the bright futures scholarship program was created in 1997 with revenues generated from the florida lottery, and was meant to emulate the hope scholarship in georgia. originally the program disbursed more than 42,000 scholarships totaling about $70 million. later, the costs for the scholarship ballooned substantially. the scholarship currently costs the lottery's coffers more than $436.1 million, with about 170,000 students taking advantage of the program.