ATLANTA — Thousands of working moms, laid-off factory employees and others who flocked to Georgia’s 26 technical colleges for job training because of the recession could lose the HOPE Grants that pay their tuition under changes the state is making to the cash-strapped program.
More than 75 percent of technical college students rely on the $2,700-a-year award to pay tuition, but 20,000 of them may lose it entirely because for the first time ever, they’ll be required to maintain a 3.0 GPA to keep getting the money. The rest of the 140,000 students who get HOPE money will receive about 90 percent of their awards starting this fall.
“Everybody is panicked,” says Mary Raterman, 55, a Gwinnett Technical College student who returned to school after 30 years as a homemaker because her husband was laid off two years ago. “We’re an educated family just trying to do our best to keep our heads above water. Education is so important, but it’s expensive.”
The grant program often gets overshadowed by the HOPE scholarship, which pays for 110,000 students to attend the state’s public colleges and universities. Those students always have been asked to maintain a B average to keep their award, but technical college students were exempted because many are working adults or GED recipients who struggle with classes.
Technical colleges are seen as engines of economic development in counties across the state, a place where workers can find a new career or get more training. They prepare students — roughly half of whom are older than 25 — to go directly into the workforce as everything from welders and truck drivers to nurses and teachers.
The changes to HOPE signed into law by Gov. Nathan Deal on March 15 mean thousands of technical college students will have to cover $300 or more out of pocket each semester, which for some students can mean the difference between staying in school and dropping out.
Deal made the change to the grants as part of a plan to slash $300 million in spending by lottery-funded programs predicted to go broke by next year. He argued that the cuts were necessary to save the program, which he said remains one of the most generous in the country.
