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Proposed Grant Would Offer Need-Based Aid To University Students

la Universidad de Nevada, Reno
Cortesía de la Universidad de Nevada, Reno
The University of Nevada, Reno campus.

Lee en español.

State lawmakers want to start offering need-based financial aid to UNR and UNLV students, but officials project it will cost $126 million every two years to provide sufficient grants to all students who could use it.

Lawmakers discussed that steep price as they considered SB145, a bill to create the Battle Born Opportunity Grant. The program would fill a gap in the state’s financial aid offerings, which currently include the merit-based Millennium Scholarship and two need-based programs geared primarily toward community college students.

“It tells us the great need that’s out there,” former Democratic Assemblywoman Amber Joiner told the Senate Education Committee about the price tag. “It’s $126 million that our students are taking on in student loan debt.”

Joiner, who chaired an interim committee that developed the concept for the grant, said she does not expect the program to be fully funded at the outset, but thinks it would be “a huge step” to have a law allowing the state to accept gifts and donations for the grant, and then supplement it with whatever general fund money the state can afford.

To read the full story, go to the Nevada Independent.

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