Cuts to Bright Futures Scholarships

The Bright Futures Scholarship will face severe budget cuts and stricter requirements due to changes in legislature approved by Governor Rick Scott.  Changes include budget cuts from $309 million last year to $266 million this year along with heightened SAT/ACT testing requirements.

“This has negatively impacted all students coming into Miami Dade College,” said Monaud Daphnis, Financial Aid Director at Wolfson Campus.

Bright Futures is a merit-based scholarship for high school students who enroll in a degree program, certificate program or applied technology program at any postsecondary institution. The scholarship has helped more than 660,000 students attending colleges and universities with its three types of scholarship awards—The Florida Academic Scholars Award, the Florida Medallion Scholars Award and the Florida Gold Seal Vocational Scholars Award.

“I rely on Bright Futures like many other students probably do as well,” said current MDC student Helen Arce. “I don’t know if some students would be able to make it without this scholarship.”

Laura F. Hill, President of Student Government Association at Wolfson Campus, is a Bright Futures recipient. Hill said this will affect more than 100,000 students at Miami Dade College. She called the cuts a poor decision.

“I know many of my fellow peers that have worked hard since middle school and throughout high school dreaming of obtaining Bright Futures,” Hill wrote in an email. “Students who do not have the money for the extra assistance to meet the requirements of Bright Futures have to press through poverty just to meet the requirements. Cutting the funding and raising the requirements is no better than telling the younger generation that America does not value its children.”

According to the Florida College Access Network, one in three high school graduates qualified for the scholarships in 2009. This fall, just one in eight graduates are estimated to meet new minimum required scores. The new requirements for test scores leaves only about 12 percent of high school students to qualify.

The monetary changes have been incremental during the past years due to the decreasing amount of budget that the state government has for the scholarship. However, the current changes are said to be one of the biggest since the Bright Future Scholarship was introduced in 1997.

Daphnis said the community can act to mitigate the changes.

“Make our voices heard,” Daphnis said. “Speak to your legislators in order to accommodate students who deserve the scholarship again.”

The cuts made by governor Rick Scott along with his passing of bills that will allow a 15 percent increases in tuition at state universities have put a strain on all students who are currently in high school.

“Students will have to work harder and apply themselves more in classes if they want to receive any kind of aid at the end of their high school career,” Daphnis said.