Deal to announce new plan for HOPE

ATLANTA - Gov. Nathan Deal and legislative leaders have agreed on a plan to rescue Georgia's cash-strapped HOPE scholarship that would cap the awards so they no longer rise as tuition does, effectively ending a 20-year-old promise: free public college tuition to any student who earned a B average or better.

Deal plans to announce the plan on Tuesday, says Senate President Pro Tempore Tommie Williams. Williams said the plan includes prohibiting the scholarship from paying for remedial courses and a scaled-back prekindergarten program for 4-year-olds.

Georgia's popular HOPE program is set to go broke by 2012 after paying for more than 1 million students to attend college.

While the state's lottery proceeds have continued to grow, they haven't been able to keep pace with rising tuition and exploding student enrollment.