Senate panel sets 3.0 GPA for Millennium Scholars

Wednesday, June 1, 2005 | 9:37 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Millennium Scholars may have to burn more of the midnight oil to keep the money flowing.

A Senate subcommittee decided Tuesday to require those on the scholarship to maintain a 3.0 grade-point average. The current requirement is a 2.6 grade-point average.

Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus, a professor at UNLV, said that a 2.75 is "more realistic," but Sen. Barbara Cegavske, R-Las Vegas, said the subcommittee should set it at 3.0 and then a compromise can be reached in the Assembly.

More than 17,000 students used the Millennium Scholarship in the fall last year. Those who qualify get $10,000 to carry them through school.

Titus, Cegavske and Sen. Bob Beers, R-Las Vegas, were named as a subcommittee to hammer out details on trimming costs of the program.

It has been financed from money from the tobacco settlement, but that money is starting to shrink and the state will have to chip in to keep the program going.

Gov. Kenny Guinn and legislative leaders agreed on a compromise to put $35 million into the fund and use $7.6 million a year from the unclaimed property fund.

State Treasurer Brian Krolicki, who runs the program now, said the funding plan would keep the scholarships going for only four years. But the Assembly, which passed Assembly Bill 560, believes the formula will carry the program through 2012 or 2013.

The subcommittee agreed to the $35 million but then decided to put $8 million a year into the scholarship program to keep it afloat longer, rather than $7.6 million.

It agreed on a 2-1 vote with Titus dissenting to require students enrolling to give their Social Security numbers. This is aimed at stopping illegal aliens or others from collecting the scholarship money of $80 per credit at the universities, $60 per credit at the state college in Henderson and upper division courses at community colleges and $40 for lower division courses in the community colleges.

The subcommittee decided that students taking remedial courses would not qualify for reimbursement. Those who have been taking the remedial studies have been reimbursed.

Titus said 40 percent of the students have to take remedial courses.

To qualify for a Millennium Scholarship, a student would be required to attend three years of high school in Nevada, rather than the present two years. Cegavske wanted the student to spend all four of his high school years in Nevada but agreed to a compromise.

And a "two strikes and you are out" policy was adopted by the subcommittee. A student who doesn't get the required grade-point average would not get scholarship support in the next semester. If he brought up his grades, then he would re-qualify. But if he failed twice, he would not receive any more money.

Cegavske sought to force the student to pay back the money from the scholarships. But Beers and Titus decided against forcing a payback.

The subcommittee also agreed that the students should be able to be reimbursed from the scholarship fund for courses taken during summer school.

The bill also shifts the oversight of the program from the state treasurer's office to the state Department of Administration.

These recommendations go to the full Senate Finance Committee.