According to an Atlanta-based think tank, the lottery priorities need to be reevaluated, especially on the HOPE Scholarship, as pre-k programs are in danger. Mega lottery

And here is why, as it seems, legislators may for the second straight year, cut back on pre-K education. If this happens, it would reduce the amount of funds that most college students get in order to make it thru the year.

As of right now, the costs for the HOPE program are rising much faster than income from the lottery, and if the situation doesn’t get any better, the lottery fund’s reserves will soon be over. Pre-K costs have been stable, but the program to get 4-year-olds going to school earlier is also facing some budget challenges. Powerball lottery

Scholarships and pre-K funding also faced cuts last year by the state legislature. And now Gov. Nathan Deal is proposing both to be cut again next year. With Deal’s budget proposal, 2,000 children would be cut from the program, but Georgia’s pre-K programs would return to a full 180-day school year. Last year, the pre-K school academic year was cut by the legislature and governor cut from 180 days to 160 days.

According to the Georgia Public Policy Institute’s “HOPE on a Tightrope”, a report issued last Tuesday says that the state should focus first on pre-K funding, because it gets the most bang for the buck in education spending.

Also, the institute recommends to increase the state spending to $382 million by the 2016 fiscal year. As of today, the state pre-K budget for this school year is $293 million. But, the HOPE Scholarship program is headed for big trouble, according to GBPI analyst Cedric Johnson.

“Today, the lottery funding model is broken,” he wrote. “Georgia must decide how best to invest limited resources in a manner that yields the greatest return for early education and higher education.”

The budget and policy institute says there should be at least, five changes to the HOPE Scholarship program and the related HOPE grant program, for students in technical and vocational schools. The changes include:

• Lowering the minimum GPA from 3.0 to 2.5 for the HOPE grant for students in technical colleges. Since, according to the GBPI analysis, this requirement has indeed kicked thousands of deserving students out of technical schools,.

• Creating a top of $100,000 household income for HOPE scholarship recipients, so that more money can go to students who actually need it.

• Instituting a sliding scale that would work for all HOPE recipients; for example, students whose families make between $40,001 and $60,000 should only get 80 percent of the full tuition.

• Limiting more the scholarship amount that Zell Miller Scholarship winners receive, in the case that their family income is more than $100,000 a year.

• Changing the existing Student Access Loan Program to a grant program to help students who needed it most.

Deal announced a new need-based scholarship program this week, funded by private donations, which so far is only available in three Georgia counties.

The University System of Georgia has more than 300,000 students enrolled this year, and that doesn’t count students in private colleges and universities.

Apparently this won’t be an easy to deal with at Congress this year either.