PDF: Lottery Report Presentation
Chelsea Oden weighed many factors before packing her bags to begin her freshman year at UTC.
Money wasn’t one of them.
The straight-A student thought about enrolling in the local community college to be near her high school friends, but she really wanted to move away from her home in Franklin, too.
Even thinking about going 140 miles away for her degree would have been impossible without $4,000 in Tennessee HOPE scholarship money, she said.
“Community college is significantly cheaper than UTC, but I could afford UTC (with the HOPE),” Ms. Oden said. “I wanted the university experience. I wanted to reach out.”
The populations of the state’s larger four-year universities, namely the University of Tennessee schools and the University of Memphis, are changing as more students earn the HOPE scholarship and are less bound by financial cost. HOPE is funded by the state lottery.
Some talented students who may have left the state for more prestigious schools or stayed at home to attend a community college are being swayed by the promise of almost-free tuition to any four-year state college they can get into, the 2010 annual report on the lottery scholarship shows.
“Tennessee may be keeping a slightly more competitive brand of student than was the case in prior years,” said David Wright, associate executive director of policy, planning and research at the Tennessee Higher Education Commission.
At the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, the average ACT score of entering students increased 3.1 percent, and at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville the increase was 2.5 percent over the last five years, records show.
HOPE dollars haven’t had a huge impact on students’ decisions to go out of state for college. Since 2000, the number of high school graduates staying in the state has increased from 82.1 percent to 85.4 percent, records show.
The real impact has been on college choice within the state. Selective out-of-state schools such as the University of Georgia, Georgia Tech, Emory University and Clemson University are drawing fewer Tennessee students, records show.Since fall 2002, more than 370 fewer students are going to out of state schools. For example, the University of Georgia lost 22 student and Georgia Tech lost 18 students.
“Tennessee students are choosing Tennessee over these schools,” Mr. Wright said. “It is encouraging progress in the right direction. To make a move across institutions it means they are getting more, better-performing students in their freshman class.”
University of Tennessee schools are, in most cases, winning those students.
Ninety-one percent of entering freshman at UT schools have the HOPE scholarship, versus 63 percent of students at Tennessee public colleges overall.
“The Tennessee lottery scholarships have allowed more students to choose destination campuses like UTC,” UTC Chancellor Roger Brown said. “We are seeing students from across the state have the resources to not only attend college but also to go away to college.
SCHOLARSHIP RECIPIENTSThe number of Hope scholarship recipients has more than doubled over the last five years.* 2005: 40,195* 2006: 56,058* 2007: 67,053* 2008: 76,292* 2009: 88,397Source: Tennessee Higher Education CommissionSCHOLARSHIP EXPENDITURES* 2005: $93.4 million* 2006: $136.8 million*2007: $191.7 million* 2008: $225.7 million* 2009: $259.9 million* Projected 2010: $287.5 million* Projected 2011: $312.5 millionSource: Tennessee Higher Education Commission
In future years, however, the HOPE scholarship may not be able to reach as many students, state officials warn.
Demand is increasing but lottery revenues are on decline, Mr. Wright said. A $20 million deficit is projected for the Tennessee lottery scholarship this year.
It is unclear whether the new Mega Millions game, which was added this year to accompany the state’s Powerball game, will generate enough money to cover expenses, he said.
“It is probably better than a 50/50 bet that revenues will exceed what’s projected,” Mr. Wright said.
In the last five years, the number of HOPE scholarship recipients more than doubled, from 40,195 in 2005 to 88,397 in 2009. The amount of scholarship money awarded nearly has tripled and is projected to reach $287.5 million this year.
But there are plans in case lottery revenues continue to drop while the scholarship dollars rise, Mr. Wright said. One way to curb HOPE spending is to increase the standards for getting the scholarships, which now sit at either achieving a 3.0 high school GPA or scoring a 21 on the ACT.
“The program could be a victim of its own success if we (have) too many more years like the one we are in now,” he said.