Lawmakers are trying once again to relax need-based financial aid rules so that Georgia students can get help earlier in their college studies.
House Bill 1124 , filed last week and sponsored by Rep. Chuck Martin , R-Alpharetta, proposes changes to the Georgia College Completion Grant Program, which launched in 2022 and is aimed at helping students who can’t afford to finish college.
The program currently requires students to have completed at least 80% of their credit requirements to receive a grant. The bill would drop that threshold to 70% for students in a four-year degree program and 45% for students in a two-year program.
Officials have called the 80% credit completion requirement an obstacle that prevents many schools, especially the state’s two-year technical colleges, from awarding all the funds they’re allocated through the program. Many students don’t hit that mark until partway through their final year.
“The major challenge we heard was the threshold, that the 80% was very problematic to be able to find students that were past that line in their credential attainment,” Lynne Riley, president of the Georgia Student Finance Commission, said during a Georgia House Higher Education Committee meeting last month.