Changes to Florida’s Bright Futures
In 1997, Florida’s Legislature created the Florida Bright Futures Scholarship Program. The Legislature recently announced some changes to the program, which provided full- or partial-tuition to high-performing high school students regardless of income.
Bright Futures will no longer continue to pay 100% tuition for Academic Scholars and 75% for Medallion Scholars. While the requirements for these awards will remain the same, the financial rewards will be reduced. Beginning this academic year, recipients will get a certain amount of money for each credit hour they take, based on their award.
Academic Scholars will receive $126/credit hour and Medallion Scholars will receive $95/credit hour. To qualify as an Academic Scholar, you child must maintain a 3.5 weighted GPA, achieve a 1270 on the SAT (Critical Reading + Math) or 28 ACT, and participate in 75 hrs of community service. To qualify as a Medallion Scholar, your child must maintain a 3.0 weighted GPA and achieve a 970 SAT or 20 ACT.
Please Note the following:
• Weighted GPA: ¼ point for each Honors, AP, Pre-IB, or IB course, per semester:
• Courses must include 15 credits of college preparatory academic courses:
• 4 English (3 with substantial writing)
• 3 Mathematics* (Algebra I and above)
• 3 Natural Science (2 with substantial lab)
• 3 Social Science
• 2 Foreign Language (in the same language)
• May include 3 additional credits from courses in the academic areas listed above and/or AP, IB, or AICE fine arts courses to raise the GPA
• 2011 and future graduates must earn 4 credits of Mathematics for a total of 16 college preparatory credits.
• There are alternative criteria which can be met to satisfy the requirements.
To put this into perspective, for example, FAU charges almost $140 per credit hour. Thus, a recipient can expect to pay about $14 to $45 per credit hour, depending on the award.
In addition, recipients must carry at least 12 credit hours per semester to qualify for renewal. And iff a recipient drops a course paid for by the scholarship, he or she will have to repay the cost, except if an exception is granted (e.g., illness or emergency).
Why did this change take place?
There is a new law in Florida that allows all eleven state universities to raise tuition by up to 15% each year until they reach the national average ($6,585). For example, in-state undergraduates taking 30 credits at UF paid $3,777 last year; they will pay about $4,373 next year. Florida’s state universities currently have the lowest tuition of all public universities in the nation.
Details of the changes are listed on the Bright Futures Web site: http://www.FloridaStudentFinancialAid.org/SSFAD/bf