Bright Futures Harder to Get
August 31st, 2010 by flanewsIncoming college freshmen are finding out their Bright Futures Scholarships don�t go as far as the scholarships given to the upperclassmen. High school students are finding it harder to win the waning award. As Whitney Ray tells us, the SAT requirements to receive a Bright Future scholarship are increasing in an effort to save the state money.
High School Senior Tori Bradley scored a 12-80 on her SAT: more than enough points to land her a full Bright Futures scholarship,
�It�s going to pay for a lot of my undergraduate, because, I�m going to have graduate school to pay for,� said Tori.
The scholarship program was started in 1997, with a few thousand being awarded the first year; now 170-thousand students are receiving Bright Futures.
The scholarship program costs the state more than 400-million dollars last year, but lawmakers have a plan to shave a 100 million off the cost by raising the standards. Board of Governors Chancellor Frank Brogan says the program is getting too expensive.
�If I were going to give any student advice today, middle school, high school, or even elementary, I would say start working for that Bright Futures Scholarship now,� said Brogan.
To qualify for the full award students must score a 12-70 or higher on the SAT. For the class of 2013 the standards will be raised 10 points. The qualifying standard will top off in 2014, when students will have to score a 12-90 for the top award. Senior Chris Hill scored a 13-20, but is still disheartened to see the standards go up.
�It�s still just a bad situation for students where they are going to have to continually increase every year because that�s going to be difficult and the test isn�t going to get any easier,� said Chris.
In 2008 the average SAT score in Florida was 993, good enough for a partial scholarship now, but not for the class of 2013. The standards are going up even more for students looking to land a partial Bright Futures scholarship. Right now students can get 75 percent of their classes paid for if they score a 9-70 or better by 2014, they�ll need to score a 10-50.
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