Updated September 2026 for Class of 2028
Ask ten Florida parents about Bright Futures and you'll get ten different half-right answers. Someone will tell you it's need-based. It isn't. Someone else will swear the score requirement hasn't moved in years. It just did. If you have a junior this year, here's what the program actually is, what it pays, and exactly what changed for your student's graduating class.
Bright Futures is Florida's state merit scholarship. The legislature created it in 1997, and it's funded by Florida Lottery proceeds, which is part of why you still see the name on lottery signage decades later. Income doesn't factor into it at all. A family making $40,000 a year and a family making $400,000 a year qualify under the exact same rules. Meet the academic bar, and the state pays. There's no essay, no committee reading applications, no limited number of awards handed out each year. Every student who qualifies gets one.
There are two tiers, and where a student lands comes down to test score and GPA.
Florida Academic Scholars covers 100% of tuition and fees at a Florida public university, plus a book stipend.
Florida Medallion Scholars covers 75% of tuition and fees.
For the Class of 2028, this year's juniors, here's the actual bar:
Academic Scholars: 3.50 weighted GPA and a 1350 SAT (or 29 ACT, or 96 CLT)
Medallion Scholars: 3.00 weighted GPA and a 1200 SAT (or 25 ACT, or 83 CLT)
Both tiers also require a specific set of high school coursework: four years of English, four of math, three of science, three of social studies, and two consecutive years of the same foreign language. Service hours differ by tier. Academic Scholars needs 100 hours, volunteer or paid work. Medallion Scholars needs 75 volunteer hours, 100 paid work hours, or a combination that totals 100.
This is the part catching families off guard right now. For the Class of 2027, last year's juniors, the Medallion cutoff was 1190 SAT and 24 ACT. Academic Scholars sat at 1330 SAT. For the Class of 2028, both moved up. Medallion needs 10 more SAT points and one more ACT point than it did last year. Academic Scholars needs 20 more SAT points. GPA and service hours aren't on a sliding scale like the test score is. They're fixed requirements set by tier, not recalculated year to year.
If your student has been aiming at a number they heard from an older sibling, a friend, or last year's junior class, that number is out of date. The one that counts now is 1350 and 1200.
Florida's Office of Student Financial Assistance recalculates the required score every year, aiming to hold a consistent percentile of test-takers nationally rather than a fixed number. When the national pool of scores shifts, the raw score attached to that percentile shifts with it. It actually dropped for the Class of 2026. It held flat for 2027. Now it's climbing again.
Which means the number your rising sophomore will need in two years is genuinely unknown right now. Worth checking again closer to the time rather than assuming it'll match an older sibling's.
My student is a few points short. Is that a lost cause? No. A 10 to 20 point gap is small on a scale that runs to 1600, and it's rarely an "everything is wrong" problem. Usually it's one or two specific things, pacing on a section, a question type quietly costing points every time, and our Score Report+ can point to exactly which one. Worth keeping in perspective too: whatever a single retest costs is a small fraction of what's actually on the table. The difference between missing Medallion Scholars and hitting it is roughly $19,000 over four years, and closing the gap from Medallion up to Academic Scholars is worth another $6,000 on top of that. When the gap is this specific, a retake is one of the higher-return moves a family can make before college.
Does a strong GPA make up for a lower test score, or the other way around? No trade-off exists between them. Both the GPA and the test score have to be met on their own. A 4.0 student who's short on the SAT doesn't get a pass, and a 1400 SAT student with a 3.2 GPA doesn't qualify either.
Can my student just retake the test to hit the new number? Yes, and most families in this position do exactly that. There's no penalty for retaking, and a student who knows specifically what cost them points the first time usually doesn't need to relearn everything, just close the gap that's already been identified.
Does qualifying for Bright Futures affect other financial aid we're getting? No. Bright Futures is merit-based and layers on top of need-based aid rather than replacing it. A family that qualifies for both comes out ahead of a family that only gets one.
What if my student ends up going to college out of state? Bright Futures only pays at Florida institutions, public, private, or community college. It has no bearing on admission anywhere, and a strong score helps an application regardless of where a student enrolls. Some families treat qualifying as insurance: it keeps the in-state option fully funded even if they're aiming somewhere else.
Could the requirement change again before my student actually graduates? Once Florida publishes the number for a specific graduating class, that's the number used for that class. It doesn't get revised again after the fact. The Class of 2028 number is 1350 and 1200, full stop. Future classes get their own separate calculation.
If your student has already taken a practice exam or an official test, book a complimentary Score Consult with an advisor. They'll go through the actual score against these numbers and tell you exactly what's standing between your student and each award.
If your student hasn't tested yet, start with a free practice exam instead, a live-proctored, full-length SAT or ACT practice exam. It comes with Score Report+, which doesn't just hand you a number: it maps every missed question to the specific skill behind it and identifies your student's top 3 areas to improve, so you can see exactly where the Class of 2028 gap sits before test day instead of after it. A free 30-minute score report review with an academic advisor is included too, so you're not reading it alone.
Bright Futures requirements shown are for the 2027-28 graduating class as published by Florida's Office of Student Financial Assistance and apply to that class only. Award values are approximate, based on 2025-26 in-state tuition rates at Florida public universities, and don't include room, board, or books. Confirm current numbers at floridabrightfutures.gov.