by Ty Tagami | Nov 6, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — Nearly every state in the country gives college students financial aid based on financial need.
Georgia is among the two that do not.
Advocates who want to see that changed contend the policy is harming the economy by reducing the number of college students who earn a degree after suffering academic setbacks, and by driving high school graduates to attend college in other states, forever forsaking Georgia.
Georgia has a lottery-funded scholarship, but HOPE is distributed based on academic performance in high school rather than financial need, and students lose the scholarship if their college grade point average drops too far.
That is what happened to Jordan Winfrey, a Kennesaw State University student who testified at a legislative hearing Thursday about the affordability of higher education.
Winfrey wants to be a nurse, in a state that needs more of them, but she struggled with chemistry. Her grade point average fell, she lost HOPE and now, a junior, she works 30 hours a week to cover the loss.
She has been trying to improve her grades and recover HOPE but has found that difficult while holding a job.
“If I were able to work fewer hours, I’d be able to focus more on my classes and see my grades improve,” said Winfrey, a native Georgian and the first in her family to attend college.
She said all her friends are struggling too, with some dropping out to work.
Taylor Ramsey, executive director of One Goal, which helps students like Winfrey, said fewer than half of high school students qualify for HOPE, and more than 40% who do wind up losing it in college, falling into a downward spiral like Winfrey, “when we pull the rug from under them and take away that financial aid.”
It affects everyone, said Ray Li, a lawyer with Legal Defense Fund, a racial justice group. It drives up student debt, creating a drag on the economy when graduates must pay back loans instead of, say, buying a house. Georgia has one of the highest average college loan debt rates in the country, he said.
And the lack of financial aid for low-income families is driving a “brain drain,” he said, as talented students choose college in other states that will give them “needs-based” financial aid “because it is cheaper to go somewhere else and they’re never returning to the Georgia economy.”
Li said Georgia has the lowest percentage of high school graduates who stay in state for college in this region of the country. He recommended joining the 48 states that offer needs-based aid, by funding it with $126 million in reserves held by the Georgia Lottery. He argued that Georgia would recoup the cost many times over in income taxes paid by graduates.
It is unclear how convincing his recommendation will be for the Georgia General Assembly. Sen. Max Burns, R-Sylvania, attended Thursday’s hearing as a member of the committee studying college affordability. He suggested another course: consider making it easier for students to recover HOPE after their grades drop too far.
“Good students have challenges especially in that first year or that second year,” said Burns, chairman of the Senate Higher Education Committee and a former President of Gordon State College in Barnesville.
Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, a Republican running for governor, authorized the study committee. Sen. Nan Orrock, D-Atlanta, who leads it, said her panel will write formal recommendations after its next and final hearing Dec. 2.
by Ty Tagami | Nov 5, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — The one in eight Georgians who rely on the government for food may have to wait for weeks to get their spending allotment on the cards they use to buy groceries.
In Georgia, deposits for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, normally start arriving on the fifth of each month, rolling out on odd dates to recipients through the 23rd.
But on Wednesday, the 36th day of the government shutdown, a new record, one Atlanta shop owner said about a dozen customers had not received their normal allotment.
“People have come in saying that they traditionally get their benefits on the fifth and they didn’t get anything today,” said Jasmine Crowe-Houston, the owner of Goodr Community Market on Edgewood.
Justin King, policy director for Propel, an information service for 5 million SNAP recipients, foresaw this due to the complexity of federal guidance that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) sent to states Tuesday. The agency will be giving $5 billion to states to administer SNAP this month. That is about half the normal amount, and it will require states to recalibrate their systems for dividing up the funding for each recipient.
“It’s going to take some time for the states to figure out exactly how to implement the rules that they’ve been given,” King said Tuesday. “They’re not going to start on time.”
King pointed to an official statement in one of the federal lawsuits that compelled the administration of President Donald Trump to issue SNAP benefits during the shutdown. (Officials had said late last month that they would not, prompting two federal lawsuits.)
Judges ordered Trump to send the money, and the administration said it would comply. But in a filing Monday in the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for Rhode Island, USDA official Patrick A. Penn said to expect delays.
“For at least some States, USDA’s understanding is that the system changes States must implement to provide the reduced benefit amounts will take anywhere from a few weeks to up to several months,” wrote Penn, the deputy under secretary of USDA’s Food Nutrition and Consumer Services, the agency that handles SNAP.
On Tuesday, not long after USDA issued the guidance to states to pay recipients an average of half their normal allotment, Trump sowed confusion with a social media post.
He seemed to say on Truth Social that the administration would reverse course and disobey the court orders that had been issued Friday, writing that SNAP benefits “will be given only when the Radical Left Democrats open up government.”
But later on Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt downplayed the president’s post, saying at a news briefing that the administration was, indeed, complying with the court orders.
“But it’s going to take some time,” she said, because the payments must be “prorated” and are coming from a contingency fund.
That could mean hunger for the 1.4 million Georgians — an eighth of the population — who rely on SNAP.
The Georgia Department of Human Services disburses the benefits to recipients through a contractor. On Wednesday afternoon, the agency could not confirm when people will get their deposits.
“We are working with our federal partners for clarification and are also working with our vendor, and will provide updates as soon as any new developments occur,” a spokesperson said.
Food banks will try to fill the breach, but they can only do so much, said Eliza McCall, chief programming officer for Second Harvest of South Georgia.
The Valdosta-based group stockpiled millions of pounds of food to distribute to surrounding communities, but McCall said SNAP feeds nine people for every one normally served by organizations like hers.
“We are committed to helping our neighbors in need, but that’s not a hole that we can fill,” she said, noting that other federal programs that send commodities to food banks have also been disrupted.
by Ty Tagami | Nov 4, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — Two Democrats swept the only statewide elections on Tuesday’s ballot, upending total Republican control over the five-member Public Service Commission.
The agency, which regulates utilities and sets consumer rates, is expected to play a central role in planning for future needs of electricity-hungry data centers.
Democrats Alicia Johnson and Peter Hubbard used that issue coupled with frustration over recent rate increases to topple Tim Echols and Fitz Johnson, the two Republican incumbents who were up for election.
The lopsided wins were rare statewide victories for Democrats, who had not seen such success in nearly two decades aside from the two U.S. Senate seats captured by Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock.
Charlie Bailey, chairman of the Democratic Party of Georgia, said the outcome indicated Georgians were “sick of Republicans who help corporations and billionaires enrich themselves on the backs of working people,” casting it as a positive sign for the party ahead of next year’s elections.
Republicans still have a 3-2 grip on the PSC, but Democrats will have a seat at the table.
The PSC is considering proposals to expand Georgia Power’s fleet of natural gas turbines to sate demand by anticipated growth of data centers, which Echols had touted as economic drivers.
Hubbard, a solar power advocate, had said the PSC’s trajectory would further increase electricity bills, a claim refuted by the two Republicans. He and Alicia Johnson had called for more sustainable energy and ratepayer protections.
Echols, first elected in 2010, and Fitz Johnson, appointed in 2021, oversaw a half dozen rate increases over the past couple years.
This was the first time Fitz Johnson had to stand for election due to delays caused by a 2022 lawsuit over the election process, which resulted in the postponement of both the 2022 and 2024 PSC elections. Because of that litigation, Echols did not have to run for reelection in 2022 after winning a second term in 2016.
The commissioners normally run for six-year terms within their district of residence, but they stand for election statewide and represent the whole state.
The Democrats, who campaigned on more sustainable energy and ratepayer protections, each took nearly 900,000 votes — well over 300,000 more than each of the Republicans.
Echols, who lost to Alicia Johnson in District 2 in eastern Georgia, embraced data centers as good for the economy, and he supported the expansion of nuclear Plant Vogtle, which was completed last year. Fitz Johnson, who lost to Hubbard in metro Atlanta’s District 3, had asserted that new policies by the Republican-led PSC had strengthened the electrical grid and would contain rate increases.
The two Republicans had repeatedly expressed concerns about low turnout among their voters, fearing that this election cycle with many municipal races on the ballot would favor Democrats.
The turnout Tuesday was more than 20 times higher than the GOP primary elections in June.
by Ty Tagami | Nov 4, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — People in Georgia who rely on the federal government for food may or may not start receiving money Wednesday, amid head-spinning pronouncements from Washington.
An estimated 1.4 million Georgians receive subsidies for groceries through the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which the administration of President Donald Trump sought to freeze during the ongoing government shutdown.
The Trump administration reversed course Tuesday morning, saying payments would resume, then appeared to reverse course again later in the morning.
First, the U.S. Department of Agriculture issued guidance to states telling them that SNAP recipients would receive their deposits this month after all — albeit at half the normal amount — because of federal judges’ orders last week.
“Due to the limited availability of Federal funding and orders from two Federal courts, the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) is reducing SNAP maximum allotments to 50 percent,” the USDA said, adding that states should “take immediate action” to implement the new plan.
Then, Trump published a post on his Truth Social platform before noon that appeared to undo that plan. SNAP benefits “will be given only when the Radical Left Democrats open up government,” he wrote.
The Trump administration announced late last month that it would freeze SNAP funding because of the refusal by Democrats in Congress to approve a continuing resolution to fund the federal budget.
Democrats then blamed Republicans for refusing to negotiate terms for approval, mainly the restoration of tax credits for Affordable Care Act health insurance coverage. Premiums are expected to skyrocket in January without those credits.
It is unclear whether SNAP recipients will get their deposits on the normal monthly schedule, which starts Wednesday in Georgia.
SNAP benefits are normally distributed to Georgia recipients on a rotating basis beginning on the fifth day of each month and continuing on odd dates through the 23rd of each month.SNAP benefits are normally distributed to Georgia recipients on a rotating basis beginning on the fifth day of each month and continuing on odd dates through the 23rd of each month.
by Ty Tagami | Nov 3, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — Georgia politicians continued to blame each other Monday for the lapse in funding for federal food assistance, amid confusion about the government’s reaction to two federal lawsuits.
On Friday, judges ordered the administration of President Donald Trump to resume depositing funds into the accounts of recipients of a U.S. Department of Agriculture program that feeds low-income households. News reports indicate that the administration will make only partial payments.
But by the end of the workday Monday, neither the USDA nor the Georgia agency that administers the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, had updated old public messaging on their websites to clarify the status of the funding.
“Bottom line, the well has run dry,” said a banner that has been atop the USDA website since last month. It was posted in response to the government shutdown that started Oct. 1.
The website of Georgia’s Department of Human Services had not updated two messages from Oct. 24 about SNAP. The first said the electronic benefits cards that recipients use to spend their subsidy would stop working Nov. 1. Another clarified that recipients could still spend unused benefits in their accounts after that deadline.
On Monday, a spokeswoman for the state agency had no new information. “We will continue to follow official guidance from USDA as it becomes available,” Ellen Brown said in an email. “We understand how important SNAP benefits are to Georgia families and are closely monitoring the situation.”
The lack of clarity about whether people will be able to put food on the table this month has caused significant anxiety, said Eliza McCall, the chief programming officer for Second Harvest of South Georgia.
The food bank serves more than a dozen counties in South Georgia and typically gets maybe five calls a week from people seeking food, she said. That number rose to 25 during the first three days of last week, she said, doubling to 28 on Thursday.
“People are scared,” McCall said. “People are extremely nervous and that’s completely understandable because the uncertainty and the instability do not breed confidence.”
Meanwhile, Democrats and Republicans were trading blows, blaming the other side for a looming food shortage.
The Trump administration announced late last month that it would freeze SNAP funding because of the refusal by Democrats in Congress to approve a continuing resolution to fund the federal budget.
Democrats then blamed Republicans for refusing to negotiate terms for approval, mainly the restoration of tax credits for Affordable Care Act health insurance coverage. Premiums are expected to skyrocket in January without those credits.
SNAP recipients were “dragged into this fight” by Trump and Republicans in Congress, Sen. Raphael Warnock, one of Georgia’s two Democratic U.S. Senators, told reporters at a neighborhood grocery store in Atlanta Monday.
“They are literally pitting sick people against hungry people. I can’t think of anything more craven than that,” Warnock said. “This is a manufactured crisis by the Trump administration aided and abetted by Washington Republicans.”
On the other side, U.S. Rep. Austin Scott, a Republican representing part of South Georgia, blamed U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer, the New York Democrat and minority leader of the Senate, who has orchestrated numerous votes against a continuing resolution.
Scott, sounding like Warnock, called the shutdown and its effect on SNAP benefits and other programs a “manufactured” disaster, but he blamed it on Democrats. In a statement emailed Monday, he suggested that the shutdown and its effects would not end soon because of them.
“Because of their refusal to fund the government, women and children who need assistance will struggle to purchase food for Thanksgiving,” Scott said.
