Q&A of the Day – Are the proposed changes to Bright Futures, bright ideas? Part 1
Each day I feature a listener question sent by one of these methods.
Email: brianmudd@iheartmedia.com
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Today’s entry: @brianmuddradio, Heard the tolls discussion. Tyvm. Can you tackle the Bright Futures SB86 hubub?
Bottom Line: Without a doubt the future of Bright Futures has been the hottest button issue in this week’s state session. At issue are proposed changes by Republicans to the state funded college scholarship program. Before getting into the hubub, I’ll reset what the program is all about and how it’s currently constructed.
The Bright Futures scholarship was created by the state legislature in 1997 in response to a similar initiative in Georgia called the Hope Scholarship. Funded by the Florida Lottery, Florida students graduating with a minimum GPA of 3.0, with 30 public service hours and meeting minimum scores on the SAT or ACT have been eligible provided the students attend an accredited Florida based post-secondary institution. There are four different types of scholarships offered under the program:
- Florida Academic Scholars Award (FAS) – For students with an “A” GPA
- Florida Medallion Scholars Award (FMS) – For students with a “B” GPA
- Florida Gold Seal Vocational Scholars Award (GSV) – For students pursuing a technical degree or certificate program
- Florida Gold Seal CAPE Scholars Award (GSC) – For students pursuing a technical degree or certificate program
Now something you might have noticed, and that I’ve talked about extensively over the past couple of years, is the significant improvement in Florida grade school outcomes. With a graduation rate which has risen from 58.8% in the 2005-2006 school year to 90% last year, along with Florida’s large population growth, and to a lesser extent tuition increases at Florida institutions, the strain on the program’s finances has meaningfully increased. For the first decade of the program, an average of 32,000 students received one of the Bright Futures Scholarships. Most recently that total has grown to over 118,000. Spending for the program which totaled around $250 million annually six years ago now exceeds $650 million. Needless to say, the growth in the eligibility and payouts for the program far exceeds the growth of lottery sales and revenues which means something has to give. That’s where this conversation picks up with proposed changes in this year’s session and that’s what I’ll cover in the second part of today’s Q&A.