PUNTA GORDA, Fla. – Governor Ron DeSantis signed legislation June 27 that would modify the requirements of the Florida Bright Futures Scholarship Program to take into account applicants’ qualified work experience and make a college education available to more students .
“I’m a big believer in higher education,” he said at a news conference in Hillsborough County, where he formally signed HB 461.
HB 461 adds to the existing program a provision that will allow work hours to be counted instead of community service hours, something that, according to the governor, disenfranchised many students who had to help their families financially.
“It is important that this is something that is attainable for people and that it is not going to cause a huge burden of debt on everyone who graduates from these institutions.”
DeSantis said he didn’t want to see students “mortgage their entire future just to get a part.”
In 1997, the legislature included a volunteer work requirement in the Bright Futures program which, in turn, created an “unintended consequence” of leaving many working students behind from pursuing the scholarship.
Florida State Rep. Lauren Melo, a Republican, sponsored the bill to make sure Bright Futures was available to those students “facing financial challenges.”
“We blocked financial support from some of those who need it most,” Melo said during a debate on the bill in February. “Not everyone can volunteer instead of earning a salary.”
HB 461, introduced by Melo, would not affect the academic, test or class requirements of any of the scholarships. However, hours of service can now be met through volunteer service to a “qualified nonprofit organization, through paid employment” approved by a school district, or a combination of the two.
Before DeSantis signed the bill, the Bright Futures scholarship program required 100 hours of service for Florida Academic Scholars, the highest-ranking program, along with a 3.5 GPA and an ACT score of 29, or an SAT score of 1330. If requirements were met, students received a scholarship that covered 100 percent of tuition and fees at an in-state college or university. A similar amount for tuition also applied to a private state school.
Medallion Scholars, the second-tier program, required 75 hours of service as well as a 4.0 GPA, ACT score of 25, and SAT score of 1210.
The Gold Seal Career and Professional Education Scholarship program also had a 30-hour volunteer requirement, in addition to five credit hours of industry certification classes.
High school student Blake Dolenbeck has aspirations to attend the University of Florida next year after graduation. Until the bill was signed, he said he worried about not realizing that dream because his job at his family’s store left him no time for community service. For the past six years, he said he has attended the Florida Virtual School.
“This opens up new opportunities for me that I can’t even imagine,” he told an audience in Hillsborough County, alongside the governor. “I’ve had a job for the last three years where I work at my family’s ice cream shop, but it doesn’t give me a lot of time to do community service, so this really means the world to me.”
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