This year, fifth-year seniors at ETSU are given a glimmer of “hope,” as the Tennessee lottery scholarship has been extended to include those in their victory lap.
On June 13, Governor Phil Bredesen approved a Tennessee General Assembly bill that changes conditions and requirements of the Tennessee Lottery HOPE Scholarship.
Before the changes, students only received the award up until they had attempted 120 hours which caused many students to lose the scholarship before they earned a degree, including those in dual-enrollment programs that required more than 120 hours.
Now students can renew their award until five years from their initial enrollment or they receive a baccalaureate degree, whichever comes first.
The scholarship will be awarded on a semester-to-semester basis as long as the student maintains full-time enrollment, a cumulative GPA of 2.75, and a semester GPA of 3.0.
The new bill also changed the conditions for “nontraditional students.”
A nontraditional student is no longer eligible to receive the award if they have already earned a baccalaureate degree, previously received the HOPE scholarship for five years, or if five years has passed since their enrollment in an eligible college or university.
The “Helping Hands Act of 2008” was also passed as part of the new bill.
This act creates a new grant for veterans of the Armed Forces including members of the National Guard or reserve that were called into active duty, a Tennessee resident for one year, and have been awarded either the Iraq Campaign Medal, Afghanistan Campaign Medal, or the Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal after Sept. 11, 2001.
These members of the U.S. Armed Forces are eligible to receive the award for a maximum of eight semesters.
Sophomore Jennifer Traynor said, “I think the changes give people, especially those who work really hard or are first generation students, the opportunity to complete their higher education when they might not have any other way to do so.”
However nursing student Katie Morgan said, “Although I graduate in May and am not affected by the changes, I don’t really like the fact that they dropped the benchmark GPA to 2.75 at 48 hours because I think that combined with the fact that you have five years to obtain the scholarship [and] in some way encourages carelessness among first year college students.”
She further added, “I also don’t like that you can have five years and no longer a credit hour limit because I have worked hard to graduate in four years and other people can take easy courses for a few semesters and prolong the graduation processes and still get money for school.

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