Editorial: Save the scholarships

Monday, Feb. 14, 2005 | 9:25 a.m.

The state's Millennium Scholarship is so successful that it should be ... scrapped? We don't think so. But Assemblyman Morse Arberry, D-Las Vegas, chairman of the Assembly Ways and Means Committee, expressed this view. "Don't be surprised if we ask you to phase this out," Arberry last week told Treasurer Brian Krolicki, whose office runs the program.

The scholarship to any state university or college is available to all who graduate from a Nevada high school with a B average or better. Krolicki has warned that the program will run out of money in the near future unless the Legislature provides it with an additional source of funds.

We were glad that Republican Gov. Kenny Guinn, who devised the program, and Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins, D-Henderson, strongly rejected Arberry's comment. The Millennium Scholarship is a big incentive for high school students to remain in Nevada and contribute to a more educated work force. Nevada's economy is doing so well now that the state has a $300 million surplus. Surely there is money available to save a program as worthy as this one.