Florida’s scholarship program for high-achieving students can shine a little brighter now that the cloud of a federal probe has passed.
For the past few years, the state has been scaling back the number of students getting Bright Future’s Scholarships to go to college. It’s done that raising eligibility requirements based on GPA’s, SAT and ACT scores.
“It used to be that 1-in-3 students received a bright future’s scholarship. This year 1-in-8 students received a bright futures scholarship," said Troy Miller, a Senior Policy Analyst for the Florida College Access Network which published a report on the issue earlier in the year.
But the increased requirements have disproportionately affected Black and Latino students, with fewer of them qualifying for the scholarships. As first reported by the Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times—the U.S. Department of Education has concluded its probe into those disparities and found insufficient evidence of any legal violations.
