Beacon Staff

Brandon Beach, a Republican candidate for state senate (D-56) unveiled a bold education campaign pledge at a GOP women's gathering last week in Roswell.

It could be an educational homerun, if there ever was one.

Beach said that if elected, his first order of business on his first day under the Gold Dome would be to introduce a bill he's coined the "Successful Academic Achievement Act." The bill would give first priority enrollment at Georgia's top colleges to state residents.

"My initiative would give first priority admission to all state colleges and universities to any Georgia student who attained a minimum 3.75 G.P.A and 1390 SAT score in high school over out-of-state graduates," Beach said. "Too many of our brightest students are being forced to attend college out of state, where they often settle for life. This is not only unfair to our residents who have funded our colleges, it’s a long-term potential brain drain of our top talent and best minds in the state."

Beach says his proposed legislation is designed to enable more of Georgia's top tier students to attend the University of Georgia and Georgia Tech.

The candidate, vying with David Belle Isle and John Albers for the GOP state senate nomination in the July 20 primary to replace the retiring senator Dan Moody, says he has heard from many students who wanted to attend the state's primary universities but couldn't get in, although their academic prowess was laudable.

"Too many of our highest scholastic achievers and hardest-working students are being lost to other universities in the Carolinas, Virginia, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida," Beach said.

"We're losing many of our talented young adults to other states which is detrimental to our families and our workforce in both the short and long term." Beach maintained that the state's top academic talent should have the opportunity to stay in Georgia, in lieu of being forced to attend college out of state because they missed the acceptance threshold by a mere few percentage points on their GPA or SAT scores.

"The system currently in place is neither fair nor feasible," Beach said. "The best Georgia students should come before out of state applicants if they meet the academic threshold."