CENTRAL FLORIDA — Thousands of Florida's best and brightest students are dealing with more cuts. The Bright Futures Scholarship Program is funded by the Florida Lottery, but last year the state used stimulus money to cover the costs.
Now, that federal money is going away.
Thousands of students at UCF benefiting from the Bright Futures Scholarship Program could have to pay more money for school. The legislature may cut some funding because the federal government is taking $100 million out of the program next year.
But students told WFTV they'd have a difficult time coming up with the cash.
Students who qualified for the full $3,750 this year might only get $2,900 next year. That's money Kirsten Winship, who is studying to be an orthodontist, doesn't have.
"Bright Futures definitely helps me a lot to pay for tuition every semester, so cutting that would put a lot more added pressure on me," she said.
The proposed cuts are coming as tuition costs are rising. In 2009, the legislature approved public universities like UCF to raise tuition by 15% a year.
Lawmakers are trying to find alternatives to help pay for the program. One idea is to have students who don't stay in Florida after graduation pay the program back. Another is to make the scholarships available to only families in need.
But the program was started to keep the state's best and brightest in Florida and students said, if the scholarship wasn't available, they wouldn't be here.
"Most of the reason I stayed here is because I had Bright Futures. If you're going to go out of state you would have had to pay out-of-state tuition, but I would have probably stayed somewhere else for a year and gotten their funding," Winship told WFTV.
Currently, Bright Futures scholarships go to students who score higher than 970 on the SATs and they get the money regardless of their household income. The Senate Higher Education Subcommittee will review ways to cut the program Thursday.