Being right over a wrong is no fun. Nevertheless, I predicted some time ago that Bright Futures would crash and burn like a polyester-weave bottle rocket. And guess what?
The popular scholarship program is not dead, certainly, but neither does it resemble the exciting program that helped more than 635,000 meritorious, middle class Florida students since 1997 get an affordable college education at a state institution. The Florida Legislature has been working to dismantle it for the last three years -- a story I've been writing, by the way,with increasing frustration since 2010.
Last week comes the latest saga -- a sad I-told-you-so, a new study from the University of South Florida that finds this about Bright Futures:
Upcoming changes to the 16-year-old program will result in only half as many total scholarship recipients in 2014 -- from 30,954 to 15,711. And poor and minority students across the state will be the most affected. Black freshmen with a Bright Futures scholarship will drop 75 percent, Hispanic freshmen more than 60 percent and white and Asian freshmen more than 40 percent.
Let's look at why, shall we?
Remember, Bright Futures is funded entirely out of proceeds from the Florida Lottery -- which is a trust fund.
Well, Florida lawmakers decoupled the popular scholarship program from tuition increases in response to those who said it was growing financially faster than the lottery could handle. But the changes made to the qualifications over the past couple of years turned it into an elitest program, out of reach for most.
Which was exactly the idea.The tougher Bright Futures requirements get, the fewer students you have claiming the scholarships and the more money you've got for the next trust fund raid.
So, thousands fewer students will be eligible for Bright Futures at the same time that the cost of higher education is slipping out of reach for middle class families in particular. While student loan debts keep on growing, college tuition in Florida has more than doubled in the past decade.
The standards put in place by Bright Futures founder Ken Pruitt and the Legislature to keep the lottery promise to the people of Florida worked. They kept the program on par with the national average and within reach for most students to achieve. They spent not a dime of taxpayer money for the program. The lottery proceeds were enough to leave a good, groundbreaking program alone -- and would be to this day -- if the trust fund hadn't been siphoned off into the general fund.
Since the beginning, Bright Futures focus has been on encouraging student achievement, making college more affordable for the middle class, and persuading Floridas most promising students to stay in state. It is perhaps the most popular Republican initiative in the Florida Legislature in the last two decades.
Odd, considering it is now mostly Republicans who are gutting it.
Go online. Have a look at the tip-off to trouble in red letters at the top of the state page explaining Bright Futures: "NOTE: These requirements are subject to change with each legislative session."
You bet they are.
USF administrator J. Robert Spatig, assistant vice president of admissions, recruitment and enrollment planning, compared current student data from all state universities with the newer, tougher Bright Futures requirements. The minimum high school GPA of 3.0 will stay the same, he said, but starting this fall, the minimum student ACT score will increase from 21 to 22.
In 2014, the minimum ACT score will jump to 26. And minimum SAT scores? They will increase at a similar rate, from 980 now to 1020 this fall, to 1170 in 2014.
Don't expect the Legislature to concern itself over this survey. It will not. But look, when you can, at a breakdown of what the lottery makes and how much is distributed to Bright Futures. It is not a quarter of the total (this year more than $4 billion), as promised in original lottery sales pitches. It's not even close.
Reach Nancy Smith at nsmith@sunshinestatenews.com or at (850) 727-0859.
