Weekly editorial recap
TUESDAY
UNSUSTAINABLE
Republicans and Democratic state Treasurer Kate Marshall have been trading shots for weeks about the fiscal health of the Millennium Scholarship. ...
They can't see the forest for the trees. Both sides are trying to assign blame for a shortfall when the problem is the program itself. The 10-year-old Millennium Scholarship, while well-intentioned, isn't sustainable.
The scholarships provide up to $10,000 to Nevadans who graduate from high school with at least a 3.25 grade-point average. ... Grade inflation gave mediocre graduates access to a fully subsidized college education. ... It is not, as initially promised, an incentive for Nevada's "best and brightest" to stay here for college. It has become an entitlement.
Rather than bicker over how much money the scholarships need to keep going ... lawmakers of both parties should be debating how to scale them back and indeed reserve them for the "best and brightest." A merit-based qualification standard, such as a score on a standardized college admission test, or a competitive element -- say, allowing only the top 20 percent of each Nevada high school's graduating class to be eligible -- would go a long way to making the Millennium Scholarship mean something other than "I showed up at school and did my homework."
