the internet crash and people either socked away money or paid off loans because they knew that times could be bad from the past. The new hires in in the internet bubble didn’t know any better. They were offered huge rewards for joining and didn’t have the experience of hard times so they took out loans for cars or spent a lot on consumption. They were quite worried when we had layoffs - they didn’t know what to expect - so they asked us old-timers.</p>
<p>I’m clearly older than you are Argbargy because I don’t even remember if there was a FAF when I went to college (1970). I was able to go to college because my state had a scholarship program for kids who did well in high school. That allowed me to go to the state flagship university. Not to play the poor card, but I came from a family that didn’t have a car or a tv set. I feel lucky because my parents were from an immigrant background where savings and education were valued. </p>
<p>My husband came from a family of steel workers where no one went beyond high school; in fact, H’s father never finished high school. Neither my husband nor I are skeptical of programs to help poor people–my husband was able to go to college because he had the GI Bill (he was in the service in Vietnam). He started at a junior college and was able to get into a state flagship university because he had an advisor who pushed him to leave the jc and apply. Similarly, when he graduated from the university, another advisor encouraged him to apply for Ivy League graduate programs.</p>
<p>My husband and I have been very fortunate. We worked hard and were in the right place at the right time and had various government programs (loans) and university programs (scholarships/graduate research assistantships, teaching assistantships, etc.) available to us. We’ve been very successful–not sure how you measure that, but we own two properties with no mortgages and paid full-fare college tuition for two kids and two step-kids. I have no problem supporting programs that help poor kids go to college–programs like that made all the difference for my H and me.</p>
<p>But that is exactly what is going on. If Something Must be Done then we are talking about setting up a new entitlement that covers half the country because its unfair that they dont have the same graduation rates as the richies. Thats the data in this article. None dare call it sherpa- but its some kind of hand holding, that now someone has to pay for it. Who/whom. </p>
<p>Lets take the case of Angelica Gonzales and start assigning some blame, err responsibility. </p>
<p>Here are your choices that you can assign weights to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Angelica Gonzales because of things mentioned in the article</li>
<li>AG because of things that went unmentioned </li>
<li>Miss G and Upward bound for pushing her to the wrong school</li>
<li>Emory for its Fa actions</li>
<li>Emory for its student support actions</li>
<li>Popular culture for sending a college as goal message</li>
<li>Society for having SES in the first place</li>
<li>Society for failing to fund a sherpa system</li>
<li>Fred for being a tie to Galviston</li>
<li>Miss Lady</li>
</ul>
<p>Arg, seriously. “Boostrapper mentality” meant the dismissive and somewhat self-aggrandizing idea that: I did it, so can he. Something’s wrong with him if he can’t achieve what we did- and foo on him. Let him sink. It’s got to be his own fault. I shouldn’t care. I shouldn’t attempt to do some good, somehow. And, as I think we’re seeing in some comments: I shouldn’t share.</p>
<p>That’s different than encouraging a kid or expecting one will try to better his lot in life. And yes, the kid should have checked her email.</p>
<p>A big part of our (immigrant) family lore was how different individuals HAD been helped by the caring of others. Just the standard Judeo-Christian concept. Sometimes you get, sometimes you give. In general, pay it forward and pay back.</p>
<p>AG was wrong, the worst of what can happen. Makes an article that sticks, no? But, the one article doesn’t represent the whole.</p>
<p>BCEagle, $1M in assets including the primary residence is far different from $1M in savings. If you have the stats on that it might be interesting, but how many have that amount still doesn’t address how five percent of that a year on tuition isn’t affordable. Neither does bringing up third world poverty. Study hard and college will be free? That’s faulty thinking today. Years ago there was more merit aid than there is today. Many of the schools which provide 100% of need tend to require the student to study exceptionally hard just to be admitted - whether they will need the financial help or not. So the advice to study hard still applies as eduction is important.</p>
<p>I thoroughly agree that an RA could have spoken with the student about the unanswered e-mails. That’s what I was thinking of when I asked how hard would it have been to contact her in a different way.</p>
<p>I am not able to discern what article that quote is from, skrlvr (btw I am a skrlvr too!) so cannot tell if it is referring to income levels and college scholarships in general, or if it refers to the HOPE. I am guessing the former (ie access to scholarships in general) and not the latter (acces to the HOPE). That would make complete sense. </p>
<p>But in GA (and I am only bringing this up because you gave GA and its HOPE program as a specific example) the required GPAs are all that is needed to intially qualify for the HOPE or Zell Miller. And in fact, many kids in harder schools (the “better” publics, the magnets and the top privates) cant get the requisite GPAs to qualify and miss the cut. In contrast, there wa suggestion of grade inflation at some lesser schools, rural schools, etc. So the kids got into the state schools in GA (not necessarily the flagship) and earned the scholarship $, but had difficulty with the academics and were unable to maintain the necessary GPA to keep the scholarship. That is a true shame.</p>
<p>When did you get rid of your B&W tube tv Us '92 And that was because some gave us a old color tv.
And I am not playing the poor card because a friend of mine told me stories of what they had to eat on his dairy farm in winter. Yikers. He is now a millionaire and such a dapper dresser I had no idea that he came from those circumstances. </p>
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</p>
<p>No one is talking about taking away scholarships. All of these students went to college and got assistance in paying for it. However none of them succeeded. </p>
<p>The question is can you fix the reason they didnt succeed with another large government program.</p>
Cobrat,
I think you are continually trying to make this into something that it wasnt. IIRC The governor cut a deal with Collegeboard to get access to the online study program. Sure funds are limited, and perhaps you are implying that too many of the wealthier students would have taken advantage of this opportunity, and perhaps the other students would not have. Dunno. But, I will refrain from making assumptions about your line of reasoning. </p>
<p>Bottom line, for the same reasons that the state ultimately did not put a limit on acess to the HOPE scholarship by inclome level, so too they realized they should not limit this state funded service to only a select segment of the population. I will again repeat that there are a lot of private schools that do not educate the richest, best or brightest. And there are a lot of home schooled kids who were not considered in this resource. It is NOT like a charter school system that requires an application process . It is essentially an etitlement that was proposed to boost the abysmal SAT scores here but was discriminatory when set up. There is nothing more to say about this.</p>
<p>Well, the article had 5.1 million with a million net worth excluding
primary residence from one source and 11 million with a million net
worth. The higher number could include primary residence. Either number
is still very big.</p>
<br>
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<p>I sent John Mauldin an email asking about how the book is coming along
(the survey was around 2010 I think) and am waiting for a reply. I’d
love to read it if they have a Kindle edition.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>This was a response to someone stating that those with assets or
income today don’t understand what it is like to be poor in the US.</p>
<br>
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<p>Yes. But that’s what is marketed. I believed the marketing. Until I
got into it.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>I just wish that the marketing was more realistic. But you sell stuff
with marketing. Not being realistic.</p>
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<p>At most workplaces, if you don’t answer your email for a few days, they’ll
come looking for you (call you on the phone, have someone go to your home,
call a nearest contact number or ask the police to check on you. Maybe
colleges should do something similar?</p>
<p>And we should all be (skrlvrs, that is)! But of course, in SEC country, we have to make do with the other football. And I guess that’s OK as well. I won’t rub it in that my state flagship beat your state flagship for the championship. </p>
<p>It was referring to the HOPE program. It’s from an AJC ‘Politifact’ article in 2011, trying to assess the accuaracy of a Rainbow/PUSH coaltion claim that the HOPE program doles out lottery money to the scions of wealthy families. </p>
<p>They conclude that the claim is ‘half true’, citing those statistics that I quoted. So both high income and low income families do benefit from the program, but high income families get HOPE at higher rates.</p>
Us '92 And that was because some gave us a old color tv.