Bill would strip adults of scholarships

Tuesday, May 1, 2001 | 10:28 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- An Assembly committee Monday approved a bill that would eliminate those with adult education diplomas from gaining Millennium Scholarships to attend or college in Nevada.

That could mean 13 state prison inmates and eight other people with adult education diplomas will lose their scholarships.

Jane Nichols, chancellor of the University and Community College System of Nevada, testified before the committee that she would try to find other funding to help prisoners continue their education.

The Millennium Scholarship provides up to $10,000 to Nevada students who graduate with a 3.0 grade point average or better to attend state universities and colleges.

Senate Bill 113, passed unanimously by the Assembly Education Committee, would also eliminate the requirement that a scholarship student who drops out or does not maintain at least a 2.0 grade point average would have to repay the money in order to regain the scholarship.

Nichols said the repayment plan hits hardest at low-income students. She said 31 percent of the 736 students who face loss of their scholarships have low incomes. The goal, she said, is to help the students to continue their education and try to regain the scholarship.

Eliminating the repayment will "encourage them to persevere and come back in the fall," the chancellor said.

Since this is the first year of the scholarship program, no student has been required to pay back any money.

SB113 also would open the scholarship programs to other schools in Nevada that are nonsectarian, tax-exempt and have received a regional accreditation. That would make Sierra Nevada College at Incline Village eligible.

The bill enables a studen who obtains a "high school diploma by completing an educational program for adults is not eligible to receive a Millennium Scholarship."

There are about 13,000 people now enrolled in adult education courses in Nevada. Most of them are older and there is no way to compare their grade point average with the regular high school, Nichols said.

To be eligible for the scholarship, which is financed from the tobacco settlement, a student must have been in the school class that would have graduated after May 2000. Those in adult education, Nichols said, range in age from 20 to 70 years old.

While eliminating those in adult education, Nichols said those students with a GED are still eligible for a scholarship if they pass the high school proficiency test and the ACT.