Credit requirement may be decreased for Nevada college grant

For more than a year, discussions have swirled about what some see as a need to reduce the credit requirement for the Silver State Opportunity Grant.

The discourse turned to action this week as Assemblywoman Olivia Diaz, D-North Las Vegas, introduced Assembly Bill 188, which would reduce the requirement for the program from 15 credits to nine credits per semester.

“At the end of the day, my goal is to make sure students can advance,” Diaz said. “Some will do it within four years, but we can’t also forget about the nontraditional student who’s having a hard time doing it.”

Her bill coincides with data examining one-year outcomes of the program presented Monday to the Education Committee by Nevada System of Higher Education officials.

Of the 619 recipients in the program’s first year, which began in fall 2015, 36 percent of them lost eligibility by February 2016.

The loss of eligibility most often was due to a student not meeting the 15-credit requirement, according to higher education officials.

With 45 percent of its recipients ineligible in February 2016, the College of Southern Nevada had the state’s highest rate of lost eligibility.

Diaz based the bill on the needs of her constituency, many of whom attend CSN, she said.

“It’s their entry into the college system,” she said. “I know that they also have economic hardships that might make it difficult for them to afford attending college.”

Crystal Abba, NSHE vice chancellor, said it’s “very hard to judge the program based on one year’s worth of data.”

The program is the state’s first need-based grant and is available to low-income students of the state’s four community colleges, as well as Nevada State College.

Beyond improving college affordability, the program seeks to graduate more low-income students. According to 2012 data provided by state higher education officials, the on-time graduation rate of students in two-year institutions who took fewer than 12 credits per semester was 3.5 percent. That increased to 32 percent for full-time students.

“I think there is some validity to it,” Diaz said. “But we can’t take a one-size-fits-all approach to education. We have a diverse population that has needs, too, that wants to also further educate themselves and to get training, whether for a career or to make that transition into a four-year program.”

Contact Natalie Bruzda at nbruzda@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3897. Follow @NatalieBruzda on Twitter.