Scholarship squeeze is on

Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2006 | 7:43 a.m.

Several thousand Millennium Scholars will either have to pay $300 to $400 more this semester or reduce their course loads because of a new limit on the number of credits covered by the scholarship.

Other students may lose their scholarships altogether because of tougher grade point average requirements.

The scholarship now will pay only for 12 credits a semester, the minimum course load required to maintain eligibility. To graduate in four years, a student needs to take 15 credits each semester or make up the difference in summer school, higher education officials said.

To keep the scholarships, students also will have to maintain a 2.6 GPA as freshmen or a 2.75 GPA as upperclassmen each semester. Initially, students were required to maintain a 2.0 cumulative GPA.

If students lose eligibility, they will be allowed to reapply and regain the scholarship only once.

The new restrictions, which went into effect Jan. 1, are among the reforms made during the 2005 Legislature to keep the cash-strapped program afloat, state Treasurer Brian Krolicki said.

"This is our approach to ensure that this program lasts as long as possible for as many as possible," Krolicki said. "The Millennium Scholarship is not an entitlement, people have to earn it, and they have to earn the keeping of it."

But higher education officials and students fear the changes will cause some students to take longer to graduate -- or push those who lose the scholarship out of college for good.

The new rules will create a "financial disincentive" for students to take more than 12 credits or to keep trying if they temporarily lose their scholarship because of other hardships, said Peter Hurley, UNLV's associate director of student financial services.

"I love our Legislature, and you have to be in the thick of things to know why (lawmakers) do the things they do, but sometimes they make decisions without understanding what it will do to students," UNLV Student Body President Peter Goatz said.

Proposed by Gov. Kenny Guinn in 1999 with money from the national tobacco settlement, the program provides up to $10,000 for Nevada high school students graduating with a B or better average.

The program has been "phenomenally successful" in the number of students taking advantage of the scholarship to go to college, Krolicki said.

The state, however, has received less money than originally projected from the tobacco industry. Payments are based on domestic tobacco sales, and with Americans smoking less, less money is flowing to the states.

The program hit a temporary crisis last spring when the treasurer's office could not make January tuition payments until it received a tobacco payment in April, Krolicki said.

The Nevada System of Higher Education had to bridge that gap. To save the program, lawmakers had to make cuts and to infuse the program with $35 million in taxpayer money, Krolicki said. Lawmakers also designated $7.6 million a year in abandoned property money for the program.

The cap on the credits covered will help the treasurer's office better manage its cash flow, Krolicki said. Most college students graduate in five or six years, so "while this (cap) might be a speed limit in theory ... it is still swifter than the actual performance," Krolicki said.

He estimates that the cap alone will save $3.5 million annually.

About 3,000 Millennial students at UNLV, however, will have to pay more out of pocket to take classes they need, Hurley said. Another 1,800 are taking only 12 credits this semester, many presumably because they cannot afford the extra cost.

Another 2,100 are ineligible this semester, either because they did not meet the GPA requirement, are not taking enough credits or because they already have used the $10,000 covered by the scholarship, Hurley said.

Many students interviewed Tuesday, the first day of the spring semester, said the credit cap did not affect them be-cause they either had other scholarships or because they were on a six- or seven-year plan. But for some students, the cap has thrown a major wrench into their education plans.

For Rosa Flores, an 18-year-old business major, the 12-credit cap means she likely will have to spend an extra year in school. The 13 units that she is taking this semester already have created a financial pinch, Flores said.

"I can do $100, but not $300 more," said Flores, who took 15 credits last semester and hoped to graduate in four years.

Crystal Hemsley, 19, said she could not afford to slow down her class schedule, but also cannot afford to pay so much more out of pocket. The criminal justice major will pay $700 herself this semester to take 19 credits and stay on pace to graduate in May 2007.

Reisa Bhakta, 19, was caught off guard by the credit cap. A graduate of Spring Creek High School in Elko, she transferred to UNLV this semester from Gonzaga University in Spokane, Wash., to take advantage of the scholarship.

"That's pretty much the only reason I came back," said Bhakta, a hotel management major. "And now they are cut-ting it."

Students already have to pay a portion of their registration fees because, prior to the new changes, the scholarship covered only $80 of the $98 per-credit fee for in-state students at UNLV. Initially, the scholarship covered the full cost of registration and some other fees, Hurley said.

"The buying power of Millennium has diminished every year that the program has been in existence," Hurley said.

Christina Littlefield can be reached at 259-8813 or at clittle@ lasvegassun.com.