September 30, 2002
Albany- Albany State Biology major Erica Mosely may be an only child, but the college sophomore is one of more than 600,000 HOPE scholars. She says the money has helped her parents as well.
"They can focus their attention on maybe something they want to do or for my personal expenses. They can use it for that instead of my school, so it has taken a load off their shoulders," says Mosely.
Something that may not have been possible without Erica's scholarship. She like many others gets her tuition paid for as well as a book allowance just for keeping her grade point average at or above a 3.O.
"If I never had worked hard in school to get that 3.0 or better, I would have never had HOPE, and a lot of expenses and stress is taken off me and my parents, and I can just focus on my school work," admits Mosely.
The lottery funded program is officially ten years old, and Governor Roy Barnes, Lieutenant Governor Mark Taylor, and Senator Zell Miller celebrated the anniversary at three Georgia colleges today. "HOPE has allowed us to open the door to higher education to a whole generation of Georgians that would never know it," says Barnes.
Not only was the program designed to help students, but one of its goals is to develop an educated workforce for Georgia. "It has encouraged our best students to stay in the state, building a brighter future for Georgia," adds Barnes.
Soon Erica will be a part of that future as she plans to become a pediatrician and practice here in Albany, but for now she concentrates on keeping her HOPE alive.
"I study every day and make sure I stay focused in class, and pay attention to my teachers, and do extra stuff like going to tutorials and going to get help from my teachers."
Since the program began, Georgia college students have gotten more than 1.6 billion dollars in HOPE Scholarship money.
Posted at 11:20 PM by elaine.armstrong@walb.com
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