DENNIS MYERS Against the Grain Advertisement

A few weeks ago I attended a function at which high school students, teachers, and parents were all present. Since I was planning a story on Nevada's Millennium Scholarships program, I took the occasion to chat with parents and students about their plans to use or not use the program.

What I found was a lot of confusion, and some surprise that he program even still exists. So I wasn't surprised later in the year when new figures showed that use of the scholarships by eligible recipients has fallen to the lowest point in the program's history.

When it was created in 1999, the program was a public administrator's dream -- easy to understand, widely supported. Graduates of Nevada high schools who had attended for at least two years got free college educations in state institutions if they came out of high school with B averages (3.0). They kept the scholarships while in college if they maintained a 2.0 grade average.

The scholarships are funded by Nevada's share of the lawsuits against the tobacco companies, and the state's annual payments are tied to how much people smoke. As tobacco use has declined, the solvency of the scholarship program has come into doubt. Eligibility requirements have been tightened by the Nevada Legislature, which has generated highly publicized debate about whether the state should even provide the scholarships.

The high school eligibility GPA has gone from 3 to 3.10 to 3.25. College maintenance eligibility went from 2.0 to 2.6 or 2.75 (depending on the year). Students have been restricted in the number of classes they can take, which has extended the time they have to spend in college, and (paradoxically) they were given fewer years during which to use the scholarships.

Students always had to pony up some of their own expenses, but since the changes the expenses that fall to the students have been rising significantly. And not surprisingly, the increased grade demands took a toll on the low income students who must work during high school.

The changes in the program and the publicity given to the debate over continuing the scholarships probably helped fuel the confusion over how it works and whether it even still exists. Online postings at places like Yahoo Answers are indicative of the confusion:

"I don't understand what they meant by 'you must have at least a 3.25 GPA in order to be eligible'. Does that mean that you must at least have a 3.25 GPA your senior year or do they add up and average out the GPA of all your four years in high school? Because from what I have -- 3.5 + 2.2 + 2.7 + (I'm guessing 3.4 since school hasn't start yet), I only have an overall of 2.95."

"To the last poster: respectfully, I don't see how the Millennium Scholarship is for the rich."

"Ok well im going to be a junior in high school and i qualify for the millenium scholarship. My G.P.A is around 3.25 and i still have one more year to get it even higher. Well my question really is does anyone know how much money you get with the millenium scholarship and if its for every year or just once?"

Setting aside the issue that some of the postings don't exactly indicate students ready for college, clearly the continual re-jigging of the program has eroded it. In its first year (2000), 76.7 percent of those eligible used it. It stayed more or less at that level for four years. Then it went into a steady decline for the next four years. It is now down to 55 percent of those eligible. (Interestingly, given Nevada's terrific population growth, the raw numbers of students using the scholarships have actually gone up.)

One of the functions of the scholarship program was to keep educated people in the state. The state's lawmakers need to decide whether that value is worth restoring some stability and predictability to the scholarships.