Helping Those Who Need It Least
Proponents of the proposed Tennessee state lottery say revenue from the games will go to scholarships similar to Georgia's much-touted HOPE Scholarship Program. But a new study of the HOPE scholarship program and similar programs in three other states says most of the money is going to students from well-to-do families that don't need the help. The study, Merit Scholarships: Who Is Really Being Served?, was released yesterday by Harvard University's Civil Rights Project, and is the subject of this story in the Christian Science Monitor. In Georgia, which spent $300 million in lottery revenue on HOPE scholarships in 2000-01, 96 percent of scholarships went to students who would have attended college anyway, sort of a "Robin Hood in reverse" as lotteries tend to attract mostly lower-income players, whose money goes to fund scholarships for students from upper-income families.