<P> January 2007: The HOPE program reaches the milestone of assisting 1 million individual recipients . </P> <P> May 2007: The new HOPE Scholarship high school grade point average calculation and transcript exchange project was implemented, in accordance with House Bill 1325 passed in 2004 . </P> <P> July 2008: The HOPE Scholarship award amount for students attending private colleges was increased from $3,000 per academic year to $3,500 per academic year . Senate Bill 492 was implemented, which increased the Georgia residency requirement for the HOPE Scholarship to 24 months for students who did not graduate from high school as a Georgia resident . In addition, changes were made to the treatment of post-secondary coursework taken while in high school, for purposes of the HOPE Scholarship and HOPE Grant eligibility . House Bill 152 was implemented, which allows home study student, ineligible high school graduates, and GED recipients to gain HOPE Scholarship eligibility by scoring in the 85th percentile on the SAT / ACT . </P> <P> March 2011: Georgia Governor Nathan Deal, together with Minority Leader Stacey Abrams, pushed a new law into effect, raising the GPA requirements for HOPE and eliminating payments for books and mandatory fees . The new HOPE Scholarship, or HOPE Lite, will now be based on Lottery revenue . The new scholarship within HOPE, the Zell Miller Scholarship, will cover 100% of tuition for those students who graduate with a 3.7 HOPE GPA and receive a score of 1200 (CR + M) on the SAT or a 26 ACT Composite at public colleges ($4,000 at private colleges), and maintain a 3.3 GPA while in college . Books and fees have also been eliminated for this scholarship as well . These changes also added additional academic rigor requirements to take effect in stages starting in 2015 and going through 2017 . These requirements define the type and number of specific core academic courses required for graduation eligibility for the Hope Scholarship, including raising the required GPA for students to be eligible for the HOPE Grant to 3.0 . These changes have resulted in about 1 / 4th of all Technical College students dropping out of college and massive increases in the accrued debt of those who remained . </P>

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