Few state institutions have become so much more competitive so quickly. The number of freshmen who graduated from high school with at least a 3.9 grade-point average rose to 853 in 1997, from 331 in 1992. Known as a party school in the 1980s, the university has a pronounced academic side today. Undergraduates, having had parents and teachers drill the HOPE standards into their heads in high school, take their classwork more seriously, several professors say, noting that attendance is way up. Students also come by at the beginning of the quarter and say, 'I'm on HOPE, and I don't want to lose it.
Some professors even say, with a hint of uneasiness, that the B has become almighty.
Others pull out calculators in class to determine what a test grade has just done to their average. From 1992 to 1996, the proportion of undergraduates who withdrew from classes in the fall semester rose from 5.5 to 7.3. About half of the freshmen who enter the university lose HOPE after the first year. Some regain it by bringing their average back up to 3.0 by their junior year. Roughly equal proportions of white and black students enter the university with the scholarship, but black freshmen are much more likely than their white classmates to lose it.