Governor Zell Miller's greatest accomplishment is starting the HOPE Scholarship.
We spoke to a student at Fort Valley State University on Friday who said that scholarship gave her a chance at a better education.
Because of former Governor Zell Miller's fight for the HOPE Scholarship, the Georgia Student Finance Commission says nearly two million students received money for college. One of those is Tamara Barney at Fort Valley State University. She says her family always pushed her in grade school so she could one day walk on a college campus.
"My mom, she would always push me to get A's, and if I brought home a B, she would be OK with it, but she would always want me to do better," Barney said.
Barney didn't know if college was in her future because her mom, a single parent of two, didn't have any money saved up for further education.
"We had to think of a different way that we can fulfill my school financially and HOPE helped a lot," Barney said.
Through hard work and high marks, Barney got the HOPE Scholarship. Athena Smith with Fort Valley State University's financial aid office says Barney is one of nearly 500 students on campus with the scholarship. Smith says HOPE is a huge help to students and their parents.
"A lot of the HOPE scholar students, as long as they can keep their scholarship, do not have to take out as much loan money and usually their parents do not have to take out the Parent Plus Loan," Smith said.
Barney said had it not been for somebody like Governor Miller in a high position focusing on higher education, she would be flooded in debt.
"I'm happy he took that into consideration, and actually put in place the HOPE Scholarship and the Zell Scholarship, et cetera," Barney said.