Speaking for Nevada - April 2004

The Millennium Scholarship:

Education for Today, Economic Viability for Tomorrow

by Kenny Guinn

Question: The tobacco settlement fund, which currently provides funds for one of your favorite programs, the Millennium Scholarship, will be exhausted during the next few years. Why is this program important, and what are your plans to ensure it remains as part of the legacy of your administration?

When I was elected governor of Nevada in November 1998, I made a pledge to the citizens of this state. I pledged I would work not just for today, but with an eye toward tomorrow. In particular, I’ve always believed that every citizen of our state should have the opportunity to receive a good education … and to attend college.

In fact, since becoming your governor, I’ve worked extremely hard to make sure all of our citizens – young and old, city dwellers and rural residents, native Nevadans and recent arrivals from our neighboring states – have all had the same chance to reach these goals.

Why? Because education is the answer to so many of our society’s ills. A college education means more opportunity for our citizens. And, the creation of an educated workforce, in turn, creates a vital and more diversified economy for our state.

Education also means something else. It means success. When our citizens are given the chance to succeed, they can and do succeed. They are able to make the world a better place … better for them … better for their children … and better for their children’s children. "Education is not the filling of a pail," William Butler Yeats has written, "but the lighting of a fire." In Nevada, we’ve worked very hard to light the fire of possibility for an entire generation of high school students.

In 1999, during my first State of the State address, I announced the Millennium Scholarship initiative. The Millennium Scholarship was a fund taken from tobacco settlement monies for the creation of scholarships. Under the program, students who graduate from a Nevada high school with a B average qualify for up to $10,000 for their education at eligible Nevada institutions (with a 3.1 GPA needed in 2005 and 2006 and a 3.25 GPA needed in 2007 and later).

The initiative, designed to keep our best students in Nevada and to make Nevada’s universities and colleges more accessible to those who cannot afford tuition, was enacted into law by the Nevada Legislature in 1999.

Through the creation of the Millennium Scholarship, higher education in our state is now being made available to a new generation of young people, many of whom are the first members of their families to ever attend college. Now in its fourth year, we have more than 32,015 students from throughout our state who have qualified for this $10,000 scholarship. Almost 13,500 students are using the scholarship in spring 2004.

How significant has this been? Consider that more than one-half of all students responding to a survey in fall 2002 said they would not have attended college without the scholarship, and one-third of the parents responding said their children would have attended college out of state if not for the Millennium Scholarship.

One of the very first Millennium Scholars to graduate, Melissa Tishk, might have summed up the program’s impact best. Melissa, upon graduating from UNLV in December 2002, said, "I felt that my future was already set with my scholarship in place." Melissa’s father, Alan, was even more direct: "With this graduation I think you are going to see more and more people graduate with the feeling of owing the state instead of graduating and just moving on."

I would also like to assure our state that we remain optimistic about the Millennium Scholarship’s future. There is no question that we have been proud of how popular and successful the program has been. State Treasurer Brian Krolicki continues to closely monitor the availability of Millennium Scholarship funding, and will continue to consult with my office and Nevada’s legislators as to the adequate funding for Nevada’s eligible Millennium Scholars. With the continued support of the Nevada Legislature, the state treasurer’s office and the citizens of our state, I am very confident that the Millennium Scholarship will continue to enhance the lives of our citizens for many more years to come.

Since its creation in 1999, I have been very proud of the results of the Millennium Scholarship, as well as the thousands of young people in our state who have earned its benefits. These young people have made an important realization. Education is not part of the agenda of the state of Nevada … it should be considered the agenda of every citizen of our state, and should remain that way well into our future.