The impetus: State of Georgia’s HOPE scholarship AKA the free in-state school tuition available to children with a B average, has lowered the grant qualifications from a 3.0 B average to a 2.0 C average.
You know what I had coming to me when I brought home C’s? An ass-whoopin.
Okay, maybe not a real ass-whoopin, but I certainly would have preferred an ass-whoopin if it meant I didn’t have to deal with the mind-fucking my mom would give me with her disappointed behavior and passive-aggressive self-loathing at raising such a mediocre child. When your own mother doesn’t really want to talk to you because you brought home a C, it makes you feel a little bit like shit, and develop a complex for getting C’s, let alone anything worse. C’s may as well have been F’s, because it really didn’t change the way my mom acted.
But anyway, needless to say, it’s a sad day in Georgia that the children for tomorrow will be getting rewarded for their mediocrity in academics by being able to get into the University of Georgia for free, as long as they can maintain, mediocrity. And I say UGA, because why the hell would anyone settle for any other HOPE-qualifying school other than the most famous one? And you know they’re all going to go to UGA to become party bros and hos, join frats and sororities, go to football-driven keggers, become obsessed with the football team, bulldogs and the color red, and eventually forget how to spell “dog” correctly. And then, they’ll graduate from UGA with mediocrity, but the important thing is that they’ll have a degree, which apparently means you’re qualified to do god’s work now.
This sucks for any teenager today who’s actually smart, and is actually aiming for greatness. Say they fail to get into their top choice schools, because they want better than UGA, or West Georgia or Georgia Southern. When they don’t get into their desired school, perhaps they take a route where they build their career from scratch. But then one fateful day comes where they’re vying for a job, where it boils down to the smart self-made young adult, versus some bro who slacked his way to a sheet of paper from UGA, and the company is more impressed with that, and hires the bro while the more qualified candidate is kicked to the curb.
There should never be any reward for mediocrity. There is nothing good about being mediocre. Nobody ever remembered who the TV champ was, or the European champ. Nobody ever cared about Horace Grant, or Stephanie Tanner or the middle daughter in Family Matters. Mediocrity is the worst. It’s a place where one can’t become great, but isn’t bad enough to hit bottom, where they might learn something and rebuild.
