Georgia Senate panel calls for new needs-based aid program for college students

The state Senate Committee on Higher Education Affordability released a report Tuesday that calls for a comprehensive needs-based aid program for college students.

Sen. Nan Orrock, chair of the committee, said the current system is not enough for some students.

“We’ve invested heavily in the HOPE scholarship, and we know now that with the economy and the realities that does not even get the job done,” Orrock said. “People are still left with a 5, 6, 10, 12,000 dollar gaps to fill.”

The report calls on Georgia to model its need-based aid program on states like North Carolina and Florida. Georgia and New Hampshire are the only two states that do not fund need-based financial aid for college students, according to a report by the Georgia Budget & Policy Institute published in 2021.

The committee’s report suggests that funding for the program should come from the unrestricted reserves of the Georgia Lottery.

However, state Sen. Max Burns, a Sylvania Republican and chairman of the Senate Higher Education Committee, expressed concerns about funding the program this way, according to the Georgia Recorder.

“I think the lottery has done a great job for Georgia, I think HOPE has been an excellent tool, and certainly Gov. (Zell) Miller had strong foresight when he put that program in place,” he said. “But I don’t think you take funds or resources away from a successful program to fund something you need but have not yet developed a comprehensive way to address. So I’m not a fan of using lottery dollars for this program.”

Other news in higher education:

• Members of the University System of Georgia Board of Regents signaled that they were willing to allow public universities to accept the Classic Learning Test as an entry exam instead of the SAT or ACT, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
• The U.S. Department of Education is implementing measures from President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, including changing the “professional” status of certain degrees. The list of degrees include nursing, physician assistants, physical therapists, audiologists, architects, accountants, educators and social workers.