HOPE-Eligible Graduates

Georgia high school graduates who met the academic eligibility criteria for the HOPE scholarship, by school, district, and state, 2004-2024.

Source: Governor's Office of Student Achievement (GOSA)
Year coverage: 2004–2024
Updated: annual
Version: 1.0.0
Schema hash: 09bef34719e2

Detail levels available

StateDistrictSchool · default

Overview

Governor's Office of Student Achievement (GOSA) HOPE Eligibility dataset. For every Georgia public high school, school district, and the state as a whole, reports the number of graduating seniors who met the academic eligibility criteria for Georgia's HOPE scholarship program. Three metrics: num_graduates (regular graduates), num_hope_eligible (subset that met HOPE academic eligibility), and hope_eligible_rate (the share that met eligibility, on a 0-1 decimal scale). Coverage: spring 2004 through spring 2024 (21 files; filename year = spring graduation year). No demographic / gender / race breakdowns — every row is the all-students total. There is a substantive series break between 2006 and 2007: state-level percent eligible drops from ~62% (2006) to ~38% (2007+). This reflects a real methodology change in HOPE eligibility determination, not a data-processing artifact: beginning with the high school graduating class of 2007, the Georgia Student Finance Commission (GSFC) began computing each student's HOPE GPA directly from electronic high-school transcript data (the GSFC-calculated HOPE GPA) rather than relying on the school-reported GPA used previously. The break is preserved as published, not 'fixed'. Treat 2004-2006 and 2007-2024 as separate eras when comparing percentages.

Row grain: One row per year, district_code, school_code.

Key metric

hope_eligible_rate — HOPE Eligible Rate (proportion)

The single headline value most answers want.

JSON schema →Data contract (YAML) →

Variables

Every column in the fact table. The code is the exact field name the API returns.

Column	Type	Unit	Range	Null?	Description
`year`Year	integer	—	—	no	Spring graduation year (e.g., 2024 = spring-2024 graduating class, 2023-2024 school year). For Era 1 and Era 2 files the filename year is cross-checked against the LONG_SCHOOL_YEAR column's ending year and must match. Full description▾ Spring graduation year (e.g., 2024 = spring-2024 graduating class, 2023-2024 school year). For Era 1 and Era 2 files the filename year is cross-checked against the LONG_SCHOOL_YEAR column's ending year and must match.
`district_code`District Code	string	—	—	yes	3-digit GOSA district code (zero-padded). 7-digit charter / state-school codes pass through unchanged (e.g., 7820412). NULL for state-level aggregate rows. FK to districts dimension. Full description▾ 3-digit GOSA district code (zero-padded). 7-digit charter / state-school codes pass through unchanged (e.g., 7820412). NULL for state-level aggregate rows. FK to districts dimension. Joins districts; adds its label columns.
`school_code`School Code	string	—	—	yes	4-digit GOSA school code (zero-padded). NULL for district- and state-level aggregate rows. FK to schools dimension (composite PK with district_code). Bronze padding is inconsistent across eras (the composite-key eras ship unpadded 3-digit codes; Era 2 mixes by year; 2008 mixes within the file); the transform normalizes to 4 digits via zfill. Full description▾ 4-digit GOSA school code (zero-padded). NULL for district- and state-level aggregate rows. FK to schools dimension (composite PK with district_code). Bronze padding is inconsistent across eras (the composite-key eras ship unpadded 3-digit codes; Era 2 mixes by year; 2008 mixes within the file); the transform normalizes to 4 digits via zfill. Joins schools; adds its label columns.
`num_graduates`Number Graduates	integer	count	—	yes	Number of regular high-school graduates in the cohort. NULL when suppressed in bronze (TFS = Too Few Students, applied per the 2009 source SQL when graduates <= 9; affects 2009 and 2011-2024) or when the bronze cell is genuinely blank — a value GOSA left unreported (all 2014 and 2020 NULLs are blank cells; those files contain no TFS markers). The 2004-2008 and 2010 files have no suppression, so their values are uncensored. Full description▾ Number of regular high-school graduates in the cohort. NULL when suppressed in bronze (TFS = Too Few Students, applied per the 2009 source SQL when graduates <= 9; affects 2009 and 2011-2024) or when the bronze cell is genuinely blank — a value GOSA left unreported (all 2014 and 2020 NULLs are blank cells; those files contain no TFS markers). The 2004-2008 and 2010 files have no suppression, so their values are uncensored.
`num_hope_eligible`Number HOPE Eligible	integer	count	—	yes	Number of graduates in this cohort who met HOPE academic eligibility (GPA + required-course requirements). NULL when TFS-suppressed or when the bronze cell is genuinely blank (both occur in 2011-2020; see the suppression note). May be 0 (e.g., Renaissance Academy in 2008 had 28 graduates and 0 HOPE-eligible — a real zero, not suppression). Never exceeds num_graduates (enforced by a quality check; 0 violations in bronze). Full description▾ Number of graduates in this cohort who met HOPE academic eligibility (GPA + required-course requirements). NULL when TFS-suppressed or when the bronze cell is genuinely blank (both occur in 2011-2020; see the suppression note). May be 0 (e.g., Renaissance Academy in 2008 had 28 graduates and 0 HOPE-eligible — a real zero, not suppression). Never exceeds num_graduates (enforced by a quality check; 0 violations in bronze).
`hope_eligible_rate`HOPE Eligible Rate	number	proportion	—	yes	Share of graduates that met HOPE academic eligibility, on a 0-1 scale; NULL when suppressed (too few students). Full description▾ Share of graduates that met HOPE academic eligibility, on a 0-1 decimal scale (bronze 0-100 divided by 100). NULL when TFS-suppressed or genuinely blank in bronze (see the suppression note). For derived district + state aggregates (2008 all levels above school; 2004 district level) and bronze rows merged under one school code (the 2004 trailing-x pairs, the 2008 Westside pair), this is computed as num_hope_eligible / num_graduates — a graduate-count weighted mean across the contributing rows. Reconciles with the published counts within 0.005 everywhere (measured max deviation 0.0005, from 1-decimal bronze rounding).

Filters

Query parameters the fact endpoint accepts. Comma-separated values are OR within a parameter; multiple parameters AND together.

Parameter	Kind	Allowed values	Notes
`year`	year_exact	any value	—
`year_min`	year_range	any value	—
`year_max`	year_range	any value	—
`detail`	detail	`districtsschoolsstates`	enum-enforced, default: schools
`district_code`	foreign_key	any value	multi-value
`school_code`	foreign_key	any value	multi-value
`district_type`	dimension_attribute	7 allowed values▾ `commission_charter` `resa` `standard` `state_agency` `state_charter` `state_school` `state_special`	multi-value, enum-enforced

Example requests

Run these against the base URL — they return live data.

All rows (first page), schools level

curl "https://georgiacivicdata.org/api/v1/education/hope_eligible_graduates"

schools data for 2024

curl "https://georgiacivicdata.org/api/v1/education/hope_eligible_graduates?year=2024"

One district (code 601), 2024

curl "https://georgiacivicdata.org/api/v1/education/hope_eligible_graduates?district_code=601&year=2024&detail=districts"

Download 2024 as CSV

curl "https://georgiacivicdata.org/api/v1/education/hope_eligible_graduates?year=2024&format=csv"

Notes & limitations

NULL handling

Suppressed cells (too few students to report) are NULL, never zero.
Zero is a real, reported value.

Limitations

Suppressed cells are NULL (not zero). State rows have NULL district_code and school_code; district rows have NULL school_code. Derived-aggregate caveat: for 2008 the bronze ships only school-level rows, so all district and state aggregate rows are derived here (sum of counts, graduate-count-weighted mean for hope_eligible_rate); the derived 2008 state total matches the bronze State Level sheet exactly (Renaissance Academy, fully orphaned, is excluded by both). For 2004 the bronze has school + state rows but no district rollups, so the 2004 district rows are likewise derived from the school rows. A separate known 2004 bronze artifact means the official state total (68,163 graduates / 42,233 eligible) is ~0.2% higher than the sum of itemized 2004 school rows, so a user roll-up from schools/districts to state will be ~0.2% short for 2004 only.