Two facts stood out in a recent Times Free Press article on Georgia’s lottery-funded college scholarships:
* First, getting and keeping the scholarships requires no minimum grade-point average for students who go to technical colleges in Georgia.
* And second, the scholarship program is about to run out of money.
Doesn’t it seem likely to you that there is a close connection between those two facts?
After all, much of the growth in demand for lottery scholarships in Georgia these days is coming from technical college students. So if they don’t have to keep a minimal GPA to get the money, doesn’t it stand to reason that the funds will dry up fast as more and more of them receive the scholarships?
You may recall when it was revealed a couple of years ago here in Tennessee that almost 70 percent of our state’s lottery scholarship recipients had lost the scholarships by the beginning of their fourth year in college. They simply didn’t keep up their grades enough to maintain eligibility. Many of those students undoubtedly failed to complete their college education when they lost that aid, resulting in tremendous waste of scholarship dollars.
But Georgia doesn’t even have grade-point average standards for technical college students to get lottery scholarships. With students allowed to keep getting the money even if they are making extremely poor grades, it’s no wonder Georgia’s scholarship program is facing a $270 million shortfall in 2011 – and may deplete its reserves by next year.
Now there is talk in Georgia about restricting the scope of the scholarships to shore up the program for future students. That is a belated but welcome approach.
State-backed lotteries are not a good way to fund higher education, because they create false hopes for quick riches and encourage gambling among people who can least afford it. But if Tennessee, Georgia and other states are going to pay for education in part with lotteries, it makes sense to set the standards for getting the awards high enough so the money is not wasted.