Without change, Bright Futures looks pretty dim -- OrlandoSenti...

Mike - when are you going to look into the fine way that the Universities are spending money? There is a treasure trove of stories on the mismanagement and lavish waste. Oh, sorry, that wouldn't advance your agenda of bashing the legislature. Never mind.

Nothing is fair. That's just not the way the world works. My daughter is currently a senior in high school. She works hard. Very hard. She qualifies for the Bright Futures, but she wants to attend college out of state. We can't afford the college she wants to go too....so, WE' RE GONNA GET STUDENT LOANS!!! Going to college isn't a 'gimme'....it's a challange, alot of work, and a committment to financial loads like no other. HOWEVER......you work hard in college, you get a good job, YOU PAY THE LOANS OFF! No free ride here. Even though she 'deserves' it, we prefer to tackle the dream of the college of her choice. Remember this golden rule: you get what you pay for. America is about working hard....at least it used to be. If you worked hard enough in high school to get INTO college, you can work hard enough to pay off your loans and get good steady work in the future. So, for those of you who don't get a Bright Futures ticket......GET A LOAN! GO TO SCHOOL!!!! FINISH!!! Now your future is VERY BRIGHT!

Let's not forget that another benefit of awarding scholarships to those "destined for academic greatness" is keeping the brightest students in state, which in the short term helps boost grants and other funding for our in-state schools, and in the longer term helps strengthen Florida's workforce and economy.
I agree that there should be two pools of scholarships: award those who truly need it and those who truly deserve it based on merit, separately.

I'm going where the greatest academic challenge exists.
Stretching a mind is more important by any stretch of the imagination.
Dumbing down a university doesn't make sense.
If this young lady academically qualified to attend the institution, then give her the scholarship.
Government and intelligence in the same sentence is an oxymoron, isn't it?

Let's give 90% of the aid for Merit, and 10% for the Need Based

"Keeping the bright Florida students in Florida" raises the question of state universities taking scholars from other states over state scholars. Whether the purpose is to raise the academic level to attract grants or esteem, why would the UofF pass over students with 4.2 grade point average and a 1250 SAT?
Does it seem fair to a student who has gone through the Florida school system, more than meets the entrance requirements and whose parents have paid taxes to support Florida universities to be denied entrance in favor of out of state students? I have heard this problem from numbers of people. Is this fair to the Florida students or the people of Florida?

I threw out that 70-30 division of dollars between merit and need/merit.
It could be tinkered with.
One problem is giving scholarships to people who will not graduate from college. I think the state has to look at the tipping point on SAT scores -- at what point do you see a sharp dropoff in graduation rates in relation to scores.
If the liklihood of a kid with a 900 score graduating is 10 percent, then obviously that number has to come up.

1600 is a perfect SAT score. 1200 is 75%, a grade of "C" in any system. I can do the math, why can't the legislature?

I cannot agree with you more. I'm a Hispanic student at a state university and I will tell you that Bright Futures is really doing more harm than good. It is one of the main reasons growth in our higher education is so stagnant- look at the facts. When BF was introduced, our student-to- professor (not adjuncts or part time) ratio was about 19-1. Along comes Bright Futures and voila! The ratio goes up to 33-1. While a great idea in theory and in increasing access, Bright Futures has introduced major negative repercussions as well. As leaders of the State University System have said over and over again- you wound NEVER manage a business like the way the universities in the state are managed! While access is important and minorities aren't doing so hot on standardized tests, tell me why I'm an such an outlier. I'm a Hispanic female and I scored over 1350 on my SAT. I went to public school and my family is poor, but yet, I managed to do extremely well academically. Want to know what the real problem is to the state that NO ONE wants to admit? Your Pre-K-12 Education System is terrible. Your public school teachers use your children as bargaining chips and see them as dollar signs instead of the future leaders. Your standards are so low for high school that when at 18 year old suddenly flunks out freshmen year of college because of college-level math, it's so surprising because just a few months ago he or she passed an FCAT exam that proved they could read and write (granted at a goldfish level, but still!).
Let's fix the education system by making sure our students have a strong academic background when they get to college. Why can't all minorities be academically successful? This isn't the '60's- there's no "man" keeping you down. It's all about taking responsibility and demanding that our education system support our children to be strong college students, not watered-down clowns who can only play sports.

To poster cindy above:

The big wigs at Sallie Mae look forward to your child taking out those student loans. I'm sure they can't wait...as they'll be laughing all the way to the bank with your child's future earnings. They charge interest on those loans too, even though they're taking almost ZERO risk because the loans can't be discharged. What a great deal...for the bankers.

And a great deal for the universities too...maybe they would like to jack tuition up again by 8% next year. No problem, we'll just borrow more money and deal with it later...college at ANY cost!!

This is all wrong. Florida is probably the last large mature
lottery state in the nation that does not have a multi state game and/or keno in it's game mix. All that needs to be done is for the lottery to add the games, no futher Legislative authorization is needed. There's at least $300 to$500 million being left on the table for no apparant reason. The Florida Lottery can provide the funds to meet the the State's promise of a college education if they choose to.

Get good grades and good test scores, get rewarded, if you do not, you lose. Results should be all that matters.

FRANK MIRABELLA wrote:

This is all wrong. Florida is probably the last large mature
lottery state in the nation that does not have a multi state game and/or keno in it's game mix. All that needs to be done is for the lottery to add the games, no futher Legislative authorization is needed. There's at least $300 to$500 million being left on the table for no apparant reason. The Florida Lottery can provide the funds to meet the the State's promise of a college education if they choose to.

And then have the state say "you have even more money from lotto winnings so you don't need our funding." No thanks. Guarantee me that adding those games are going to be "supplemental" and not become the basis for our education dollars. It can't be done. The Legislature won't allow it.

Send the slackers to plumbing school

When this BF stuff started, two critical "no brainer" concepts seemed to be 1) we had many "underprivileged" young people whose brilliant minds were being "wasted" because they couldn't afford college and 2) there were many more such potentially brilliant minds that did not even bother to try hard because "what's the use? I can't afford college anyway". Now it seems we don't have enough talent at the bottom end of the economic spectrum to effectively utilize the money available to invest in it. We have created new problems with unqualified students taking up space (at best) or diluting/distracting the higher education system from doing its job (at worst) and at the other end (God forbid) wealthy students being rewarded for their hard work. And let's not lie about this point either: wealthy or poor, getting good grades in school is hard work. I have known quite a few children of wealthy parents who never amounted to anything. And I'm sure there are plenty of new "no brainer" solutions to these new problems also. Unless items 1 and 2 above are fully addressed and analyzed as to what went right and what went wrong, we will just waste more money, be it from the lottery or from taxes, on new "solutions".

I don't understand the debate. there are tons of need-based scholarships and grants out there. Bright Futures was also started to help out the middle class who had trouble affording college fees but made too much to quality for the grants and scholarships. People who are good students but can't afford college can always find money if they look hard enough.

A 3.1 in a school in Pine Hills means you are dumb as bricks, My 2 legged, half blind dog could get that. The kid with a 4.0 IB should get this. If you had a kid with 3.5 from Winter Park and a 4.0 from a pine hills school, then maybe there could be a comparison, but otherwise this is nothing more than redistribution of wealth. There should be one pool and one pool only. The pool for those who achieve. Giving money to those who achieve less, based on any standard, is doing nothing more than draging down society. We should be promoting the best and the brightest, as they are the ones who will provide the most to our country. And those people who don't make it to college still have plenty of opportunities to achieve through hard work. They may not be in the intellectual fields, but we still need people skilled with thier hands and skilled in a trade.

JT in Lutz,
Just so you know, the scale of the SAT isn't actually 0 to 1600. The scale is 400 to 1600. The lowest you can get on the SAT is a 400 or 200 on each section (not taking into account the new writing section). Therefor a 75% would be a 1300. That being said, when I got a 1460, it was like the 97th percentile.

I was that kid....the one who did well on the SAT's...1290....accepted to quality school. But my parents 'made too much money' for me to get any assistance. So I was forced to work and try to go to school while living and commuting 20 miles off campus (lived with parents). After two years of off/on again while trying to float a full time job....I decided to call it quits.

Had I been female trying to get into this school, or Hispanic or black...I would have qualified for numerous scholarships and grants.

Just a plain ol' white boy here.

So out of the group I was kicked.

And virtually the same type of junk happened on my pursuit for a city job for which I took specialized training.....FIRE DEPARTMENT.

Told...to my face: "sorry...we really need to fill the spots with 'others'.....(defined; women, Hispanics, blacks, etc)....

Now that I own my own business.....I've done well.
I'm ready to expand.
Know what I hear now?
"Sorry....but honestly...if you'd put the business in the name of your ex-wife...you could really get further in your process under the 'minority loans' programs that we have available".

Yup.

White boy.

I've faced it my entire life.

Not everyone should go to college.