In the meetings I have with high school parents across Georgia, I get a lot of questions about the scholarships available to homeschool students in the state of Georgia. I thought it would be helpful to do a post on this topic. I have found out that Many homeschool parents are not informed accurately on how to get the HOPE or Zell Miller Scholarships.. Share on X many homeschool parents are not informed accurately on how to get the HOPE or Zell Miller Scholarships. This is the biggest amount most typical students will be able to receive in one place in the state of Georgia. These parents might know a piece of the information, but not the full story. In this post, we’ll break it down for you so that you will have all the info you need. For further research, go to gafutures.org.
Note to start: the HOPE High School GPA is calculated from only Core High School and Dual enrollment courses in these subject areas: English, Math, Science, Foreign Language, and Social Science. Note: Health / PE and Electives do not count. This is not the same as your high school GPA on your transcript which will include Health/PE and Electives.
Part 1: For Unaccredited Homeschoolers (graduating without a transcript accredited by the state of Georgia)
Upfront HOPE/Zell award:
Without accreditation, your student can get the HOPE scholarship before he starts classes at his college (they award right when classes are starting and the bill comes out) if he has a 24 on the ACT or 1160 on the SAT. This would be 90% of the tuition at a public university but does not include books, fees, etc.
If he scores even higher, 29 on the ACT or 1340 on the SAT, he can get the Zell Miller Scholarship which will be for 100% of his tuition at the public university. This is how to get the money upfront.
Retroactive HOPE/Zell award:
If their score is not that high, then the way it works is they pay you after attending for 30 credit hours. This is called retroactive. It’s usually 2 semesters of 15 hrs each you would have to pay full price to get the 30 total hours necessary. At that point, if his High school final HOPE GPA was above a 3.0 and his college GPA after 30 hrs was above a 3.0, he would get the HOPE scholarship (90% of tuition).
If he gets a 3.7 HOPE high school GPA and 3.3 college GPA PLUS a score of 26 on the ACT or 1200 on the SAT, then he could get the Zell Miller retroactive (100% of tuition).
Part 2: For Accredited Homeschoolers (graduating WITH a transcript accredited by the state of Georgia)
Upfront HOPE/Zell award:
With accreditation, your student can get the HOPE scholarship before he starts classes at his college (they award right when classes are starting and the bill comes out) if he has a 3.0 HOPE GPA. Note: no ACT/SAT minimum score is required. This would be 90% of the tuition at a public university but does not include books, fees, etc.
If he has a HOPE GPA of 3.7 and also scores 26 on the ACT or 1200 on the SAT, he can get the Zell Miller Scholarship which will be for 100% of his tuition at the public university.
Concluding Notes
I highly recommend taking both tests (SAT/ACT) as much as you can if you are trying for these scholarships.
Note: The award amount at a private university or college will be different than the award at public universities in Georgia. You can look up the exact award amount for each college on gafutures.org.
I hope this information helps you when thinking about scholarships for Georgia colleges.
Blessings,
Michelle
P.S. – If you are looking for lots more help on getting your kids from high school to college, check out the Teach The Diligently Virtual Summit on this topic. Amazing speakers! I was thrilled to present two sessions.
P.P.S. – I just started a NEW High School Parents Coaching Club. If you need help homeschooling high school, this is the place to get it!
