Will Your Future Be Bright?

 in Featured

By: Arianna Bekas

Bright Futures is a lottery-funded program in Florida that strives to reward students for their academic achievement by giving them money for college. There are different levels of the scholarship that depend on the requirements that you meet. For the Florida Academic Scholarship and the Medallion Scholarship you need to earn a Florida diploma or GED. You need to complete the required high school coursework, receive the obligated high school minimum grade point average, and you must achieve the prescribed minimum score on either your ACT or your SAT. You also need to complete your required amount of service hours. The mandatory amounts/minimums mentioned above depend upon what level of the Bright Futures program that you wish to receive.

One of the main requirements of the Bright Futures program is the completion of no less than thirty hours of community service, typically one-hundred hours is the preferred amount. This year, changes were made regarding the community service portion of the Bright Futures scholarship. These changes were made by OCPS to their community service plan. The new requirements state that your community service must be pre-approved by your counselor before you begin your hours, and it must address a social problem or concern. Not only that but you now have to develop a community service plan that describes what it is you helped with when you were volunteering.

We asked Ms. Metts some questions about the changes to the community service requirements for Bright Futures, and she seemed to see the changes as more of a positive than a negative. She also seems to think that these changes might even be beneficial in rewarding students who work hard for their academic achievements.

As the college and careers specialist, what do you think about the changes in the bright futures scholarship program?

I think it’s great that students that earned the Florida Academic Scholarship that are in college right now are getting a full ride. I think that’s fantastic, but we don’t know if anything will be permanent. So it would be nice to know if it was permanent.

Would you say that the changes made are fair changes?

I think it is important to make college affordable, and I think that the students that got the highest level of Bright Futures demonstrate that they should be rewarded for the hard work that they put in in high school.

Do you have any idea as to why they decided to make these changes in the scholarship requirements?

I don’t know, other than they wanted to make college affordable, and they wanted to bring Bright Futures back up to the level that it used to be.

What advice would you give to students as to how to deal with Bright Futures now?

I think that the earlier they can start on their community service the better–especially with the changes in the community service plan, and for Orange County Public Schools. I think that the sooner they can start prepping for the ACT and the SAT and making the most of the free SAT that they get to take at the end of their junior year, as well as the free one they take at the beginning of senior year, will make a huge difference. Going onto SATpractice.org, which is the website that was created with College Board, and Kahn Academy for the sole purpose of leveling the playing field so that all students who take the SAT get access to high-quality test prep material, and I think that’s super important too. Of course, you also have to keep your grades up. Bright Futures only looks at your core classes. So it only looks at your four core English, your four core math, your three core science, your three core social studies, and then your two foreign languages. That’s it, and honors classes are only weighted a half point and AP and dual enrollment classes are weighted a full point. So that’s some important information for students to keep in mind.

Do you think that the changes made will affect students and their ability to receive the Bright Futures scholarship?

No, because they have not made it any harder than before, they haven’t informed us if they are going to raise test scores or not. If anything, with the new SAT it’s a little bit easier to get the score that they need. With that being said, we have no confirmation that this program will continue or that we will continue to get the full tuition and fees. Right now we just know that it’s just for this year. But the minimum amount that they would get is one-hundred three dollars per credit hour for the highest level of Bright Futures, and seventy-seven dollars per credit hour for the Medallion Scholar, which is the next one down.

 

Although Ms. Metts opinion on this change was positive, when students were asked about these changes, their opinions contradicted her positive feelings on this matter. Victoria Mezera, a sophomore at Apopka High School, and a fellow journalist at The Blue and White, is not pleased with these changes. Victoria says “It’s ridiculous because they should be making this easier on kids instead of harder, these changes just really discourage students from taking part in this program.” Taylor Bornstein, another sophomore at Apopka High School, also agrees with Victoria that the changes made are not in the best interests of students. He says “It’s very moronic, because it screws over the Floridian students, because the essay is a lot of work to add onto students, and it also causes a lot of people to not want to volunteer.” Although most of the student reactions have been negative, Johnathan Gardon who is in tenth grade, believes that these changes are only fair if there’s increased benefits to reward students for the extra work they are having to do. The reason why the changes are angering to students is because they feel cheated, and students feel like they are being deceived by a program that they have been banking on to help them afford college, and now it seems like they are getting a smaller and smaller piece of the pie.

If you are wondering what you can still volunteer for after these changes, here are some guidance-approved places in Apopka. If you are interested in the medical aspects of life, you can volunteer at the Florida Hospital of Apopka. If you are interested in education you can volunteer with ADDitions School Volunteer program, or if you have interests in helping to enhance student opportunities then you can volunteer with Partners in Education.

Links to requirements for Apopka volunteer opportunities: