Scholarship reform

The Millennium Scholarship program was created during the 1999 legislative session with the promise of being fully funded forever by settlement payments from the state's lawsuit against the tobacco industry. Then-Gov. Kenny Guinn, for whom the scholarship is now named, assured taxpayers that they'd never have to cover the $10,000 awards, which would be given to Nevada high school graduates who attended one of the state's public colleges or universities.

Those pledges didn't work out.

The scholarships' low qualification standard -- at first a 3.0 high school grade-point average, since raised to 3.25 -- drove grade inflation at Nevada high schools, leading to many more recipients than first imagined. That demand for college classes dramatically increased costs within the state's higher education system, swelling campus budgets. Meanwhile, tobacco industry settlement payments shrunk as smoking declined.

It was only a few years before lawmakers were pumping taxpayer money into the Millennium Scholarships to prop up the program. Then the Great Recession hit, leading to more desperate funding Band-Aids, such as unclaimed property.

The 2011 Legislature was no exception, with lawmakers passing Senate Bill 486, injecting an additional $10 million from the general fund into the scholarships. Gov. Brian Sandoval signed the bill into law Thursday.

The awards' annual cost is now about $25 million. This latest fiscal rescue will keep the scholarships solvent until at least until 2015 -- or so we're told.

Nevada officials once again have managed to avoid making needed reforms to the Millennium Scholarship. The program is in desperate need of higher grade-point average standards, as well as a minimum score on a standardized college admission test. As an alternative competitive element, perhaps the scholarship could be awarded to the top 20 percent of each Nevada high school's graduating class.

Without these types of fixes, lawmakers will be left to find ever-larger sums of money to keep the Millennium Scholarship alive -- and taxpayers will keep getting the bill.