Staff Photo by Jake Daniels/Chattanooga Times Free Press
Rachel Rifenberg, a UTC mechanical engineering student in her fourth year, tries to work loose a broken gear inside a printer Friday afternoon. Rifenberg had lost her HOPE scholarship but regained it after a new law changed the GPA requirement from 3.0 to 2.75.Changes to Tennessee’s lottery scholarship program have helped more minority, male and low-income students maintain their scholarships, but most of the money awarded still goes to those who had a good chance of staying in school anyway, according to a recent report.
The General Assembly in 2008 lowered the grade-point average needed for eligibility from 3.0 to 2.75 at the benchmark of 48 credit hours.
It also created a provisional path that allows juniors and seniors to renew their scholarship with a 2.75 cumulative GPA and a 3.0 in the previous term.
“Low-income students at community colleges benefited the most from the lower GPA; however, those students get very few of the dollars spent,” said David Wright of the Tennessee Higher Education Commission, which released the report.
“Most of the dollars go to mid- to high-income students at four-year universities,” he said.